Este comentario se centra en el primer capítulo de Abductive Reasoning (2006), donde Aliseda ofrece nuevas herramien-tas conceptuales para examinar los modelos metodológicos que trazan una distinción de contextos en la investigación científica. Elucidamos la posición de Popper frente al problema del descubrimiento y distinguimos dos sentidos en que deliberadamente utiliza ‘discovery’ en su LSD (1959), distinción que permite reforzar la heterodoxa interpretación que hace Aliseda de la metodología popperiana. Por último, nos detenemos en la comparación entre Popper y Simon (...) frente a la “lógica del descubrimiento”, ya que condensa las razones por las que Aliseda considera que la dicotomía descubrimiento-justificación está destinada al fracaso.This brief commentary focuses on the first chapter of Abductive Reasoning (2006), where Aliseda offers new conceptual tools for examining the methodological models in which a distinction between contexts of scientific research is traced. In particular, we analyze Popper’s position with respect to the problem of discovery and distinguish two different senses in which he deliberately uses the term ‘discovery’ in LSD (1959); this, in turn, lends support to Aliseda’s heterodox interpretation of the Popperian methodology. Last, we examine the comparison the author makes between Popper and Simon as it contains the primary reasons for asserting that the discovery-justification dichotomy is doomed to failure. (shrink)

Criticisms of the “container” model of pregnancy picturing female and embryo as separate entities multiply in various philosophical and scientific contexts during the last decades. In this paper, we examine how this model underlies received views of pregnancy in evolutionary biology, in the characterization of the transition from oviparity to viviparity in mammals and in the selectionist explanations of pregnancy as an evolutionary strategy. In contrast, recent evo-devo studies on eutherian reproduction, including the role of inflammation and new maternal cell (...) types, gather evidence in favor of considering pregnancy as an evolved relational novelty. Our thesis is that from this perspective we can identify the emergence of a newhistoricalindividual in evolution. In evo-devo, historical units are conceptualized as evolved entities which fulfill two main criteria, their continuous persistence and their non-exchangeability. As pregnancy can be individuated in this way, we contend that pregnant females are historical individuals. We argue that historical individuality differs from, and coexists with, other views of biological individuality as applied to pregnancy (the physiological, the evolutionary and the ecological one), but brings forward an important new insight which might help dissolve misguided conceptions. (shrink)

We address the question of whether and to what extent explanatory and modelling strategies in systems biology are mechanistic. After showing how dynamic mathematical models are actually required for mechanistic explanations of complex systems, we caution readers against expecting all systems biology to be about mechanistic explanations. Instead, the aim may be to generate topological explanations that are not standardly mechanistic, or to arrive at design principles that explain system organization and behaviour in general, but not specific mechanisms. These abstraction (...) strategies serve various aims, including prediction and control, that are central to understanding the epistemic diversity of systems biology. (shrink)

La sostenibilidad ambiental está relacionada directamente con el ciclo del agua y las intervenciones del hombre sobre el mismo, tanto en su extracción, uso y eliminación. La conservación del suelo y la vegetación dependen invariablemente del impacto acumulado de este proceso. La perspectiva de un cambio climático mayor, con el subsecuente aumento de las temperaturas en el planeta, implica transformaciones radicales en el ciclo del agua, y por ende, en su disponibilidad y utilización. Para ello se hace imperioso mejorar radicalmente (...) el ahorro del agua, aumentando al mismo tiempo los sistemas de depuración y eficiencia en el regadío. La autora propone una seria de medidas en esta dirección. (shrink)

"This handbook is currently in development, with individual articles publishing online in advance of print publication. At this time, we cannot add information about unpublished articles in this handbook, however the table of contents will continue to grow as additional articles pass through the review process and are added to the site. Please note that the online publication date for this handbook is the date that the first article in the title was published online. For more information, please read the (...) site FAQs." -- website. (shrink)

Este trabajo se centra en la acción dialógica y comunicativa entre las personas con la intención de mejorar su educación. Para ello se ha adaptado el formato de las tertulias literarias dialógicas al contenido de las obras musicales. Los principales objetivos han sido: desarrollar las competencias comunicativa, lingüística y musical a través del diálogo interactivo; aumentar el grado de motivación e incrementar la cultura musical de los futuros docentes hacia la música clásica. Se combina una metodología cualitativa con cuantitativa y (...) el método investigación-acción. La muestra han sido 136 estudiantes, futuros docentes en formación. Los principales resultados ofrecen datos positivos. (shrink)

