Colombia has inherited a rich culture: from the Pre-Colombian indigenes, the Black-Africans and from Spain -one of the richest European cultures-. Colombians do not really know that, besides the Iberian native communities, over Spain there were Phoenician, Greek, Roman, Visigoth and Arabic people; more than twenty centuries of cultural forks which built the Hispanic being. With Rome, the Iberian Peninsula gave governors from the empire; with the Visigoth, the Christianity became the State religion; with the Arabic, the peninsula irradiated its (...) cultural influence over Africa and Europe to translate the scientific legacy from the millennial East. While the Hispanic tried to reject the Arabic invaders -re-conquest war that spent about eight centuries- the regional profiles looked forward to dominating the rest of the world: so early, between XII and XV centuries, Aragonese managed into the Mediterranean; in the earliest XV, the Portugal realm jumped to conquer the Atlantic and Africa; at the end of the same century, the union of Castilla, Leon and Aragon brought the same through the Atlantic and Europe. The process was tight to strict rules, as well as the Hispanic institutions were moved to the previous unknown American territories. Isabel and Fernando’s marriage helped preserve the Hispanic domination on the Mediterranean and to impose the Spanish hegemony in Europe. (shrink)

Esta pesquisa realiza uma análise de rede social e prosopográfica dos processos de emigração sírio-libaneses para a Costa Rica na virada do século XIX para o século XX; os mecanismos de inserção social utilizados por esse grupo de migrantes; e as relações entre as redes de sociabilidade sírio-libanesa e maçônica durante a primeira metade do século XX. Conclui-se que os imigrantes sírio-libaneses participaram ativamente de um processo de reajuste das relações sociais do Estado e contribuíram para forjar novas representações culturais (...) do nacional no país. (shrink)

El presente artículo pretende mostrar la profunda interrelación entre el Misterio, el silencio, la experiencia espiritual y el arte. Con ello se busca subrayar el requisito de la representación perteneciente a la experiencia espiritual a través del símbolo. El acontecer del Misterio y su acogida por parte del ser humano implica, en sí mismo, la necesidad del silencio y la contemplación. Estas dos características son elementos indispensables para identificar la autenticidad del ser humano espiritual. Aunque el silencio y la contemplación (...) parezcan hablar sobre la «pasividad» de lo humano, el dinamismo que se genera en la vivencia de esta experiencia impulsa al sujeto a expresar de diversas formas una realidad que lo trasciende y fascina. La vía más adecuada de esta expresión es el símbolo, el cual busca representar una vivencia que comunica y transforma. La fuerza de la creación y transformación constante de este proceso permite descubrir, en la obra de arte, el signo visible de la auto-revelación del Misterio Santo. Ante el bullicio del mundo contemporáneo, que no da lugar al recogimiento, esta reflexión se presenta como una alternativa para profundizar sobre la necesidad de la espiritualidad en la configuración de lo humano. (shrink)

Este escrito intenta aproximarse a la experiencia del suicidio a partir de Emmanuel Lévinas y sus conceptos filosóficos de “el decir” y “lo dicho”, los cuales ayudarán a mostrar al otro, el suicida, como una víctima invisible. El suicida necesita no ser tratado como un ser excluido y que debe ser medido desde la objetividad. Él requiere de un soporte que lo ayude a vivir desde la reflexión filosófica. Por lo tanto, el suicida verá en la filosofía un lugar para (...) el tratamiento del alma. Para lograr esta aproximación, este escrito se divide en tres partes que siguen a una breve introducción: en primer lugar se abordan las relaciones entre suicidio, subjetividad e intersubjetividad indicando la importancia de clasificar el suicidio en el decir y no en lo dicho, y poniendo de presente la lucha del suicida para ser escuchado en el mundo del decir, de modo que prevalezca el cuidado del otro en la subjetividad e intersubjetividad; enseguida, a través de la exposición de las nociones de huella, herida y experiencia de extranjero se aborda la relación y el encuentro entre el decir y lo dicho; y, finalmente, se propone que la filosofía, practicada como un abrazo “entre otros” es una vía para procurar la comprensión y el acercamiento con el Otro. (shrink)

