Little is known about employee reactions in the form of un/ethical behavior to perceived acts of unfairness toward their peers perpetrated by the supervisor. Based on prior work suggesting that third parties also make fairness judgments and respond to the way employees are treated, this study first suggests that perceptions of interactional justice for peers (IJP) lead employees to two different responses to injustice at work: deviant workplace behaviors (DWBs) and organizational citizenship behaviors (OCBs). Second, based on prior literature pointing (...) to supervisors as among the most important sources of moral guidance at work, a mediating role is proposed for ethical leadership. The article suggests that supervisors who inflict acts of injustice on staff will be perceived as unethical leaders, and that these perceptions would explain why employees react to IJP in the form of deviance (DWBs) and citizenship (OCBs). Data were collected from 204 hotel employees. Results of structural equation modeling demonstrate that DWBs and OCBs are substantive reactions to IJP, whereas ethical leadership significantly mediates reactions in the form of DWBs and OCBs. Behavioral ethics and managerial implications are discussed. (shrink)

The purpose of this study was to extend the knowledge about why procedural justice has behavioral implications within organizations. Since prior studies show that PJ leads to legitimacy, the author suggests that, when formal regulations are unfairly implemented, they lose their validity or efficacy. This “rule deactivation,” in turn, leads to two proposed destructive work behaviors, namely, workplace deviance and decreased citizenship behaviors. The results support this mediating role of RD, thus suggesting that it forms part of the generative mechanism (...) through which unfair procedures influence ethical behavior within organizations. The author ends the article by discussing behavioral ethics and managerial implications as well as suggestions for future research. (shrink)

The model emphasizes the ethical dynamics of compassion in hospitality settings by suggesting that under an organizational ethical climate, the hotel staff will be more morally aware of peers’ pain and suffering, and motivated to participate in delivering compassion. Based on the positive psychology focus on compassion as individual states and traits supporting interpersonal dealings, the paper operationalizes compassion based on four individual factors involved in the compassionate process: empathic concern, or an other-oriented emotional response elicited by and congruent with (...) the perceived welfare of a person in need; mindfulness, a state of consciousness in which attention is focused on present-moment phenomena occurring both externally and internally; kindness, or understanding the pain or suffering of others; and common humanity, or seeing others’ experiences as part of the larger human experience. Data were collected from 280 employees at ten hotels in the Canary Islands. With the exception of self-interest, results of multiple linear regressions demonstrate that each of the six interpreted factors of ethical climate has substantive effects on any of the studied elements of staff compassion. The egoistic-related and principle-related climate factors generated a more consistent and intense compassionate reaction, suggesting that the staff is moved to act out of compassion either to assure that the team succeeds or to support each other out of moral obligation. (shrink)

A growing number of recreational races are being held in different locations, drawing many local and visiting runners. This study examined the relationships between quality, value, satisfaction, and loyalty among runners in a recreational race and examines potential differences in relationships between these constructs based on the runners’ experience. The participants were 985 runners with a mean age of 40.74±9.41years. Validated, reliable ad hoc instruments were used. A multi-group analysis was performed to ascertain the existence of relationships between the constructs (...) and differences in the relationships between the different study groups. The results show that quality is a direct antecedent of value and satisfaction. Value is directly related to satisfaction and indirectly related to loyalty. Satisfaction is related to the loyalty of participants in the race. Differences in the relationship between satisfaction and loyalty were dependent upon the runners’ experience. Loyalty to a race depends primarily on satisfaction and is modified by the runners’ experience. (shrink)

Resumen El papa Francisco ha destacado en su magisterio la gravedad de la corrupción como una categoría moral que va más allá del propio concepto de pecado personal. Si los pecadores son perdonados, los hombres corruptos han cerrado su corazón a dicho perdón. Sus enseñanzas nos recuerdan al pecado contra el Espíritu Santo y al concepto de “pecado social”. Sus palabras son de gran actualidad en una sociedad donde la corrupción se extiende como una plaga en instituciones y personas que (...) debían dar ejemplo de honradez y responsabilidad. En este trabajo. nos acercamos al concepto de corrupción desde la perspectiva teológica, aportando luz para prevenir la corrupción y sus efectos desbastadores para la consecución del bien común y la confianza ciudadana que se tiene que dar en la vida social.Pope Francis has highlighted in his teaching the seriousness of corruption as a moral categoty that goes beyond the concept of personal sin. If the sinners are forgiven, the corrupt men have closed his heart to such forgiveness. His teachings remind us of sin against the Holj Spirit and the concept of “social sin”. His words are vety interesting in todaj society where corruption preads like a plague in institutions and people who should set an exampk of honesty and reponsibility. In this paper, we approach the concept of corruption from a theological perpective, providing light to prevent corruption and its devastating effects for the achievement of the common good and the public trust that must be given in social life. (shrink)

