This paper investigates ontological dimensions of the blockchain by asking what kind of socio-technical object bitcoin is. It discusses both blockchain's political qualities and the political forms enabled by its emergence. It first observes recent approaches to the ontology of money and the political qualities of the ledgers used by the current fractional reserve banking model. It then directs the same questions at blockchain technology. The paper discusses an ontology proposed by Ole Bjerg and argues in favour of a mixed-ontology (...) approach to blockchains. It then questions the political qualities of the distributed ledger as a digital object and highlights the apparent absence of authority figures in the model. Finally, it argues that the political ontology of the blockchain can be framed as the displacement of authority from institutional actors into instrumental control of trust, in a dynamically distributed environment. (shrink)

When engaging with magic, we are moved by seemingly impossible events that contradict what we believe to be possible in the real world. We are surprised, curious, and baffled when we cannot explain how the magic we are witnessing is possible. We generally understand the events to be illusions. But how is it possible to be moved by something we know to be unreal? This problem is related to the paradox of fiction in aesthetics. Here, we introduce the problem in (...) the domain of theatrical magic, discuss possible solutions, and present a tentative account that allows us to accommodate inconsistent, seemingly incompatible beliefs at different representational levels in the viewers’ mind. (shrink)

El artículo es un comentario crítico a“Realismo, esencialismo yextensionalismo”, del profesor IgnacioÁvila. En particular, se contestan lascríticas que el profesor Ávila hace a lametafísica esencialista, argumentando,principalmente, que esta metafísica escompatible con el fenómeno de larelatividad conceptual.This paper is a critical commentary to“Realism, Essentialism and Extensionalism”, by professor Ignacio Ávila. In particular, professor Ávila’s criticisms to an essentialist metaphysics are answered,arguing, mainly, that this metaphysicsis compatible with the phenom-enon of conceptual relativity.

We begin by a summary of the standardized version of the model of the interaction between scientific activities and values (elaborated fully in Lacey and Mariconda, 2015), and based on it we argue that there is a profound incoherence in the self- understanding of the modern scientific tradition, and that the main options actually available to ensure continuity with the positive realizations of this tradition can be well represented by two sorts of ideal types that we name, respectively,“commercially orientated technoscience” (...) and “multi-strategic research”. Then, in the light of the predominance that commercially oriented technoscience has gained in contemporary scientific institutions, we argue for the importance of developing multi-strategic research in areas such as agriculture. This is needed so that adequate evaluation of the potential risks of large scale applications of technoscience, as well as harm they may have actually occasioned, can be made; and also so that these applications can be rigorously compared with scientifically informed practices, such as agroecology, which are not as problematic for human health and the environment and which explore the regenerative powers of nature itself. (shrink)

El presente trabajo discute, en primerlugar, la tesis de la neutralidad moral dela ciencia. Se examinan, a la luz de lospuntos de vista del Positivismo Lógico,los posibles significados de esta tesis,así como la plausibilidad de cada uno.En segundo l ugar, el t rabaj o anal i zael problema de las relaciones entre laci enci a y el mal . Apel ando a al gunastesis de David Hume, se argumenta queel problema no reside en la ciencia comotal, sino más bien en (...) la parte irracional dela naturaleza humana. Se concluye que loque se necesita para enfrentar las enormesamenazas destructivas que surgen deciertas aplicaciones de la ciencia, no es uncambio en el aspecto racional del hombre,sino justamente un cambio en su parteirracional. This essays discusses, firstly, the thesisof science’s neutrality. In the light of theviews of logical positivism, the possiblemeanings of this thesis are examined, aswell as their plausibility. Secondly, weanalyze the problem of the relationshipsbetween evi l and good. Appeal i ng tocertain Humean views, we argue that theproblem does not lie in science itself, butin the irrational side of human nature. Weconclude that what is needed to face thebig destructive threats that come from cer-tain applications of science is not a changein the rational side of man, but precisely achange in its irrational side. (shrink)