To build a culture of integrity in a HE institution, innovative approaches are needed to enhance education of research ethics and integrity. In addition to educating students, understanding is needed on how to facilitate for those who lead others. The focus is on early-career researchers as future REI leaders. The current study sheds light on how learning and REI leadership competencies evolve during scaffolded collaborative research ethics training for this target group. The study combines new instruments as part of holistic (...) DBR. Data was collected from 3 groups of experienced researchers attending 3 training sessions in the form of written group reports and group discussion recordings. Qualitative deductive analysis was utilised for monitoring the learning process, scaffolding patterns, and display of REI leadership principles. Also, quantitative analysis was applied to group discussion data, displaying the nature of collaboration. Results imply that collaborative case-based role play format is effective in training future REI leaders. All groups displayed high levels of understanding. Combining ECRs and researchers with leadership experience supported knowledge building in the groups by bringing in various perspectives. Even though groups required different amounts of scaffolding, the nature was similar: maintaining goal orientation, highlighting critical features and redirecting learners. Learning analytics of collaboration indicated that the person with leadership experience was not necessarily the most active participant nor took the role of a ‘group leader’. Still, it was mostly that person who displayed leadership competencies thus supporting other group members to develop leadership aspects. (shrink)

Las artes visuales, marginadas de otras áreas del conocimiento, por la fragmentación epistemológica propi-ciada por el positivismo y con afán de responder al desarrollo vertiginoso y complejo de nuevas tecnologías, han perdido la más importante de sus tareas, la reflexión. La especulación sobre la acción artística y la entrega de juicios críticos acerca de sus manifestaciones implica la introspección y el pensar sobre sus procesos y parámetros de desarrollo. Imaginar y crear en las artes visuales se ha convertido en las (...) reacciones espontáneas resultantes de la intuición del instante, olvidando etapas importantes de concentración, abstracción, especulación y transformación de la experiencia estética. Hoy las artes son la provocación de una cadena de reacciones físicas: repulsión, sorpresa, rechazo, etc., de las transgresiones a la forma y no al fondo, hay un abismo entre el pensamiento y la razón. Hay un olvido de los contenidos, por los que lucharon Klee, Kandinsky, Arnheim o Gombrich y que hizo comprensible la obra de Cézanne, Duchamp o Beuys. Se trata de una reflexión sobre la importancia del dominio epistemológico en las artes visuales, una llamada a regresar a su conceptualización y a reconstruir la filosofía y la teoría del arte visual de nuestro tiempo. Estas disciplinas tienen un aspecto teórico referente a los conceptos que las sustentan, un aspecto técnico concerniente a los medios por los cuales se crea la obra o la acción artística y un aspecto poético, que establece un nexo entre quien crea la obra y quienes la perciben y contemplan, éstos entre sí y entre éstos y la obra. Lo anterior requiere de los conocimientos indis-pensables para reconocer y comprender tanto el excedente de sentido de las artes visuales como la socialización sus valores culturales, son indispensables las estructuras y concepciones teóricas porque, de un mismo objeto o acción se dan diversas interpretaciones igualmente válidas, siempre y cuando estén sustentadas cognoscitivamente. Las artes visuales son una unidad de saber, un conjunto de conocimientos unificados merced a ciertos principios, pero no es un cuerpo de verdades cerradas, al contrario, se hallan en relación permanente y dinámica con otros ámbitos cognoscitivos, influyen en algunos y son influenciadas por otros. La conceptuación de las artes visuales es valiosa porque tiene efectos directos en la forma de pensamiento, en la conducta y en las acciones y decisiones de los seres humanos, en virtud de que se conciben como generadoras de valores y bienes culturales. (shrink)

