Barzykowski and Moulin suggest that déjà vu and involuntary autobiographical memories recruit similar retrieval processes. Here, we invite the authors to clarify three issues: (1) What mechanism prevents déjà vu to happen more frequently? (2) What is the role of semantic cues in involuntary autobiographical retrieval? and (3) How déjà vu relates to non-believed memories?

Objectives To develop and test two educational programmes (interactive and passive) aimed at improving family doctors' (FD) prescribing practices and patient's knowledge and use of non-opioid analgesics (NOA).Methods The educational programmes were conducted in two family medicine clinics by using a three-stage approach: baseline evaluation, design, and implementation of educational activities, and post-programme evaluation. An interactive educational programme (IEP) was compared with a passive educational programme (PEP); both were participated by FDs and patients. The IEP for FDs comprised of workshops, (...) discussion groups, in-service training and guidelines, while for patients the IEP consisted of an interactive session with a video, leaflets and a discussion. The PEP consisted in delivering the guidelines to the FDs and the leaflets to patients. The effect of the programmes on the FDs was measured through the appropriateness of prescriptions and analysed using the differences-in-differences estimator (D-in-D), and on patients through changes in self-medication and in their knowledge about the proper use and adverse events by analysing the inter- and intra-group differences before and after the programmes.Results The IEP obtained better results to improve appropriate FDs prescription of NOA than PEP (D-in-D = 15%). Regarding the patients, the PEP group reached higher reduction of self-medication than the IEP group (13.4% vs. 9.1%); the knowledge of proper NOA use increased by 8.5% in both groups, whereas knowledge of NOA-related adverse events was better in the IEP (39.6%) than in the PEP group (9.2%).Conclusions The IEP was better to improve the doctors' abilities to prescribe NOAs, and both programmes improved patients' knowledge. (shrink)

Resumen: En el presente ensayo se expone y discute la idea de que el lenguaje, más allá de ser un medio de comunicación, se manifiesta como poesía; esto en el sentido de que es en el lenguaje donde diariamente se configura el mundo con sentido humano. Poesía del lenguaje aparece como una expresión que busca dar cuenta de la energía creadora del lenguaje a la hora de instituir la realidad en la dimensión lingüística de esta. La discusión toma la forma (...) de comentarios y diálogo con tesis de pensadores como Heidegger, Saussure, Benjamin, Maturana, y de poetas como Novalis, Neruda, Huidobro, con el propósito de elucidar la dimensión poética del lenguaje y sus efectos prácticos y morales en la vida social.: In this essay we explain and discuss the idea that language, beyond its quality of being a means of communication, manifests itself as poetry; in the sense that it is in language where the daily configuration of a world with human meaning takes place. The poetry of language appears as an expression that thrives to explain the creative energy of language, as it institutes reality in its linguistic dimension. The discussion take shape in the form of comments on, and dialogue with, thinkers such as Heidegger, Saussure, Benjamin, Maturana, and with poets such as Novalis, Neruda, Huidobro, with the purpose of elucidating the poetic dimension of language and its practical and moral effects on social life. (shrink)

In this paper we address the problem of short-term electric energy prediction using a time series forecasting approach applied to data generated by a Paraguayan electricity distribution provider. The dataset used in this work contains data collected over a three-year period. This is the first time that these data have been used; therefore, a preprocessing phase of the data was also performed. In particular, we propose a comparative study of various machine learning and statistical strategies with the objective of predicting (...) the electric energy consumption for a given prediction horizon, in our case seven days, using historical data. In this paper we have tested the effectiveness of the techniques with different historical window sizes. Specifically, we considered two ensemble strategies, a neural network, a deep learning technique and linear regression. Moreover, in this study, we tested whether the inclusion of meteorological data can help achieve better predictions. In particular, we considered data regarding temperature, humidity, wind speed and atmospheric pressure registered during the three-year period of data collection. The results show that, in general, the deep learning approach obtains the best results and that such results are obtained when meteorological data are also considered. Moreover, when meteorological data is used, a smaller historical window size is required to obtain precise predictions. (shrink)