Although anomic feelings have been found to lead employees to unethical performance, little is known about why this relationship is possible. The aim of this study is to test a compassion-based explanation of why anomic employees harm co-workers by displaying interpersonal deviance. The prediction is made that once sociological anomie enters organizations in the form of employees’ private feelings of anomie—i.e., “anomia”—, this anomia will individually move staff to be uncompassionate in the workplace. Three uncompassionate feelings toward co-workers are then (...) hypothesized to mediate the relationship between anomia and interpersonal deviance: negative judgments about others, over-identification, and isolation. Data were collected from 280 employees at ten hotels in the Canary Islands. The results indicated that anomia was significantly and positively linked to uncompassionate feelings and interpersonal deviance, but only negative judgments about others mediated the anomia effects on interpersonal deviance. Findings suggest to managers that by spreading ethical standards that discourage negative judgments about others in the workplace, they can neutralize the mechanisms leading anomia to interpersonal deviance. (shrink)

El documento expone los antecedentes sugeridos por Paul Ricoeur sobre lo que podría denominarse “la polémica epistemológica en ciencias sociales”, referidos a la formulación de un método legítimo para la investigación en dichas ciencias que responda a las particularidades propias de su objeto de estudio. En este sentido, se rastrea la cuestión en la tradición hermenéutica romántica, concretamente en el pensamiento de Wilhelm Dilthey, pasando por la teoría estructural de estudio del texto escrito y la formulación de una teoría de (...) la acción anglosajona, para finalmente terminar en la ricoeurtiana consideración hermenéutica de la acción significativa, que asume al texto como paradigma y propuesta de superación de los escollos en torno a la referida polémica. (shrink)

The purpose of this study was to extend the knowledge about why procedural justice (PJ) has behavioral implications within organizations. Since prior studies show that PJ leads to legitimacy, the author suggests that, when formal regulations are unfairly implemented, they lose their validity or efficacy (becoming deactivated even if they are formally still in force). This "rule deactivation," in turn, leads to two proposed destructive work behaviors, namely, workplace deviance and decreased citizenship behaviors (OCBs). The results support this mediating role (...) of PJD, thus suggesting that it forms part of the generative mechanism through which unfair procedures influence (un) ethical behavior within organizations. The author ends the article by discussing behavioral ethics and managerial implications as well as suggestions for future research. (shrink)

Abstract: Introspection reveals that one is frequently conscious of some form of inner speech, which may appear either in a condensed or expanded form. It has been claimed that this speech reflects the way in which language is involved in conscious thought, fulfilling a number of cognitive functions. We criticize three theories that address this issue: Bermúdez’s view of language as a generator of second-order thoughts, Prinz’s development of Jackendoff’s intermediate-level theory of consciousness, and Carruthers’s theory of inner speech as (...) a rehearsal of action-schemata. We contend they have problems to account for those cases in which inner speech is fragmentary, and for the difference with those instances in which it appears as more sentence-like. In addition, we present verbal overshadowing as a phenomenon that neither of them can easily explain. Finally, we propose an account in which inner speech is fundamentally silent outer speech and argue that it is more explanatory than the alternatives. (shrink)

Contextualist theorists have recently defended the views (a) that metaphor-processing can be treated on a par with other meaning changes, such as narrowing or transfer, and (b) that metaphorical contents enter into “what is said” by an utterance. We do not dispute claim (a) but consider that claim (b) is problematic. Contextualist theorists seem to leave in the hands of context the explanation about why it is that some meaning changes are directly processed, and thus plausibly form part of “what (...) is said”, while some others are not. While granting the role of context in this respect, we contend that there are elements that play an instrumental role in providing direct access to the metaphorical content, namely, the conventionality of the expressions and the salience of the concepts involved. We will start by criticizing Recanati’s and Relevance Theory’s accounts of metaphor. Then we examine the claims of Carston’s and Giora’s two-process accounts that set the stage for a revision of the main elements involved, namely, the properties of conventionality and salience. Finally we examine a number of representative examples, explaining why some cases involve a direct access to the metaphorical content and others require an intermediate non-figurative interpretation. (shrink)