: Subjective well-being is an evaluation of life quality from cognitive evaluation (life satisfaction) and affective evaluation (positive affect and negative affect experience). In colloquial tern, subjective well-being is labeled “happiness”. People high in subjective well-being have a number of desirable qualities, such as good emotional control, and face many things on their lives in a better way. Therefore, high subjective well-being plays an important role in late adolescent who is accrossing the life span, from childhood through adulthood. There are (...) many resources correlating with subjective well-being and one of them is religious faith. Recently, some researches found the intensity of religions life rising in late adolescents. This research aim is to know whether there is any correlation between religious commitment and subjective well-being in late adolescents. The method in this research is quantitative with purposive and snowball sampling techniques. The research was conducted to college students in Tarumanagara University (Campus I). The college students were Moslems, still had parents, and not a single child in their family. There were 224 subjects in this research at the age of between 19 and 22 years old. The Pearson correlation shows there is a positive correlation between religious commitment and subjective well-being in late adolescents.  . (shrink)

RESUMEN Una vez que el foco de la reflexión pasa de las teorías ideales a la aplicación de la justicia social, centrada en las instituciones de las sociedades democráticas, se requiere prestar especial atención a los estilos de vida. Estos tienen una alta incidencia en cómo la justicia es realizada y afectan tanto a la desigualdad económica como a la disponibilidad de los recursos naturales. En nuestras sociedades es posible establecer restricciones a los estilos de vida, especialmente en aquellos casos (...) en que, por el efecto de algunas dinámicas sociales, aquellos se desacoplan de las concepciones del bien. Se defiende que, en tales casos, la base normativa que permite exigir el respeto a los estilos de vida se disuelve y por ello es posible justificar su restricción. ABSTRACT Now that the focus of reflection has shifted from ideal theories to the application of social justice, centered on the institutions of democratic societies, it is necessary to pay special attention to lifestyles, since they not only influence the realization of justice, but also have an effect on economic inequality and the availability of natural resources. In our societies, it is possible to place restrictions on lifestyles, especially in those cases in which, influenced by certain social dynamics, they disengage from conceptions of the good. The article argues that, in those cases, the normative base grounding the demand that lifestyles be respected is dissolved, thus justifying their restriction. (shrink)

"El libro "Ensayos sobre pensamiento mexicano" es una propuesta reflexiva que reúne seis diferentes acercamientos a un tema común: México en el contexto del siglo XX. Los capítulos que lo integran se entrelazan a partir de dos horizontes de análisis, por un lado, el amplio espectro de la cultura con la diversidad de pliegues y posibilidades discursivas que le distinguen, y por el otro, la controversia siempre emergente que caracteriza a la esfera política. En esta confrontación y complementariedad radica el (...) principal aporte del texto, al brindar los elementos esenciales para un trabajo crítico a partir de la filosofía que centra sus problemas de estudio en el tejido social. Aunque los diferentes ensayos nos proponen una extensa gama de referentes históricos, lo hacen siempre conservando el tratamiento filosófico de los tópicos planteados. Aquí se muestra la conformación de un país que emerge después de tres siglos de colonización, que ha pretendido hacer la recuperación de un pasado pletórico de significado y que llega a su inevitable enfrentamiento con un mundo de interacción creciente allende sus fronteras. Pero no sólo se traza la perspectiva que recoge acontecimientos y personajes de una historia nacional, también se suma la mirada desde el exilio español avecindado en México, lo que aporta un punto de vista indudablemente enriquecedor acerca del espacio y el tiempo de una memoria que recupera circunstancias y propone los elementos de crítica frente a una razón totalitaria que fue factor común de varios países durante el atribulado siglo XX"--En la cubierta. (shrink)

En este ensayo se examina de manera crítica el desarrollo de la filosofía analítica y, en particular, de la filosofía analítica latinoamericana. Se propone que esta última adopte un giro político y uno pedagógico con el fin de recuperar su espíritu original y reconectarse con la tradición intelectual latinoamericana. This essay is a critical examination of the development of analytic philosophy and, in particular, of Latin American analytic philosophy. It is argued that the latter ought to adopt a political and (...) pedagogical turn in order to recover its original spirit and to be reconnected to Latin American intelectual tradition. (shrink)