This paper aims to offer an account of affective experiences within Predictive Processing, a novel framework that considers the brain to be a dynamical, hierarchical, Bayesian hypothesis-testing mechanism. We begin by outlining a set of common features of affective experiences that a PP-theory should aim to explain: feelings are conscious, they have valence, they motivate behaviour, and they are intentional states with particular and formal objects. We then review existing theories of affective experiences within Predictive Processing and delineate two families (...) of theories: Interoceptive Inference Theories and Error Dynamics Theories. We highlight the strengths and shortcomings of each family of theories and develop a synthesis: the Affective Inference Theory. Affective Inference Theory claims that valence corresponds to the expected rate of prediction error reduction. In turn, the particular object of a feeling is the object predicted to be the most likely cause of expected changes in prediction error rate, and the formal object of a feeling is a predictive model of the expected changes in prediction error rate caused by a given particular object. Finally, our theory shows how affective experiences bias action selection, directing the organism towards allostasis and towards optimal levels of uncertainty in order to minimise prediction error over time. (shrink)

Major proponents of both Distributed Cognition and Predictive Processing have argued that the two theoretical frameworks are strongly compatible. An important conjecture supporting the union of the two frameworks is that cultural practices tend to reduce entropy —that is, to increase predictability— at all scales in a cultural cognitive ecosystem. This conjecture connects Distributed Cognition with Predictive Processing because it shows how cultural practices facilitate prediction. The present contribution introduces the following challenge to the union of Distributed Cognition and Predictive (...) Processing: the problem of entropic cultural practices. The problem lies in the existence of multiple cultural practices that tend to increase entropy instead of reducing it. This paper discusses these entropic cultural practices and the nature of the problem at hand. Finally, the paper advances an expanded conception of cultural practices that could unite the two frameworks and explores the difficulties of committing to such a conception. (shrink)

In the current context of widespread environmental collapse, ecological grief—the sense of loss that arises from experiencing environmental destruction—has become a burgeoning topic of inquiry across psychology, geography, and anthropology. The central challenge in the study of ecological grief is that its theoretical foundations remain underdeveloped. Recent discussions in philosophy of emotions elucidate that a central element in this theoretical challenge is determining what the object of ecological grief is. In turn, our understanding of the object of ecological grief goes (...) hand in hand with our understanding of the nature of ecological grief. This paper develops a phenomenological analysis of cross‐cultural subjective reports that identifies crucial themes in the experience of ecological grief. This phenomenological analysis reveals the object of ecological grief as the loss of the life possibilities that are sustained by dwelling. The resulting view is that ecological grief corresponds to a crisis in dwelling—a disturbance in the very way we inhabit our home environment. (shrink)

Studying disorientation is studying how, through our bodies, culture and technology, we humans are connected to our environment, and what happens when this connection is weakened or severed. What happens, of course, depends again on our environment, bodies, culture and technology: the world around us becomes at times uncanny, unfamiliar or dangerous when we get disoriented. Disorientation can be exciting and refreshing—an invitation to explore, to leave behind nagging desires for control and certainty, and to embrace instead a more spontaneous (...) relationship with our surroundings. Getting lost shapes our consciousness, not only by transforming our perception of the world around us, but by transforming our sense of who we are in that world, and what possibilities are open to us within it.In this chapter, we analyse the phenomenology of disorientation to elucidate the role that emotions play in distributed cognitive processes that involve multiple agents and cognitive artefacts. The feeling of disorientation destabilises our horizon of experience and turns the world around us unfamiliar or alien. This feeling embodies our disconnection to the agents, the cognitive artefacts, and the environment around us. A proper analysis of the phenomenology of both orientation and disorientation uncovers the role feelings play in distributed cognitive processes: emotions serve as a form of evaluative regulation that contributes to, on the one hand, the syncing of the different elements of a distributed cognitive process, and on the other, to the eventual disengagement of the agent from an unreliable distributed cognitive process. (shrink)