Little is known about whether followers who perceive ethical leadership are more easily moved to act compassionately with peers. This study hypothesizes four compassionate feelings as mediators of the relationship between ethical leadership and interpersonal citizenship behavior directed at peers: empathic concern or an other-oriented emotional response elicited by and congruent with the perceived welfare of a peer in need; mindfulness, a state of consciousness in which attention is focused on present-moment phenomena; kindness, understanding the pain or suffering of peers; (...) and common humanity, viewing peers’ experiences as part of the larger human experience. Data were obtained from 300 followers working in three-member groups with a common leader in each of 100 investment banks in the city of London. Results indicated that: ethical leadership was significantly and positively linked to compassion and peer-focused citizenship and common humanity is the only compassionate feeling that mediates the link between ethical leadership and peer-focused citizenship. Findings suggest that supervisors who act morally more easily move their followers to become sensitized to peers’ setbacks and misfortunes and take action in the form of interpersonal OCBs to lessen or relieve their suffering. (shrink)

PurposeAnomic feelings are predicted to play a moderating role in the relationship between organisational justice perceptions and the citizenship use of the organisation's internet access, or cybercivism. The purpose of this paper is to hypothesise that, just as AFs are supported in prior research as able to intensify the negative effects of organisational justice on cyberloafing, they will also intensify the positive effects of OJ on cybercivism.Design/methodology/approachData were collected from 270 of the 1,547 respondents at a public university.FindingsExcept in the (...) case of procedural justice, the results support that AF act as a moderator of the OJ‐cybercivism link because, among employees with comparatively less AF, the perceptions of the OJ under study had a stronger impact on cybercivism.Research limitations/implicationsTo generalise from a convenience sample of 17 per cent to the entire University is unfeasible, let alone the “public sector” as a whole for a whole culture/country. Therefore, the paper only aims to be an early exploration of actual phenomenon, and to provide new insights necessary to understand the impact of pervasive new media and information and communication technologies on individual behaviour in virtual work settings.Practical implicationsThe findings contribute to an improved understanding of the influence of OJ on cybercivism. As a moderator, anomia is supported in our sample as one of the key “controllers” of the OJ predictions on cybercivism and sets a new scenario in seeking electronic business effectiveness. By encouraging convincing values and equity in the workplace, organisational management seems be on the right path to create the proper context for cybercivism to occur.Originality/valueEmployee AFs are shown to be a moderator in the relationship between OJ and cybercivism. This is the first empirical test of this interaction. (shrink)

PurposeAnomic feelings are predicted to play a moderating role in the relationship between organisational justice perceptions and the citizenship use of the organisation's internet access, or cybercivism. The purpose of this paper is to hypothesise that, just as AFs are supported in prior research as able to intensify the negative effects of organisational justice on cyberloafing, they will also intensify the positive effects of OJ on cybercivism.Design/methodology/approachData were collected from 270 of the 1,547 respondents at a public university.FindingsExcept in the (...) case of procedural justice, the results support that AF act as a moderator of the OJ‐cybercivism link because, among employees with comparatively less AF, the perceptions of the OJ under study had a stronger impact on cybercivism.Research limitations/implicationsTo generalise from a convenience sample of 17 per cent to the entire University is unfeasible, let alone the “public sector” as a whole for a whole culture/country. Therefore, the paper only aims to be an early exploration of actual phenomenon, and to provide new insights necessary to understand the impact of pervasive new media and information and communication technologies on individual behaviour in virtual work settings.Practical implicationsThe findings contribute to an improved understanding of the influence of OJ on cybercivism. As a moderator, anomia is supported in our sample as one of the key “controllers” of the OJ predictions on cybercivism and sets a new scenario in seeking electronic business effectiveness. By encouraging convincing values and equity in the workplace, organisational management seems be on the right path to create the proper context for cybercivism to occur.Originality/valueEmployee AFs are shown to be a moderator in the relationship between OJ and cybercivism. This is the first empirical test of this interaction. (shrink)

La carta del 20 de noviembre de 1629 dirigida al famoso padre franciscano Marin Mersenne puede ser considerada como el documento en que Descartes consigna su opinión respecto al proyecto de un lenguaje universal. emprender la búsqueda de un lenguaje universal, artificial y perfecto, era una meta muy popular en el siglo XVII, que según algunos es la que mejor refleja el ideal filosófico de la época.

