The Mondragon Corporation, a group of cooperatives, is a thriving example of how cooperatives can succeed. The authors describe six features of the corporation and five 'successful cooperative actions' that they consider to be crucial in explaining its accomplishments. Both the specific features and the successful actions are contrasted with those of standard capitalist companies, to show how this case is unique in the field of corporate organization and management. Through a combination of democratic principles, the values of solidarity, and (...) strong competitiveness, Mondragon has simultaneously achieved both efficiency and equity and has become an alternative to the organizational and governance models of traditional capitalist firms. (shrink)

Desde un punto de vista semántico-literario abordaremos el modo en que Joaquín Antonio Peñalosa se ha basado en los Ejercicios espirituales de San Ignacio de Loyola para la elaboración de su obra poética Ejercicios para las bestezuelas de Dios, un libro cuyos protagonistas son animales, donde adapta a su lenguaje poético, especialmente al franciscanismo poético, el itinerario ignaciano a seguir para alcanzar la unión con Dios. Nuestro propósito es comparar ambos textos para hacer objetiva una relación que evoca el (...) título de la obra peñalosiana, pero que aún no se había realizado de modo explícito. De tal trabajo concluiremos que Peñalosa sigue la misma estructura argumental que los Ejercicios de san Ignacio para lograr los mismos fines ascéticos, evidenciando así que el libro del mexicano es poesía ascética de estilo franciscano, con raíces en San Ignacio. (shrink)

This article explores the interrelationship among scientific knowledge, ethical debates and the question of responsibility through sustainability thinking. In a globalising world which appears to be establishing itself, sustainability should form the basis for achieving a new ethics, shared on both a local and global scale. The sustainability culture should become an integral part in this process, in which the rights of future generations, of non-human species and global shared resources are taken into account. Sustainable culture is, in fact, an (...) inevitable process that will involve changes in many of the established stances of society, science and ethics. (shrink)

Luego de un rápido bosquejo de las etapas por las que ha pasado el pensamiento filosófico-cristiano en América Latina, el trabajo se concentra en la principales tendencias y autores en el período que va de la década del 40 del siglo XX hasta el momento que se publica el ensayo en 1998.

Two aspects of the fine Flecha-Cruz paper can be usefully elaborated. The Mondragon cooperatives differ not only from capitalist firms but also from most other cooperatives in the doctrine of the 'priority of labor over capital' which means that the people working in any sort of cooperative will be members and will not be rented as employees. Also the Mondragon system of internal capital accounts solves the equity-structure problem that has plagued many modern cooperatives structured as non-profits or traditional worker (...) cooperatives with 'membership shares'. (shrink)

The main target of this study is to make a comparative analysis between the presence or absence of historical thinking competencies in the official curricula of Gymnasieskola (Sweden) and Bachillerato (Spain). To reach this goal, a mixed instrument was designed, both qualitative and quantitative, to analyze the offical documents. The results show a great presence of “historical consciousness” in the case of Sweden and the use of historical sources and evidences in the case of Spain.

In Chapter 7 of The Varieties of Reference Evans implicitly outlines a view to the effect that bodily awareness plays no role in perceptual self-location or in the specification of our perceptual perspective of the world. In this paper I discuss this story and offer an alternative proposal. Then I explore some consequences of this account for our understanding of the elusiveness of the self in perceptual experience.

En este breve comentario discuto algunos aspectos de la interpretación de la epistemología de Davidson que sugiere Willian Duica en su reciente libro. Luego de una presentación somera del libro me centro en tres asuntos centrales de la interpretación de Duica. En primer lugar, argumento que su lectura de la crítica de Davidson al dualismo esquema/contenido es muy restrictiva y deja abierta la posibilidad de un realismo directo empirista. En segundo lugar, argumento que en su lectura el propio Duica se (...) compromete inadvertidamente con un empirismo de este tipo y, de este modo, su interpretación entra en tensión con el coherentismo de Davidson. Finalmente, discuto algunos aspectos de la interpretación que hace Duica de la tesis davidsoniana de la triangulación. In this short comment I discuss some aspects of William Duica's interpretation of Davidson's epistemology in a recent book. After a brief review of the book, I focus on three central issues of Duica's interpretation. First, I argue that his reading of Davidson's criticism of the scheme/content dualism is too restrictive and leaves open the possibility of an empiricist direct realism. Second, I argue in his reading Duica inadvertently commits himself to an empiricism of this sort and, as a result, his interpretation is in tension with Davidson's own coherentism. Finally, I discuss some aspects of Duica's interpretation of Davidsonian triangulation. (shrink)