Filosofía mexicana (una reconsideración crítica) -- Filosofía en México/filosofía mexicana -- Dos apuntes sobre filosofía mexicana -- ¿Qué filosofía mexicana para el presente -- Sobre la actualidad filosófica de Ramos -- Emilio Uranga, los libros y la filosofía -- José Emilio Pacheco como crítico del relatio patriótico -- "...verde es el dorado árbol de la vida" : notas sobre el pensamiento de José Revueltas.

Ubico indicios de mitos nacionales analizando obras narrativas (de Borges y algunos otros autores), y dichos acerca de Borges, centrándome en cómo se verifica, en la narrativa de Borges, (y también en sus intervenciones públicas y en lo que se dice sobre su figura) la irrupción del peronismo. Propongo un cambio de escala: sin intentar interpretar los grandes momentos constitutivos entendiéndolos como mitos de origen, intento constituir series, de características cuasi-míticas, a partir de poner en relación a breves sintagmas que (...) se reiteran en distintas unidades narrativas. Elementos transversales, que van de un relato a otro. Sintagmas que se analizan tomando al conjunto de la obra de Borges como paradigma, y no sólo relatos aislados. En primer término, exploro ciertas constantes en algunos relatos del período 1945-54. Luego me detengo en una serie de versiones contemporáneas sobre un Borges ciego a quien un joven peronista ayuda a cruzar la calle. En tercer lugar. el tema de la aparición de relatos oníricos, literariamente enunciados, sobre personas con garra de pájaro, vinculándolos a los dilemas morales de la élite intelectual en los tiempos del primer peronismo. En tanto estos conjuntos tienen mucho en común con los mitos al ser reelaboraciones sucesivas de un elemento narrativo, podrían ser abordadas con métodos de análisis míticos propios de la antropología estructural. No obstante, el material utilizado tiene diferencias con las mitologías clásicas: a) tiene versiones orales, pero también escritas; b) hechos ficcionales, pero también históricos; c) admiten un orden cronológico verificable. Por lo tanto, arriesgo aquí una exploración metodológica y teórica más bien experimental, aunque deudora de Lévi-Strauss. Concluyo que en estos dos conjuntos se verifica el funcionamiento un sistema ideológico, que es el de la formación nacional argentina, con sus tensiones y crisis. (shrink)

Any plausibly just market exchange must balance two conflicting moral considerations: non-worseness (Wertheimer, 1999) and euvoluntariness (true voluntariness; Munger, 2011). We propose an analytical theory of just market exchange that partly resolves this conflict.

This paper integrates the inclusion and organizational ethics literatures to examine the relationship between employees’ perceptions of an organizational integration and learning approach to diversity and two employee outcomes: organizational citizenship behavior toward the organization and interpersonal workplace deviance. Findings across two field studies from the USA and Germany show that employees’ perceptions of an organizational integration and learning approach to diversity are positively related to perceived organizational ethical virtue. Perceived organizational ethical virtue further transmits the effect of employees’ perceptions (...) of an organizational integration and learning approach to diversity on both organizational citizenship behavior toward the organization and interpersonal workplace deviance. In addition, we find support for a moderated indirect effect model whereby the indirect effect of the perceived integration and learning approach to diversity on the dependent variables through perceived organizational ethical virtue is stronger when employees have high personal value for diversity rather than low personal value for diversity. These results underscore the importance of having a fit between employees’ perceptions of an organization’s approach to diversity and employees’ personal value for diversity in order for inclusion to result in positive employee behaviors. Results emphasize the ethical responsibility of organizations in terms of how they approach diversity. (shrink)