Starting from Proust’s distinction between the self-attributive and self-evaluative views on metacognition, this paper presents a third view: self-mindshaping. Based on the notion of mindshaping as the core of social cognition, the self-mindshaping view contends that mindshaping abilities can be turned on one’s own mind. Against the self-attributive view, metacognition is not a matter of accessing representations to metarepresent them but of giving shape to those representations themselves. Against the self-evaluative view, metacognition is not blind to content but relies heavily (...) on it. We characterize our view in terms of four issues that, according to Proust, distinguish the previous approaches, namely, whether metacognitive mechanisms are the same as those employed to access other minds, whether metacognitive control requires conceptual representation, whether metacognition is propositional, and whether metacognitive access is linked to mental action. After describing some of the mechanisms for self-mindshaping, we show how this view regards metacognition as grounded on social interaction mechanisms, conceptually driven, possibly, but not necessarily, propositional, and engaged in the practical regulation of mental states. Finally, we examine the prospects for the primacy of self-mindshaping as the primary metacognitive function. We argue that self-attributive processes typically subserve the practical goals emphasized by the mindshaping view, and that the evaluative role played by procedural metacognition can be grounded on social cues rather than on experiential feelings. Even if this is not enough to claim the primacy of self-mindshaping, it still appears as a third kind of metacognition, not reducible to the other two. (shrink)

Positive Youth Development (PYD) is an approach that promotes resilience and focuses on youth strengths rather than their weaknesses as done by the traditional deficit-based perspective. Research in Europe and North America show that developmental assets are associated with school success, psychological well-being, and lower health risks among youth and young adults. However, not much research has been done on these associations in Latin American contexts. The purpose of this research study is to assess the association between substance use behaviors, (...) such as drunkenness and the use of illicit drugs, and mental health, together with the mediating role of developmental assets representing youth strengths (e.g., social competence) and contextual resources (e.g., social support at home or school). Cross-national data was collected from Colombian (n= 210; 70.4% females) and Peruvian(n= 349; 66.5% females) 1st year university students. Results shed light on the protective role of developmental assets regarding substance use behaviors and mental well-being. Specifically, the results showed direct negative associations between developmental assets and substance use behaviors and positive associations of developmental assets with mental health indicators. Internal assets appear to be a stronger predictor of social, emotional, and psychological well-being compared to external assets. We did not find any statistical significance in the association of substance use behavior and mental health. We discuss implications regarding research, policy, and practice. (shrink)

The authors expose a challenge that legal dogmatics represents to our legal institutions. Legal dogmatics often claims that it plays a necessary role in identifying legal rules and in solving their indeterminacies. Thus, legal dogmatics is to be viewed as an indispensable complement to legislation. Like legislation, dogmatics also attempts to provide judges with precise guidelines to help them pass the right decisions and avoid the arbitrary ones. Only under this assumption does dogmatics help to make more predictable decisions. However, (...) the problem of dogmatics consists that the search for precision which is to intended to limit the arbitrariness of judicial decisions calls for distinctions that are per se arbitrary ones. In some cases, this arbitrariness results from an indeterminacy generated by vague rules, while in other cases the application of precise rules leads to arbitrariness because officials depart from the reasons that ground them. The challenge of dogmatics is to show that its contribution to rationality can be perceived as an improvement on the legislator’s contribution. That is, dogmatics must show why its rules can succeed where legislation inevitably fails for conceptual reasons. The authors of this paper claim the opposite. The application of dogmatic rules has the same conceptual difficulties as the application of legislated rules alone.Moreover, dogmatic solutions often contend with other formal justifications, i.e., reasons which ground legislated rules. (shrink)

Como aporte a un diálogo fructífero, se estudian algunos “pecados” de los ateos positivistas y liberales o socialistas, que identifican la creencia religiosa con la derecha política. Tales “pecados” son fruto de una manifiesta ignorancia sobre la cuestión religiosa. Se muestra la superioridad del ateísmo de F. Nietzsche, quien comprendió que la religión tiene su fundamento en la moral.