This essay examines the relationship between Eric Voegelin and Leo Strauss in order to show the central themes necessary to elucidate their philosophical positions. The essay reveals the centrality of the figure of Plato as a point of departure to understand the agreement and the disagreement concerning fundamental questions (such as the way of reading ancient texts, the importance of the historical perspective or the importance of the study of the past in order to orient the modern science) which revolves (...) around the issue of the relation between revelation and philosophy. The work concludes with an identification of the common core of both thinkers that allows us to understand their differences (homogeneity or heterogeneity of reality and the human) and, moreover, identifies both perspectives with a «foundational» (Voegelin) or «negative» (Strauss) interpretation of Plato’s thought. (shrink)

In the following paper, I wish to examine a problem for the theist libertarian. On the one hand, libertarians insist that freedom requires possible alternatives open to the agent. On the other hand, God’s perfectly formed moral character implies that He always does the morally best. Give His moral character, then, it appears that there are no possible alternatives open to God. We thus get a dilemma for the theist libertarian: either a) God is not libertarian free – because His (...) moral character rules out possible alternatives; or b) God’s character is not perfectly formed – because libertarian freedom requires that it is possible for God to act out of character. In the present paper, I argue that Thomas Reid, a paradigmatic libertarian, has the theoretical tools to retain a robust account of libertarian freedom without compromising a robust account of perfectly formed characters. In sum, it is necessary that agents with fully formed characters always act in character (read de dicto), but it is possible that agents with fully formed characters act out of character (read de re). The former claim captures the robustness of perfectly formed moral characters and the latter claim captures the robustness of libertarian freedom. (shrink)

O artigo tem por objeto o exame de três registros de gritantes e distintos paradoxos na Doutrina do Direito de Kant. Registros feitos em tempos e contextos históricos diferentes por Friedrich Bouterwek, Marcus Willaschek e Balthazar Barbosa Filho. Bouterwek atribuiu a Kant a mais paradoxal das proposições jamais enunciadas por qualquer autor, a de que a mera ideia de soberania deve obrigar-nos a obedecer como a nosso inquestionável senhor a quem quer que se haja estabelecido como tal, sem que caiba (...) indagar quem lhe deu o direito de comandar-nos. Willaschek aponta a incompatibilidade de duas teses centrais da doutrina kantiana: a do caráter externo dos vínculos jurídicos e a da incondicionalidade obrigacional do direito positivo, pois não é possível entender como é possível termo-nos como obrigados por imperativos jurídicos e, ao mesmo, vermo-nos internamente isentados do dever de obedecê-los. O ponto crítico de Balthazar é alegar que não pode haver na filosofia kantiana uma crítica da razão político e jurídica, simplesmente porque o conceito de imputação, base da normatividade própria dessas esferas, pressupõe uma pluralidade de agentes livres que, justamente, só pode ser uma pressuposição, pois nosso acesso à normatividade prática só pode ter lugar em primeira pessoa. No exame a que o artigo submete essas alegações, o artigo argumenta, em objeção à tese de Balthazar, que o caráter universal e categórico da força que vincula o sujeito quando confrontado com a lei moral em primeira pessoa necessariamente se desvaneceria se, ao mesmo tempo, ele não fosse tomado pela evidência de que a realidade objetiva dos princípios morais é não só instanciável, mas assegurada pela múltipla instanciação. Com relação às dificuldades levantadas por Willaschek e Bouterwek, o artigo argumenta que o princípio exeundum e statu naturali, enquanto norma metapositiva, anterior à divisão do domínio prático entre doutrina do direito e doutrina da virtude, permite ao mesmo tempo compreender a exigência de obediência ao poder constituído e a restrição das obrigações jurídico-políticas exclusivamente ao foro externo.AbstractThe object of the article is to examine three claims about three distinct and allegedly blatant paradoxes in Kant's Doctrine of Right. These three critical points had been made in distinct times and contexts by Friedrich Bouterwek, Marcus Willaschek e Balthazar Barbosa Filho. Bouterwek attributed to Kant the most paradoxical of all paradoxical propositions, the statement that by the mere idea of sovereignty we are obliged to obey as our lord who has imposed himself upon us, without questioning from where he got such right. Willaschek points out the incompatibility of two main theses of Kantian doctrine of right: the claims that the legal bounds are of external character and that they are the source of unconditional obligations, since it seems impossible to understand how it would be possible to be obliged by juridical norms and decisions and at the same time to be exempted of the internal duty of compliance. The radical objection of Professor Balthazar is the claim that in the context of Kantian Philosophy it is impossible to admit a critique of the juridical and political reason because the concept of imputation, ground of the normativity in these domains, requires not only the presupposition of free agents, but a true and secure epistemic access to them, which is, according to him, impossible considering that the moral law and the other practical principles are accessible for us only in the first person. In the course of the appraisal of such claims, the article contest that objection arguing that the universal and categorical force of the normative bound experienced by the subject when confronted with the moral law in the first person would ineluctably vanish if, at the same time, he had not been taken by the evidence that the objective reality of the moral principles is secured by multiple instancing. Regarding the difficulties raised by Willaschek and Bouterwek, the article argues that the principle exeundum e statu naturali, as a norm of meta-positive character, prior to the division of practical domains between the doctrine of right and the doctrine of virtue, is the cue both to the understanding of the requirement of unquestioning obedience to the constituted power and to the restriction of the validity of this requirement only in foro externo. (shrink)