Using Leventhal’s (Social exchange: Advances in theory and research, Plenum Press, New York, 1980 ) rules of procedural justice as well as deontic justice (Folger in Research in social issues in management, Information Age, Greenwich, CT, 2001 ), we examine how personal value for diversity moderates the negative relationship between perceived discrimination against minorities (i.e., racial minorities and females) at work and the perceived procedural justice of minorities’ treatment by the organization. Through a field survey of 190 employees, we found (...) that observers high in personal value for diversity have stronger negative reactions to the mistreatment of women and racial minorities than observers low in personal value for diversity. These findings support and extend the deontic justice perspective because those who personally value diversity had the strongest negative reactions toward the discriminatory treatment of minorities. (shrink)

Este trabajo describe la vida y escritos de L. Polo hasta 1996. A los 25 años descubrió su método de pensamiento: el abandono del limite mental. Vivió en Madrid, Roma, Granada y Pamplona. Amante de la verdad y de la libertad personal. Entre sus obras más profundas se encuentran las que componen su Curso de teoría del conocimiento y su Antropología trascendental.

We uncover fundamental dimensions of the process through which organizations embed the practice of fraternity through embarking on an organizational journey in the direction of the common good. Building on the latest encyclical of Pope Francis, _Fratelli Tutti_, about fraternal and social friendship, we offer insight into the understanding of what it means to become a fraternal organization and reflect on the key ethical and paradoxical challenges for organizations aiming at collectively contributing to the common good. We add to previous (...) work by characterizing this journey as a process involving unique ethical challenges that emerge from the paradoxes associated with this process and how this might change the nature of the relationships between organizations and others within the organizational landscape. (shrink)

As development of research ethics competencies is in the focus in higher education institutions, it is crucial to understand how to support the learning process during such training. While there is plenty of research on how to scaffold children’s learning of cognitive skills, there is limited knowledge on how to enhance collaborative case-based learning of research ethics competencies in HE contexts. Our aim was to identify whether, how and when scaffolding is needed with various expertise levels to support development of (...) ethics competencies. To identify and evaluate scaffolding during collaborative case-based ethics training we synthesised a scaffolding framework consisting of three levels: techniques, mechanisms and process. We organised 5 training sessions where 46 participants were involved. Data was collected as part of action research from group-work recordings and transcribed verbatim. Deductive qualitative analysis was implemented on transcripts based on the scaffolding framework. Our analysis revealed that structural scaffolding alone is not always efficient with bachelor level students, they also require oral scaffolding when the need becomes apparent. Master’s level students benefited most from wording the issues they needed to focus on. Doctoral students and senior academics needed scaffolding to maintain goal orientation. We end our article with some recommendations for facilitators of ethics education, and encourage using the scaffolding framework also in complex problem-solving beyond ethics training. (shrink)

Mathematics is a critical part of much scientific research. Physics in particular weaves math extensively into its instruction beginning in high school. Despite much research on the learning of both physics and math, the problem of how to effectively include math in physics in a way that reaches most students remains unsolved. In this paper, we suggest that a fundamental issue has received insufficient exploration: the fact that in science, we don’t just use math, we make meaning with it in (...) a different way than mathematicians do. In this reflective essay, we explore math as a language and consider the language of math in physics through the lens of cognitive linguistics. We begin by offering a number of examples that show how the use of math in physics differs from the use of math as typically found in math classes. We then explore basic concepts in cognitive semantics to show how humans make meaning with language in general. The critical elements are the roles of embodied cognition and interpretation in context. Then, we show how a theoretical framework commonly used in physics education research, resources, is coherent with and extends the ideas of cognitive semantics by connecting embodiment to phenomenological primitives and contextual interpretation to the dynamics of meaning-making with conceptual resources, epistemological resources, and affect. We present these ideas with illustrative case studies of students working on physics problems with math and demonstrate the dynamical nature of student reasoning with math in physics. We conclude with some thoughts about the implications for instruction. (shrink)