This article problematizes the extended diagnosis regarding the relation between truth and politics, or politics and lies, mobilized by the term post-truth. First, it puts into question the presumed historical novelty that the term signals to, reminding us how Western political philosophy has always been marked by the anxiety towards the threathening force of an orphan and erratic discourse with no consciousness and no referent. Second, it indicates the limitations of the reproach against the presumed withdrawal of rationality and veracity (...) from politics, insofar as it fails to take into account the extent to which there is operative nowadays, in a hegemonic tecno-scientific discourse, a production of a certain truth of the social. In order to attend to this other angle of the relation between truth and politics one needs to displace the view from the field of electoral politics, to the field of techniques of government. Third, the article argues that there is a structural coherence between the hyper-truth in which these government techniques operate, and the inescrupulous strategic interest in the realpolitik of electoral politics, a coherence that is anchored in the ontological and epistemological premises of the modern conception of the political. Finally, the article underlines the critical potency that the theoretical legacy of post-structuralism offers to us, facing this landscape. (shrink)

The renewed interest in concepts and their role in psychological theorizing is partially motivated by Machery’s claim that concepts are so heterogeneous that they have no explanatory role. Against this, pluralism argues that there is multiplicity of different concepts for any given category, while hybridism argues that a concept is constituted by a rich common representation. This article aims to advance the understanding of the hybrid view of concepts. First, we examine the main arguments against hybrid concepts and conclude that, (...) even if not successful, they challenge hybridism to find a robust criterion for concept individuation and to show an explanatory advantage for hybrid concepts. Then we propose such a criterion of individuation, which we will call ‘functional stable coactivation’. Finally, we examine the prospects of hybridism to understand what is involved in recent approaches to categorization and meaning extraction. 1 The Heterogeneity of Conceptual Representations2 Two Challenges for Hybrid Concepts: Individuation and Explanation2.1 The coordination criterion2.2 Concepts as constituents of thoughts3 Individuating Hybrids: Functional Stable Coactivation4 The Explanatory Power of Hybrid Concepts4.1 Categorization4.2 Meaning extraction4.2.1 Linguistic comprehension and rich lexical entries4.2.2 Polysemy and hybrid concepts5 Conclusion. (shrink)

Parental burnout is a unique and context-specific syndrome resulting from a chronic imbalance of risks over resources in the parenting domain. The current research aims to evaluate the psychometric properties of the Spanish version of the Parental Burnout Assessment across Spanish-speaking countries with two consecutive studies. In Study 1, we analyzed the data through a bifactor model within an Exploratory Structural Equation Modeling on the pooled sample of participants obtaining good fit indices. We then attained measurement invariance across both gender (...) and countries in a set of nested models with gradually increasing parameter constraints. Latent means comparisons across countries showed that among the participants’ countries, Chile had the highest parental burnout score, likewise, comparisons across gender evidenced that mothers displayed higher scores than fathers, as shown in previous studies. Reliability coefficients were high. In Study 2, we tested the relations between parental burnout and three specific consequences, i.e., escape and suicidal ideations, parental neglect, and parental violence toward one’s children. The medium to large associations found provided support for the PBA’s predictive validity. Overall, we concluded that the Spanish version of the PBA has good psychometric properties. The results support its relevance for the assessment of parental burnout among Spanish-speaking parents, offering new opportunities for cross-cultural research in the parenting domain. (shrink)

Using the method of Descriptive Experience Sampling, some subjects report experiences of thinking that do not involve words or any other symbols [Hurlburt, R. T., and C. L. Heavey. 2006. Exploring Inner Experience. Amsterdam: John Benjamins; Hurlburt, R. T., and S. A. Akhter. 2008. “Unsymbolized Thinking.” Consciousness and Cognition 17 : 1364–1374]. Even though the possibility of this unsymbolized thinking has consequences for the debate on the phenomenological status of cognitive states, the phenomenon is still insufficiently examined. This paper analyzes (...) the main properties of unsymbolized thinking and advances an explanation of its origin. According to our analysis, unsymbolized thoughts appear as propositional states, that is, they are experienced as compositional conceptual phenomena, with semantic and syntactic features analogous to those of the contents of utterances. Based on this characterization, we hypothesize that UT is continuous with the activity of inner speech, in particular, it i... (shrink)