The present paper explores the phenomenology of disorientation and its relationship with self-consciousness. Section 1 discusses previous literature on the links between self-location and self-consciousness and proposes a distinction between minimal self-location and integrated self-location. The double aim of the paper is to use this distinction to deepen our understanding of spatial disorientation, and to use the phenomenology of disorientation to elucidate the role that integrated self-location plays in shaping self-consciousness. Section 2 starts by looking at the experience of being (...) “turned around”, which is a common experience of disorientation. This analysis leads to the conclusion that integrated self-location is transmodal and depends on all three egocentric axes, and that disorientation destabilizes this integrated self-location. Section 3 explores a corpus of reports of disorientation episodes and highlights four key characteristics of these experiences and their links to self-consciousness, focusing on the transformations in both the lived body and the experience of space. The central thesis of this paper is that during disorientation a destabilization of integrated self-location results in a diminished form of self-consciousness. (shrink)

According to a popular view, the creation of social reality requires language: social institutions emerge when we successfully declare them into existence. Making language central to institutions deprives the non-human of any claim to a social reality. This is particularly problematic in the light of mounting research showing many animals have social institutions even in the absence of language. In this paper, I will offer an alternative view. I will employ a concept –enacted representation– from the distributed cognition framework of (...) cognitive science to develop a social ontology that does not take language as a requirement to create social institutions. (shrink)

Since 2002, legislation in Spain has allowed for the creation and documentation of end-of-life decisionmaking. Over the intervening years, the actual implementation of such documents is very low. Through extensive analysis of the literature, this article explores the current status of the use of and attitudes toward advance directives in Spain and then proposes strategies for improvement in their implementation.

People have experienced many forms of temporal disorientation during the Covid-19 crisis. For this study, we collected a rich corpus of reports on the multifaceted experiences of disorientation during the pandemic. In this paper, we study the resulting corpus using a descriptive approach. We identify six emerging themes: temporal rift; temporal vertigo; impoverished time; tunnel vision; spatial and social scaffolding of time; suspended time. We offer a phenomenological analysis of each of the themes. Based on the phenomenological analysis, we draw (...) a key distinction between episodic and existential forms of temporal disorientation, and we argue that the Covid-19 crisis is best conceptualised as a period of suspended time. (shrink)

The objective structured clinical examination is a method for assessment clinical competencies and skills. However, there is a need to improve its design in psychology programs. The aim of this study was to analyze the effect of the different scenario's presentation order with different complexity/difficulty on the autonomic stress response of undergraduate students undergoing a Psychology OSCE. A total of 32 students of Psychology Bachelor's Degree were randomly selected and assigned to two OSCE scenarios of different complexity. While undergoing the (...) scenarios, participants heart rate variability was analyzed as an indicator of participant's stress autonomic response. Results indicate that the order of presentation of different complexity/difficulty scenarios affects the autonomic stress response of undergraduate Psychology students undergoing an OSCE. Students who underwent the high-complexity scenario first, reported significantly higher autonomic stress response than students who began the OSCE with the low-complexity scenario. Highly complex or difficult scenarios require good executive functions or cognitive control, very sensitive to autonomic stress responses. Therefore, OSCE design will benefit from placing easy scenarios first. (shrink)

Burnout is characterized by emotional exhaustion and caused by exposure to excessive and prolonged stress related to job conditions. Moreover, burnout is highly prevalent among health care professionals. The aim of this study is, first, to examine the mediating role of social support over the effect of burnout in health care professionals and, second, to explore potential gender differences. A convenience sample of 1,035 health professionals from Ecuador, including 608 physicians and 427 nurses, was surveyed using the Maslach Burnout Inventory, (...) Social Support Survey, and General Health Questionnaire as measures of burnout, social support, and general health, respectively. Social support was found to mediate the negative effects of burnout on health regardless of gender. Differences across the three dimensions of burnout and health are further discussed, along with their implications for designing effective burnout interventions for health care professionals in Ecuador. (shrink)

In the past decade there has been a lot of attention to the quality of the evidence in experimental psychology and in other social and medical sciences. Some have described the current climate as a ‘crisis of confidence’. We focus on a specific question: how can we increase the quality of the data in psychology and cognitive neuroscience laboratories. Again, the challenges of the field are related to many different issues, but we believe that increasing the quality of the data (...) collection process and the quality of the data per se will be a significant step in the right direction. We suggest that the adoption of quality control systems which parallel the methods used in industrial laboratories might be a way to improve the quality of data. We recommend that administrators incentivize the use of quality systems in academic laboratories. (shrink)