The concept of vital force – the immanent energy that promotes the processes of life in the body and in nature – has proved a source of endless fascination and controversy. Indeed, the question of what vitalizes the body has haunted humanity since antiquity, and became even more pressing during the Scientific Revolution and beyond. Examining the complexities and theories about vital force in Spanish modernity, Nicolás Fernández-Medina's Life Embodied offers a novel and provocative assessment of the question of bodily (...) life in Spain. Starting with Juan de Cabriada's landmark Carta filosófica, médico-chymica of 1687 and ending with Ramón Gómez de la Serna's avant-gardism of the 1910s, Fernández-Medina incorporates discussions of anatomy, philosophy, science, critical theory, history of medicine, and literary studies to argue that concepts of vital force served as powerful vehicles to interrogate the possibilities and limits of corporeality. Paying close attention to how the body's capabilities were conceived and strategically woven into critiques of modernity, Fernández-Medina engages the work of Miguel Boix y Moliner, Martín Martínez, Diego de Torres Villarroel, Sebastián Guerrero Herreros, Ignacio María Ruiz de Luzuriaga, Gaspar Melchor de Jovellanos, Pedro Mata y Fontanet, Ángela Grassi, Julián Sanz del Río, Miguel de Unamuno, and Pío Baroja, among others. Drawing on extensive research and analysis, Life Embodied breaks new ground as the first book to address the question of vital force in Spanish modernity. (shrink)

Responses to outbreaks, epidemics and pandemics involves a heterogeneous set of activities that aim to address threats to public health. In addition to research, non-research activities, such as prevention and control interventions, and surveillance, are conducted. The boundaries between research and non-research responses can rapidly blur during a public health emergency such as the COVID-19 pandemic. There may be common elements between these types of activities, and they may draw on the same resources and infrastructure. Non-research activities, such as surveillance (...) and emergency non-research use of unproven interventions, and research activities must all be undertaken in an ethical manner as components of emergency response. However, care is needed to distinguish between non-research public health activities and research, because research often has considerations and requirements for its ethical conduct which are distinct from non-research public health activities. Research aims to produce generalizable knowledge, and mechanisms such as participant consent and independent ethics review aim to ensure that the rights and interests of research participants are respected. Ensuring that research and non-research activities are appropriately distinguished can additionally promote proper coordination of such activities, and increase trust and social accountability in pandemic responses. Consequently, it is important to distinguish between these different activities on the basis of their primary aim, and to consider whether their implementation is justifiable, based on their aims and the relevant ethical framework for each type of activity, and how they are coordinated as part of the larger collective activity of emergency response and management. Complex questions arise about how the different stakeholders involved in decision-making should make valid and justifiable decisions about whether the response activity is research or non-research. The cases in this chapter invite consideration about how such decisions should be made, and their implications, in the context of applications to conduct retrospective research into the outcomes of emergency uses of unproven interventions outside clinical trials, and of characterising antibody-testing initiatives and systematic data collection activities as surveillance or research. (shrink)

El artículo presenta un examen de la relación entre la teología cristiana católica en México en el siglo XVII, específicamente en las ideas de autores pertenecientes a la Compañía de Jesús, y el estilo barroco de las obras que se crearon en dicho periodo, sobre todo en pintura, poesía y arquitectura. Se estudian especialmente las ideas expresadas por Tomás de Alfaro, S.J. (ca. 1667) y Luis de Villanueva, S.J. (1605-1659).

Este trabajo estudia el pensamiento teológico y filosófico de Francisco Suárez sobre la libertad. El problema de la Concordia entre gracia y libertad, suprime el concepto de naturaleza como quicio del pensamiento filosófico cristiano. La libertad se sitúa como causa metafísica formal en Suárez, no como fundamento a la manera moderna de un Yo afincado en sus solas fuerzas, sino como principio heurístico y creador de un ser lleno de posibilidades cuya afirmación: “soy libre”, sintetiza la filosofía suareciana, y hace (...) inteligibles las realidades dadas por la experiencia concreta para obtener una comprensión superior.Palabras llave: Francisco Suárez; teología neoescolástica; filosofía neoescolástica.This work studies Francisco Suárez’s theological and philosophical thought about freedom. The problem of agreement between grace and freedom suppresses the concept of nature as physis and its ethiology, as a referential shelf for Christian philosophical thought. In Suárez, freedom is placed as a formal metaphysical cause, not as a foundation in the modern manner of an “I” based on its sole forces, but as heuristic principle that creates a being full of possibilities, whose statement: “I am free”, synthesizes Suárez’s philosophy and makes intelligible the realities given by concrete experience in order to obtain a superior understanding.Palabras llave: Francisco Suárez; theology; liberty. (shrink)