: This article deals with the relationship between language and thought, focusing on the question of whether language can be a vehicle of thought, as, for example, Peter Carruthers has claimed. We develop and examine a powerful argument—the “argument from explicitness”—against this cognitive role of language. The premises of the argument are just two: the vehicle of thought has to be explicit, and natural languages are not explicit. We explain what these simple premises mean and why we should believe they (...) are true. Finally, we argue that even though the argument from explicitness shows that natural language cannot be a vehicle of thought, there is a cognitive function for language. (shrink)

Este texto elabora un análisis metodológico y político de lo que implica pensar el discurso de los movimientos sociales en Colombia como lugar para comprender el conflicto político. Ello implica comenzar por una reflexión sobre lo que está juego en la política del lenguaje en la coyuntura histórica de lo que se ha dado en llamar la posverdad. Ante el reto de esta coyuntura, se propone la perspectiva de una ontología de lo político de corte posestructuralista como vía para articular (...) otros modos de comprender y ejercitar la veracidad y la responsabilidad en las prácticas del lenguaje. Siguiendo una relectura de la polémica dirigida por Habermas en contra de Foucault, y luego una interpretación de la lectura de Marx elaborada por Derrida, se propone una figura de la promesa, inseparable de la historicidad del lenguaje, como clave para pensar otros modos de la veracidad y la responsabilidad ético-política. Es desde esta otra figura de la promesa como configuradora de lo político, que se define la necesidad de una práctica teórico-filosófica del pensar-con las formas de enunciación de los movimientos y colectivos populares. (shrink)

En este trabajo pretendo mostrar que el derecho penal contemporáneo no ha encontrado todavía buenas soluciones a las difi cultades conceptuales y normativas planteadas por los casos de ignorancia deliberada. Las difi cultades surgen, en buena medida, al tratar de resolver estas situaciones mediante una herramienta equivocada: ampliando el concepto de dolo eventual. Este recurso conceptual intenta encontrar justifi cación para un castigo severo –el tipo de castigo paradigmáticamente ligado a los delitos intencionales–pero fracasa porque el dolo eventual requiere que (...) exista conocimiento. En contraste con ello, sugiero que la ignorancia deliberada puede ser vista, en algunas situaciones, como una especifi cación del fraude de ley. Esta sería la razón por la que esta fi gura puede algunas veces parecer más grave que la imprudencia. (shrink)

Resumen La perspectiva hermenéutica tradicional para la lectura de un texto ha sido la de descubrir bajo los pliegues del conglomerado de símbolos las intenciones del autor. Pero en los años 60 del siglo XX tres pensadores franceses: Barthes, Foucault y Derrida, trataron de apostar por una hermenéutica en la que las intenciones del autor se redujeran a una interpretación más, sin superioridad alguna sobre otras posibles. Este texto no solo busca evidenciar la necesidad y ventajas de este proceso de (...) abandono de las intenciones del autor en la hermenéutica de la obra, proceso conocido como "la muerte del autor", sino que intenta mostrar que las vías que toman los autores en cuestión no son equivalentes, sino que, al evaluarlas individualmente, se nota que la postura de Derrida se presenta como la más adecuada para evitar la trivialización de la apuesta, aunque no por ello se halla exenta de nuevos problemas.The traditional hermeneutical perspective for reading a text has been to discover the author's intentions under the folds of the symbol cluster. But in the 60s of the twentieth century, three French thinkers: Barthes, Foucault and Derrida tried to bet on a hermeneutic where the author's intentions were reduced to one more interpretation, without any superiority over other possible ones. The present text not only seeks to demonstrate the need and advantages of this process of disregarding the author's intentions in the hermeneutics of the work, a process known as "the author's death", but also attempts to show that the paths taken by the authors in question they are not equivalent, but, when evaluating them individually, it is noted that Derrida's position is presented as the most appropriate to avoid trivializing the bet, although it is not exempt of new problems. (shrink)