El artículo ofrece una reconstrucción de la concepción de la acción que, anclada en una concepción más amplia de la imputación, Hegel nos presenta en el capítulo “La moralidad” de su Filosofía del Derecho, y que arranca de la clarificación preliminar de qué significa que “crimen” designe algo que tiene el estatus de una acción. A partir de un conjunto de premisas obtenidas de algunas recientes reinterpretaciones analíticamente orientadas de su obra, desarrolladas por Brandom y Quante, se examina la distinción (...) que Hegel hace entre los conceptos de hecho y acción, para entonces esclarecer qué cabe entender por el “derecho del saber” y cómo este se conecta con el “derecho de la intención”. Ello hace posible explicitar la particular forma de “compatibilismo” que cabe extraer de la filosofía de Hegel para enfrentar el problema de la suerte moral. (shrink)

Resumen: En lo que sigue ofrezco una exploración de dos “conceptos tensos”: “pueblo” y “populismo”. En la primera sección abordaré la noción de “pueblo” a través de lo que se podría considerar su gramática populista. Luego desarrollaré algunas reflexiones sobre la división de campo que el populismo instala con su apelación al “pueblo” o a cualquiera de las otras nociones que tengan una función similar en su retórica. Analizaré, pues, la cuestión del antagonismo, la partición del espacio social y del (...) espacio del poder entre “ellos” y “nosotros”. Por último, plantearé la cuestión de la democracia como aquello que, en última instancia, está en juego en el desafío ambiguo del populismo.: In what follows I offer an exploration of two “tense concepts”: “people” and “populism”. In the first part I address the notion of “people” through what might be considered its populist grammar. Then I develop some reflec-tions on the field division that populism introduces with its appeal to the “people” or any of the other notions that have a similar function in their rhetoric. I will therefore analyze the antagonism, the partitioning of social space and the space of power between a “them” and an “us”. Finally, I raise the question of democracy as what is ultimately at stake in the ambiguous challenge of populism. (shrink)

The traditional understanding of the criminal law’s concept of dolus is grounded on its definition as the conjunction of a volitional and a cognitive attitude towards the satisfaction of the abstract description that specifies the corresponding offense. Although so-called “cognitivist” conceptions persuasively argue for the redundancy of the purported volitional component, the theoretical adequacy of the recourse to the concept of knowledge is very rarely called into question. The display of a teleological-analytical model for clarifying the general structure of a (...) criminal offense can show that, according to its distinctively ascriptive function, the concept of dolus ought to be taken as requiring a predictive belief referred to an (unjustified) instance of the relevant actus reus, whereas such a predictive belief need not satisfy the semantic and epistemic conditions for an attribution of knowledge. (shrink)

El trabajo ofrece una reconstrucción de aquello que la dogmática del derecho penal denomina una “tentativa inacabada”, cuya estructura es analizada a partir de premisas obtenidas de la filosofía de la acción. El argumento se centra en demostrar por qué y cómo la así llamada “resolución-al-hecho”, en cuanto presupuesto de tal forma de tentativa, ha de ser caracterizada como una intención previa, a través de cuya formación el agente adquiere el compromiso práctico de ejecutar u omitir una acción de cierta (...) índole. El objetivo así perseguido consiste en identificar las condiciones de las cuales depende que una tentativa inacabada pueda ser constitutiva de un quebrantamiento de la misma norma quebrantada por el autor del respectivo delito consumado. (shrink)