The main claim of this study is that, contrary to Latour’s view about the need to leave aside epistemology to deal with anything valuable about science, Mario Bunge has consistently built up a detailed and thorough epistemology. The argumentative strategy will be to show that (a) it is not true that we have never been modern (b) epistemology is here to stay, and (c) Mario Bunge endorses a strong scientific realism, a brand of materialism, systemism and emergentism, including a moral (...) dimension (there are objective values like, truth, peace and justice that deserve to be respected). Then, Bunge’s realism rejects axiological neutrality making scientists responsible for their actions. Bunge has always been modern and keeps enriching his own views. (shrink)

The following article is a contribution to the history of Fichte’s Publicum „Moral für Gelehrte“ (Jena – 1794–1795). Its purpose is to elucidate some misunderstandings about the chronology, the thematic articulation, and even the letter and spirit of these wellknown lectures.

Ethical theory examines human action in general terms, whereas moral judgment takes place in particular situations. These situations often cannot be subsumed easily under general norms and call for a delicate balance of norms and circumstances. I describe situations where opposing courses of action seem morally reasonable and I call them states of deliberative equilibrium. I review Aristotle’s and Kant’s conceptions of moral judgment and I offer a rule for stepping from deliberation to judgment in many situations of equilibrium.

The article intends to analyze Nietzsches concept of conscience (Gewissen), in order to show its connection to the will to power. This relation inscribes in its interior, as derived from it, the bad conscience (schlechtes Gewissen), and thus opens a phenomenological horizon of interpretation of the will to power.

Nelson Maldonado-Torres argues that European modernity has become inextricable from the experience of the warrior and conqueror. In _Against War_, he develops a powerful critique of modernity, and he offers a critical response combining ethics, political theory, and ideas rooted in Christian and Jewish thought. Maldonado-Torres focuses on the perspectives of those who inhabit the underside of western modernity, particularly Jewish, black, and Latin American theorists. He analyzes the works of the Jewish Lithuanian-French philosopher and religious thinker Emmanuel (...) Levinas, the Martiniquean psychiatrist and political thinker Frantz Fanon, and the Catholic Argentinean-Mexican philosopher, historian, and theologian Enrique Dussel. Considering Levinas’s critique of French liberalism and Nazi racial politics, and the links between them, Maldonado-Torres identifies a “master morality” of dominion and control at the heart of western modernity. This master morality constitutes the center of a warring paradigm that inspires and legitimizes racial policies, imperial projects, and wars of invasion. Maldonado-Torres refines the description of modernity’s war paradigm and the Levinasian critique through Fanon’s phenomenology of the colonized and racial self and the politics of decolonization, which he reinterprets in light of the Levinasian conception of ethics. Drawing on Dussel’s genealogy of the modern imperial and warring self, Maldonado-Torres theorizes race as the naturalization of war’s death ethic. He offers decolonial ethics and politics as an antidote to modernity’s master morality and the paradigm of war. _Against War_ advances the de-colonial turn, showing how theory and ethics cannot be conceived without politics, and how they all need to be oriented by the imperative of decolonization in the modern/colonial and postmodern world. (shrink)