Many pragmaticians have distinguished three levels of meaning involved in the comprehension of utterances, and there is an ongoing debate about how to characterize the intermediate level. Recanati has called it the level of 'what is said' and has opposed the idea that it can be determined semantically - a position that he labels 'pragmatic minimalism lo this end he has offered two chief arguments: semantic underdeterminacy and the Availability Principle. This paper exposes a tension between both arguments, relating this (...) discussion with Carruthers's cognitive view of language, according to which some thoughts are, literally, sentences of our natural language. First we explain how this view entails minimalism, and we construct an argument based on semantic underdeterminacy that shows that natural language sentences do not have the compositional properties required to constitute thoughts. Then we analyze the example of a subject's overhearing a sentence without an interpretive context, arguing that in the light of the Availability Principle the corresponding thought can be regarded as a natural language sentence. Thus, semantic underdeterminacy and availability pull in different directions, and we claim that there is no characterization of the latter that can relieve this tension. We contend that Recanati's availability shares with Carruthers's introspectivism an overreliance on intuitions about what appears consciously in one's mmd. We conclude, therefore, that the Availability Principle ought to be abandoned. (shrink)

Many pragmaticians have distinguished three levels of meaning involved in the comprehension of utterances, and there is an ongoing debate about how to characterize the intermediate level. Recanati has called it the level of `what is said' and has opposed the idea that it can be determined semantically — a position that he labels `pragmatic minimalism'. To this end he has offered two chief arguments: semantic underdeterminacy and the Availability Principle. This paper exposes a tension between both arguments, relating this (...) discussion with Carruthers's cognitive view of language, according to which some thoughts are, literally, sentences of our natural language. First we explain how this view entails minimalism, and we construct an argument based on semantic underdeterminacy that shows that natural language sentences do not have the compositional properties required to constitute thoughts. Then we analyze the example of a subject's overhearing a sentence without an interpretive context, arguing that in the light of the Availability Principle the corresponding thought can be regarded as a natural language sentence. Thus, semantic underdeterminacy and availability pull in different directions, and we claim that there is no characterization of the latter that can relieve this tension. We contend that Recanati's availability shares with Carruthers's introspectivism an overreliance on intuitions about what appears consciously in one's mind. We conclude, therefore, that the Availability Principle ought to be abandoned. (shrink)

I address the problem of the distinction between semantic and conceptual representations from general considerations about how to distinguish a representational kind. I consider three different ways of telling representational kinds apart – in terms of structure, processing and content – and I examine if semantic representations may constitute a distinct kind with respect to each of them. I argue that the best options for semantic representation to be regarded as a distinct representational kind with respect to each of the (...) three criteria conflict with each other, since it appears respectively as an atomic representation, as a sort of procedural rule or as a structured complex. (shrink)

Contextualist theorists have recently defended the views (a) that metaphor-processing can be treated on a par with other meaning changes, such as narrowing or transfer, and (b) that metaphorical contents enter into “what is said” by an utterance. We do not dispute claim (a) but consider that claim (b) is problematic. Contextualist theorists seem to leave in the hands of context the explanation about why it is that some meaning changes are directly processed, and thus plausibly form part of “what (...) is said”, while some others are not. While granting the role of context in this respect, we contend that there are that there are elements that play an instrumental role in providing direct access to the metaphorical content, namely, the conventionality of the expressions and the salience of the concepts involved. We will start by criticizing Recanati’s and Relevance Theory’s accounts of metaphor. Then we examine the claims of Carston’s and Giora’s two-process accounts that set the stage for a revision of the main elements involved, namely, the properties of conventionality and salience. Finally we examine a number of representative examples, explaining why some cases involve a direct access to the metaphorical content and others require an intermediate non-figurative interpretation. (shrink)

The systematicity argument only challenges connectionism if systematicity is a general property of cognition. I examine this thesis in terms of properties of concepts. First, I propose that Evans's Generality Constraint only applies to attributions of belief. Then I defend a variety of conceptual pluralism, arguing that concepts share two fundamental properties related to centrality and belief-attribution, and contending that there are two kinds of concepts that differ in their compositional properties. Finally, I rely on Dual Systems Theory and on (...) differences between animal and human cognition to suggest a scenario of two processing systems that work on different kinds of concepts, with only one of them supporting full systematicity. I sketch a non-classical systematicity argument that rules out classicism as the basis of one of those systems given that it would wrongly entail that both systems are fully systematic. (shrink)

We very often discover ourselves engaged in inner speech. It seems that this kind of silent, private, speech fulfils some role in our cognition, most probably related to conscious thinking. Yet, the study of inner speech has been neglected by philosophy and psychology alike for many years. However, things seem to have changed in the last two decades. Here we review some of the most influential accounts about the phenomenology and the functions of inner speech, as well as the methodological (...) problems that affect its study. (shrink)