RESUMEN Se aborda la llamada Kantkrise de Heinrich von Kleist, entendida como el colapso epistemológico de toda posibilidad de acceso a la cosa en sí debido a su carácter radicalmente indecidible. Sin embargo, tal imposibilidad sigue conservando una vigencia negativa, como una brecha que adquiere para Kleist el carácter del suceso y, por consiguiente, de la soberanía de la contingencia. Esta se convierte en el principio fundamental de la producción literaria de Kleist, reconocible en el lema "el frágil ordenamiento del (...) mundo", en la frágil constitución del sujeto y la inminencia constante de su destitución. ABSTRACT The article addresses Heinrich von Kleist's so-called Kantkrise, understood as the epistemological collapse of any possibility of access to the thing-in-itself, given its radically undecidable nature. However, that impossibility maintains a negative validity as a gap that takes on the character of an event and, therefore, of the sovereignty of contingency in Kleist. This becomes the fundamental principle of Kleist's literary production, as expressed in his motto "the fragile order of the world", that is, the fragile constitution of the subject and the constant imminence of its destitution. (shrink)

Resumen El artículo aborda el problema de la traducción a partir de los temas del ocasionalismo y de la decisión. Muestra en particular que, en la experiencia de la traducción, la decisión no remite a un sujeto soberano, sino a un sujeto que se pone entre paréntesis. Por esta razón, la traducción es también una teoría critica del sujeto.This article addresses the problem of translation based on the topics of occasionalism and decision. It shows, in particular, that in the experience (...) of translation the decision does not refer to a sovereign subject but to a subject that is placed in parentheses. For this reason, the theory of translation is also a critical theory of the subject. (shrink)

In this paper contingency is estimated as an essentially identifying trait of the world emerging from the radical upheavals of the late 18th century and the beginnings of the 19th century. If contingency is the mark of the world as world, the question arises how human beings should, or merely could deal with it. For the purpose of discussing this issue, the usual alternative of violence and dialogue is considered. Nevertheless, the intention is not merely to oppose violent to rational (...) conduct. Taking recourse to two authors who had a particularly acute sense of contingency, Heinrich von Kleist and Paul Celan, the aim of this paper, on the one hand, is to discuss a concept of violence that is not merely instrumental, nor attributable to merely subjective intentions, but that has the significance of the principle of overcoming contingency by way of absolutely forcing order or absolutely renouncing to it. On the other hand, it involves discussing a concept of dialogue that is essentially different to what may be called the institution of Western dialogue, characterized by the disembodiment of the word, and therefore to suggest the concept of a radically embodied dialogue as a way to positively deal with contingency. (shrink)

A partir del libro referido en el subtítulo, se ocupa este breve ensayo de la conjunta cuestión de lo humano y lo animal. Luego de atender a las condiciones que el autor del libro propone para el examen de esa cuestión en la huella del pensamiento de Jacques Derrida, la discusión se centra en la tesis de un “humanismo trascendental”, que es sometida a prueba confrontándola con dos momentos del programa crítico kantiano, pertenecientes a la Fundamentación de la metafísica de (...) las costumbres y a la tercera Crítica, respectivamente, en que el tema de lo humano asume particular relevancia. En el segundo de esos momentos cabría leer una vacilación acerca de lo humano, con epicentro en la fórmula “a la vez animal”. (shrink)

Background In Spain, there has been great effort by lawmakers to put Advance Directives into practice since 2002. At the same time, the field of bioethics has been on the rise, a discipline that has spurred debate on the right of patients to exercise their autonomy. Despite all this, the implementation of ADs can be said to have failed in Spain, because its prevalence is very low, there is a great lack of knowledge about them and they have very little (...) impact on clinical decisions. The purpose of this article is to analyze and discuss the main reasons for the failure of ADs in Spain. Main body The main reasons why ADs have no impact on clinical practice in Spain have been fundamentally four: the training of health professionals about the end of life and AD is lacking; there has been no public process to increase awareness about AD, and therefore people know little about them; the bureaucratic procedure to document and implement ADs is excessively complex and cumbersome, creating a significant barrier to their application; in Spain, the remnants of a paternalistic medical culture continue to exist, which causes shared decision-making to be difficult. Conclusion Due to the four reasons mentioned above, AD have not been a useful tool to help honor patients’ autonomous decisions about their future care and, therefore, they have not achieved their objective. However, despite the difficulties and problems identified, it has also been observed that health care professionals and the Spanish public have a very positive view of AD. Having identified the problems which have kept AD from being successful, strategies must be developed to help improve their implementation into the future. (shrink)