Addressing both collegiate and professional sports, the updated edition of Fair Play: The Ethics of Sport explores the ethical presuppositions of competitive athletics and their connection both to ethical theory and to concrete moral dilemmas that arise in actual athletic competition. This fourth edition has been updated with new examples, including a discussion of Spygate by the New England Patriots and recent discoveries on the use of performance enhancing drugs by top athletes. Two additional authors, Cesar R. Torres and (...) Peter F. Hager, bring to this edition a discussion of the moral issues involved in youth sports and the ethics of being a fan, as well as a fresh perspective on the theories of broad internalism and the quest for excellence. Furthermore, major criticisms of broad internalism by philosophers William J. Morgan and Scott Kretchmar add a new dimension to the discussion on the moral foundations of winning. (shrink)

There are few problems to which legal philosophers have devoted more attention than the relationship between morality and law, or, said in different terms, between the “good” and the “obligatory”. One might think that all that should and could be said about it has already been uttered or written. Nevertheless philosophy — and legal philosophy is no exception — is just this: rethinking old problems which are in fact always new,1 and for which no definitive solution is given — nor (...) is possible, I would add — and which need a permanent effort of reassessment. There is no reason for disappointment or despair in this endless work. It is neither pointless nor irrelevant. (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.

No artigo “O vegetarianismo como obrigação ética” (Crítica, 10 de Setembro de 2015), Moutinho defende que o vegetarianismo é uma obrigação moral. Fá-lo argumentando por duas vias: que o estatuto moral dos animais é incompatível com serem usados pelos humanos para alimentação; e que o vegetarianismo é consequência do nosso dever em preservar o equilíbrio ecológico do planeta. O meu objectivo neste artigo é mostrar que os argumentos apresentados são insuficientes para estabelecer o vegetarianismo como obrigação moral.

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)

O artigo discute uma tese de Xavier Léon sobre a atitude de Schiller em relação a Fichte e procura mostrar sob quais condições as cartas Sobre a educação estética do homem podem ser lidas como uma resposta a Algumas preleções sobre a destinação do erudito.

Se nos juízos científicos ou empíricos a objetividade é possível pela existência de entidades independentes, que tipo de fatos poderiam assegurar a objetividade de julgamentos ético-morais? Tanto para Habermas como para Putnam os valores éticos têm uma certa objetividade que emana do “reconhecimento intersubjetivo de standars de avaliação para os quais podemos encontrar boas razões” no contexto de um estilo de vida particular. No entanto, para Habermas, essa validade não é mais suficiente na situação das sociedades contemporâneas, onde é preciso (...) regular os conflitos e as relações entre diversos grupos com ideais muitas vezes conflitantes. Os objetivos deste trabalho são: 1) reconstruir os argumentos básicos desta controversia 2) adotar uma concepção sobre alguns dos pontos em questão, indicando uma forma de integrar os aspectos de ambas as visões, à qual poderia chegar ao alvo que eles compartilham, a saber, fundar a possibilidade de uma ética cognitivista que contorna os problemas do relativismo sem cair nas dificuldades de realismo metafísico. (shrink)

Emile Durkheim is one of the fathers of sociology. Suicide brings his work conceptual and analytical tools to understand the moral architecture of society. In this article we review these artifacts of social theory, scientifically contrasted his time, able to measure the integrative force of human groups and to identify the variables that determine its operation. Despite the unstoppable individualism that defines our societies, is still valid sociological analysis that accounts for the collective nature of many of our decisions and (...) behaviors. (shrink)