¿Cómo se forma un sujeto político? En la herencia más antigua de la interrogación filosófica esta pregunta busca recuperar una actitud de asombro suscitada por prácticas diversas de relación consigo y con los otros en las que personas comunes y corrientes ponen en cuestión experiencias sedimentadas sobre el cuerpo y el género, así como fronteras establecidas entre lo natural y lo artificial, lo humano y lo animal, lo común y lo propio. Los artículos aquí reunidos apuntan a mostrar que para (...) pensar estas formas de agencia política es preciso atender a una dimensión amplia de la estética que se refiere al modo en que la materialidad sensorial de la experiencia compartida se ha conformado históricamente y a cómo esta, dada su contingencia, puede reconfigurarse desde ciertas prácticas cotidianas: prácticas de elaboración de sí y de organización colectiva que crean otros escenarios y otras maneras de aparición de los cuerpos, y con esto estrategias de confrontación y antagonismo que atraviesan y afectan lo social. Así, ¿Cómo se forma un sujeto político? es un esfuerzo colectivo de franca resistencia contra la estrechez desde el cual se nos tiende a hacer pensar la política: bien sea desde una política consensual liberal que acaba por neutralizar las diferencias más intratables de nuestra pluralidad, bien sea desde el realismo de una política conflictual y guerrera que funciona desde la polaridad amigo-enemigo. El lector podrá explorar y profundizar, desde otro ángulo, las apuestas epistemológicas, éticas y políticas que resuenan en estas prácticas artísticas y de acción colectiva que nos enseñan hoy, más allá de los paradigmas del "ciudadano" o del "actor racional", cómo se hace un sujeto político. (shrink)

El trabajo pretende mostrar que la expansión de la dogmática, sobre todo en el discurso penal, representa un desafío al legislador y cuál es el precio que debemos pagar por ello. La dogmática, al igual que la legislación, necesita ofrecer al juez pautas precisas que sirvan para delimitar las decisiones correctas y, en ese mismo sentido, identificar a las que se consideran arbitrarias. Sólo bajo este supuesto la dogmática contribuye a lograr decisiones más previsibles. La dificultad radica en que la (...) búsqueda de precisión puede limitar la arbitrariedad de los órganos de aplicación, pero, a la vez, la precisión introduce distinciones arbitrarias. En ciertos casos la arbitrariedad se produce por la indeterminación que generan las normas imprecisas y en otros casos, la arbitrariedad consiste en que al aplicar normas precisas, los funcionarios se apartan de las razones que justifican a esas normas. El desafío para la dogmática es mostrar que su contribución a la racionalidad puede superar a las que elabora el legislador. Es decir, debe mostrar por qué sus normas pueden tener éxito donde el legislador, por cuestiones conceptuales, inevitablemente fracasa. Los autores de este trabajo sostienen que la incorporación de normas dogmáticas en el horizonte de justificación de las decisiones no solo posee las mismas dificultades conceptuales que las del legislador sino que sus soluciones compiten con otras justificaciones formales, e.g. normas legisladas y, con frecuencia, suponen una tensión entre las palabras de la ley y lo que los dogmáticos dicen que dice el legislador. (shrink)

Este artículo ofrece un análisis y un comentario general de los dieciséis estudios que componen el libro compilado por Enrique Hülsz Piccone, Nuevos ensayos sobre Heráclito, el último compendio de investigaciones sobre la filosofía del Oscuro de Efe so, donde se reúnen las actas del Segundo Symposium Heracliteum celebrado en junio de 2006 en la Facultad de Filosofía y Letras de la UNAM, ocasión en la que algunos de los especialistas más reconocidos de la comunidad internacional se reunieron para presentar (...) sus trabajos sobre Heráclito. This article aims to analyze and discuss the sixteen studies that compose the book edited by Enrique Hülsz Piccone, Nuevos ensayos sobre Heráclito, which is the latest compendium of studies on the philosophy of the Obscure of Ephesus. This volume gathers the proceedings of the Second Symposium Heracliteum held in June 2006 at the Facultad de Filosofía y Letras, UNAM, where some of the most renowned specialists of the international community came together to present their work on Heraclitus. (shrink)