Se aborda la llamada Kantkrise de Heinrich von Kleist, entendida como el colapso epistemológico de toda posibilidad de acceso a la cosa en sí debido a su carácter radicalmente indecidible. Sin embargo, tal imposibilidad sigue conservando una vigencia negativa, como una brecha que adquiere para Kleist el carácter del suceso y, por consiguiente, de la soberanía de la contingencia. Esta se convierte en el principio fundamental de la producción literaria (dramatúrgica, narrativa y ensayística) de Kleist, reconocible en el lema “el (...) frágil ordenamiento del mundo”, en la frágil constitución del sujeto y la inminencia constante de su destitución. (shrink)

En este trabajo se propone una articulación de la “cuestión de ley” en el modo en que la aborda Kafka, teniendo particularmente a la vista la conversación entre Josef K. y el sacerdote en El proceso, que contiene una exégesis del relato Ante la ley, y la concepción kantiana de la ley moral según se detalla esta en la segunda Crítica y en la Fundamentación de la metafísica de las costumbres. Se sugiere que esta articulación se da en el carácter (...) in-determinado de la ley como tal, por una parte, y, por otra, en la determinación del existente en su singularidad por la ley, que conlleva un índice de problematicidad en virtud de aquella indeterminación. (shrink)

Healthcare professionals often face ethical conflicts and challenges related to decision-making that have necessitated consideration of the use of conscientious objection (CO). No current guidelines exist within Spain’s healthcare system regarding acceptable rationales for CO, the appropriate application of CO, or practical means to support healthcare professionals who wish to become conscientious objectors. As such, a procedural framework is needed that not only assures the appropriate use of CO by healthcare professionals but also demonstrates its ethical validity, legislative compliance through (...) protection of moral freedoms and patients’ rights to receive health care. Our proposal consists of prerequisites of eligibility for CO (individual reference, specific clinical context, ethical justification, assurance of non-discrimination, professional consistency, attitude of mutual respect, assurance of patient rights and safety) and a procedural process (notification and preparation, documentation and confidentiality, evaluation of prerequisites, non-abandonment, transparency, allowance for unforeseen objection, compensatory responsibilities, access to guidance and/or consultative advice, and organizational guarantee of professional substitution). We illustrate the real-world utility of the proposed framework through a case discussion in which our guidelines are applied. (shrink)

_El exilio como síntoma_ es un libro complejo. Lo es por su tema, lo es por el tratamiento del tema, cuidadoso, lúcido, “desde dentro”, por la mucha literatura, las muchas fuentes con las que —rigurosamente— se va tramando, por su escritura plural, autobiográfica y heterográfica a la vez, de ensayo y testimonio, de comentario y —casi me atrevería a decir— de responso, el responso de un duelo resistente...

8 March, now known as International Women’s Day, is a day for feminist claims where demonstrations are organized in over 150 countries, with the participation of millions of women all around the world. These demonstrations can be viewed as collective rituals and thus focus attention on the processes that facilitate different psychosocial effects. This work aims to explore the mechanisms involved in participation in the demonstrations of 8 March 2020, collective and ritualized feminist actions, and their correlates associated with personal (...) well-being and collective well-being, collective efficacy and collective growth, and behavioral intention to support the fight for women’s rights. To this end, a cross-cultural study was conducted with the participation of 2,854 people from countries in Latin America and Europe, with a retrospective correlational cross-sectional design and a convenience sample. Participants were divided between demonstration participants and non-demonstrators or followers who monitored participants through the media and social networks. Compared with non-demonstrators and with males, female and non-binary gender respondents had greater scores in mechanisms and criterion variables. Further random-effects model meta-analyses revealed that the perceived emotional synchrony was consistently associated with more proximal mechanisms, as well as with criterion variables. Finally, sequential moderation analyses showed that proposed mechanisms successfully mediated the effects of participation on every criterion variable. These results indicate that participation in 8M marches and demonstrations can be analyzed through the literature on collective rituals. As such, collective participation implies positive outcomes both individually and collectively, which are further reinforced through key psychological mechanisms, in line with a Durkheimian approach to collective rituals. (shrink)