There has recently been some literature on the properties of a Health-Related Social Welfare Function (HRSWF). The aim of this article is to contribute to the analysis of the different properties of a HRSWF, paying particular attention to the monotonicity principle. For monotonicity to be fulfilled, any increase in individual health—other things equal—should result in an increase in social welfare. We elicit public preferences concerning trade-offs between the total level of health (concern for efficiency) and its distribution (concern for equality), (...) under different hypothetical scenarios through face-to-face interviews. Of key interests are: the distinction between non-monotonic preferences and Rawlsian preferences; symmetry of HRSWF; and the extent of inequality neutral preferences. The results indicate strong support for non-monotonic preferences, over Rawlsian preferences. Furthermore, the majority of those surveyed had preferences that were consistent with a symmetric and inequality averse HRSWF. (shrink)

En Sofista, Platón revé algunos puntos clave de su teoría del conocimiento, tales como la teoría de las Formas y la noción de imagen (eídolon). Según algunos intérpretes (Ringbom, Palumbo, Deleuze, Audouard), este diálogo contendría la decisiva novedad de que entre conocimiento verdadero y conocimiento falso hay una notable paridad: ambos recurren a imágenes, el verdadero al eikón y el falso al eídolon (según diálogos anteriores, la imagen está reservada a las formas inferiores de conocimiento, lindantes con lo apariencial y (...) lo falso). En este trabajo me propongo discutir estas interpretaciones. No hay duda de que Sof. revisa el estatuto de las imágenes falsas, no obstante creo que no llega a establecer la aludida equiparación entre ambos tipos de conocimiento. Incluso en este diálogo -argumentaré- el conocimiento verdadero continúa funcionando de un modo cualitativamente distinto respecto del falso, sin recurrir a imágenes o haciéndolo lo menos posible. (shrink)

Estas páginas se proponen presentar la traducción comentada de dos textos de Pedro de Juan Olivi, franciscano provenzal del s. XIII; el primero es el artículo 19 de la Impugnatio quorundam articulorum Arnaldi Gallardi, y el otro es la cuestión 76 de sus Quaestiones in secundum librum Sententiarum. La traducción conjunta de estos textos se justifica por su afinidad temática, pues ambos se refieren a un mismo problema, el que los escolásticos acostumbraron presentar bajo el título “Si el alma se (...) conoce a sí misma por esencia o por especie”; por otra parte, la crítica reciente encontró en ellos indicios de una concepción naciente de sujeto moderno. Luego de presentar someramente cada texto y de algunos datos biográficos imprescindibles de su autor, ofreceré las traducciones. Agregaré solo algunas notas al pie –las necesarias para facilitar la comprensión– y pospondré para el final el análisis de las cuestiones filosóficas, que volcaré en cuatro notas complementarias. (shrink)

The history of the human face is the history of its social coding and the media- conditions of its appearance. The best way to explain the »selfie«-practices of today’s digital culture is to understand such practices as both participative and commercialized cultural techniques that allow their users to fashion their selves in ways they consider relevant for their identities as individuals. Whereas they may put their image of themselves front stage with their selfies, such images for being socially shared have (...) to match determinate role-expectations, body-norms and ideals of beauty. Against this backdrop, collectively shared repertoires of images of normalized subjectivity have developed and leave their mark on the culture of digital communication. In the critical and reflexive discourses that surround the exigencies of auto-medial self-thematization we find reactions that are critical of self-representation as such, and we find strategies of de-subjectification with reflexive awareness of their media conditions. Both strands of critical reactions however remain ambivalent as reactions of protest. The final part of the present article focuses on inter-discourses, in particular discourses that construe the phenomenon of selfies thoroughly as an expression of juvenile narcissism. The author shows how this commonly accepted reading which has precedents in the history of pictorial art reproduces resentment against women and tends to stylize adolescent persons into a homogenous »generation« lost in self-love. (shrink)

In the present paper it is shown, following Levinas, that Ethics, understood as an intersubjective relation among completely separate subjects, sets itself up starting from concrete events that determine man's historical existence, but these are invested with the peculiarity of being events which escape the ontological order. Rather, they send to somewhere beyond, outside ontology, signifying above all in an ethical fashion, i.e., in a way other than being.