ABSTRACT The main objective of this article is to make evident the relationship between expressivity and performativity trying to reveal the continuities, tensions and ruptures concerning the ways of understanding the sexed body in Merleau-Ponty's Phenomenology of Perception and the poststructuralist perspective of Judith Butler. On the one hand, the body as a sexual being is approached to demonstrate how the critiques to the anonymous body and the preexistence of the operative locus made by feminism do not fully grasp the (...) ideas of the French philosopher. On the other hand, the notions of expressivity and performativity are approached to reveal the displacement from theatricality to dramatization. RESUMEN El objetivo central de este artículo es evidenciar la relación entre expresividad y performatividad, tratando de revelar las continuidades, tensiones y rupturas entre la manera de comprender el cuerpo sexuado desde la Fenomenología de la Percepción de Merleau-Ponty y la perspectiva postestructuralista de Judith Butler. En primer lugar, se efectúa una aproximación al cuerpo como ser sexuado para demostrar cómo las críticas elaboradas desde el feminismo sobre el cuerpo anónimo y la preexistencia de un locus operativo no comprenden plenamente la propuesta del filósofo francés. En segundo lugar, se abordarán las nociones de expresividad y performatividad, para revelar el desplazamiento de la teatralidad a la dramatización. (shrink)

Medical education at the Colombian School of Medicine has undergone a reconceptualization and reorganization so as to encompasses three fundamental elements of medical practice: 1) development of general abilities and standards necessary for appropriate professional medical practice; 2) technical education which makes it possible to utilize the bases that science and technology have provided for the development and application of knowledge, and in turn, to expand this base through research and development; and 3) humanistic education to guide students into ethical (...) professional practice. (shrink)

Diseñar experiencias de aprendizaje se convirtió en el gran desafío de los educadores en muchos puntos de la geografía tanto colombiana como de otros países, y que además de cumplir con los contenidos exigidos por los planes curriculares fueran memorables o que propiciaran anclajes de gratificación en los estudiantes. Por ello, el siguiente documento tiene como objetivo presentar las características del modelo que se ha denominado DEMA -Diseño de Experiencias Memorables de Aprendizaje- como contribución y reflexión de las prácticas educativas (...) tanto análogas como digitales que se construyen en los contextos educativos. (shrink)

Este trabajo de revisión tiene como objetivo tanto identificar los puntos nodales que estructuran las diversas propuestas ecofeministas alrededor de una ética como poner en discusión las tensiones internas que de ahí resultan. Esta revisión documental busca, ante todo, insistir en la importancia de conformar una ética que desarticule los esquemas binarios y conduzca a una mirada antiantropocéntrica, antiandrocéntrica, descentrada e interdisciplinar, como parte de un reto por reconceptualizar los tradicionales andamiajes éticos. Se trata en últimas de reconocer la historicidad (...) y la interdependencia de _La comunidad de la vida_, en una ética para y por el nosotros. Palabras clave: ecofeminismo, ecología, ética, feminismo, medio ambiente. (shrink)

Using the scope of justice perspective (Deutsch in J Soc Issues 31(3):137–149, 1975 ; Opotow in Conflict, cooperation, and justice: essays inspired by the work of Morton Deutsch, 1995 , J Soc Issues 52:19–24, 1996 ), we examined whether and how the relationship between perceived discrimination against minorities at work (i.e., racial minorities and females) and citizenship behavior toward minorities can be modified by personal value for diversity. Based on a survey of 173 employees, unexpectedly, we found a negative relationship (...) between perceived discrimination against minorities at work and citizenship behavior toward minorities. However, consistent with our expectations and the scope of justice, we found that the negative relationship was attenuated for those high in personal value for diversity. (shrink)

For more than a century the notion of a pre-established harmony between the mathematical and physical sciences has played an important role not only in the rhetoric of mathematicians and theoretical physicists, but also as a doctrine guiding much of their research. Strongly mathematized branches of physics, such as the vortex theory of atoms popular in Victorian Britain, were not unknown in the nineteenth century, but it was only in the environment of fin-de-siècle Germany that the idea of a pre-established (...) harmony really took off and became part of the mathematicians’ ideology. Important historical figures were in this respect David Hilbert, Hermann Minkowski and, somewhat later, Albert Einstein. Roughly similar ideas can be found also among British theorists, among whom Arthur Eddington, Arthur Milne, and Paul Dirac are singled out. Although largely limited to the period 1870–1940, the paper also considers Max Tegmark’s recent hypothesis of the universe being a one-to-one reflection of mathematical structures. (shrink)

In physics education, equations are commonly seen as calculation tools to solve problems or as concise descriptions of experimental regularities. In physical science, however, equations often play a much more important role associated with the formulation of theories to provide explanations for physical phenomena. In order to overcome this inconsistency, one crucial step is to improve physics teacher education. In this work, we describe the structure of a course that was given to physics teacher students at the end of their (...) master’s degree in two European universities. The course had two main goals: To investigate the complex interplay between physics and mathematics from a historical and philosophical perspective and To expand students’ repertoire of explanations regarding possible ways to derive certain school-relevant equations. A qualitative analysis on a case study basis was conducted to investigate the learning outcomes of the course. Here, we focus on the comparative analysis of two students who had considerably different views of the math-physics interplay in the beginning of the course. Our general results point to important changes on some of the students’ views on the role of mathematics in physics, an increase in the participants’ awareness of the difficulties faced by learners to understand physics equations and a broadening in the students’ repertoire to answer “Why?” questions formulated to equations. Based on this analysis, further implications for physics teacher education are derived. (shrink)

The purpose of the study was to analyze the coherence of the presentation of hypotheses and conclusions in postgraduate thesis on educational quality, which was carried out with a descriptive design. The population consisted of postgraduate theses on educational quality from four Universities of Lima, supported from 2020 to 2022, and the sample was adequate and representative. After the documentary review and analysis, the statistical analysis allowed us to find as a result a weak linear positive correlation of such variables (...) with a significance much lower than 0.01, which means that there is no optimal logical articulation between elements of the these. (shrink)

Relational Quantum Mechanics is an interpretation of quantum theory based on the idea of abolishing the notion of absolute states of systems, in favor of states of systems relative to other systems. Such a move is claimed to solve the conceptual problems of standard quantum mechanics. Moreover, RQM has been argued to account for all quantum correlations without invoking non-local effects and, in spite of embracing a fully relational stance, to successfully explain how different observers exchange information. In this work, (...) we carry out a thorough assessment of RQM and its purported achievements. We find that it fails to address the conceptual problems of standard quantum mechanics—related to the lack of clarity in its ontology and the rules that govern its behavior—and that it leads to serious conceptual problems of its own. We also uncover as unwarranted the claims that RQM can correctly explain information exchange among observers, and that it accommodates all quantum correlations without invoking non-local influences. We conclude that RQM is unsuccessful in its attempt to provide a satisfactory understanding of the quantum world. (shrink)

We can communicate linguistic information by asserting sentences that are not explicitly about linguistic matters. Stalnaker offers a pragmatic account of this phenomenon. It is not clear that such an account is correct. In this article I offer an alternative account that does not rely on pragmatic mechanisms and which captures many of the insights in Stalnaker's theory of linguistic communication. The view is inspired by Barker's semantics of vague adjectives.

In this paper I present a formalization of the theory of ideal concepts applied to the concept of God. It is done within a version of the Simplest Quantified Modal Logic (SQML) and attempts to solve three meta-problems related to the concept of God: the unicity of extension problem, the homogeneity/heterogeneity problem and the problem of conceptual unity.

The epistemological tradition set up by Plato has been permanently reading as a ‘way of doing philosophy’ in which the dualisms: reality versus illusion, on the one hand, and individual versus the social, on the other, would present not only in an explicit and incommensurable opposition to modern co..