The notion of fitness is usually equated to reproductive success. However, this actualist approach presents some difficulties, mainly the explanatory circularity problem, which have lead philosophers of biology to offer alternative definitions in which fitness and reproductive success are distinguished. In this paper, we argue that none of these alternatives is satisfactory and, inspired by Mumford and Anjum’s dispositional theory of causation, we offer a definition of fitness as a causal dispositional property. We argue that, under this framework, the distinctiveness (...) that biologists usually attribute to fitness—namely, the fact that fitness is something different from both the physical traits of an organism and the number of offspring it leaves—can be explained, and the main problems associated with the concept of fitness can be solved. Firstly, we introduce Mumford and Anjum's dispositional theory of causation and present our definition of fitness as a causal disposition. We explain in detail each of the elements involved in our definition, namely: the relationship between fitness and the functional dispositions that compose it, the emergent character of fitness, and the context-sensitivity of fitness. Finally, we explain how fitness and realized fitness, as well as expected and realized fitness are distinguished in our approach to fitness as a causal disposition. (shrink)

Lo más necesario, difícil, e incluso rentable es la educación. Ésta es la clave para avanzar juntos en humanidad y la oportunidad nueva que tenemos cada día. Este artículo se escribe celebrando el I Centenario de la Institución Teresiana, fundada por el "pedagogo y humanista español" Pedro Poveda, sacerdote y santo.

This paper reflects on quality assessment and performance evaluation in higher education, namely by analysing the insufficient link between those two aspects. We start by reviewing the current state of the art regarding different processes and mechanisms of quality assessment and performance evaluation and discuss some of the major issues regarding the implementation of some of them. In particular, we analyse the current limitations regarding data collected, available and publicised on the performance of HEIs and the problems those limitations bring (...) to a fair evaluation of higher education. Through this analysis we intend to contribute to a better understanding of the mechanisms of evaluation in higher education and the way these may lead to the promotion of better quality assessment practices and institutional management. (shrink)

What is knowledge? What, if anything, can we know? In Knowing and Seeing, Michael Ayers recovers the insight in the traditional distinction between knowledge and belief, according to which 'knowledge' stems from direct and perspicuous cognitive contact with ('seeing') its object, whereas 'belief' relies on 'extraneous' justification. He conducts a careful phenomenological analysis of what it is to perceive one's environment as one's environment, the result of which is not only direct realism, but recognition that in being perceptually aware of (...) anything we are at the same time perceptually aware of how we are aware of it. Perceptual knowing comes with knowing how you know. Some other forms of knowledge are similarly direct and perspicuous, but not all; a distinction is accordingly drawn between primary and secondary knowledge, and Ayers argues that no secondary knowledge is possible without some primary knowledge. Perceptual knowledge supplies the paradigm to which other cases of knowledge are diversely analogous - hence the notorious difficulty of defining knowledge. These conclusions, supported by a detailed examination of the relations between different grammatical constructions in which 'know', 'believe' and 'see' occur, fuel extended critiques of two lines of thought influential in contemporary epistemology: John McDowell's conceptualist and intellectualist account of perceptual knowledge, and Fred Dretske's 'externalist' employment of sceptical argument. Ayers unpicks the arguments for these other views, explains the failure of recent attempts at a comprehensive definition of knowledge, explores the tight relation between knowledge and certainty, and gives an account of how 'defeasibility' should and should not be understood in epistemology. (shrink)

A literatura infantil encontra-se povoada de personagens femininas como figuras centrais de narrativas, algumas delas, famosas e populares. A partir de 1980, surgiram autores que apresentam obras de reconhecido valor estético, nas quais personagens femininas mirins têm um lugar de destaque. Fala-se, por exemplo, de Isabel (Bel), personagem narradora da obra Bisa Bia, Bisa Bel (1981), de Ana Maria Machado, que percorre um caminho rumo à autonomia. O presente trabalho volta-se para a representação de um sujeito feminino que, ainda em (...) tenra idade, consegue estabelecer um diálogo entre épocas diferentes, apresentando visões diversas da mulher, uma antiga, Bisa Bia, típica do século XIX, e outra, Bel, moderna, independente, do fim do século XX. (shrink)

At first glance, freedom and coercion, or constraint, appear to be clearcut oppositions. However, in many contexts we find that the two are closely interwoven. Freedom and coercion then rather resemble a continuum: Without notice, elements of freedom resurface as forces of - or preconditions for - constraint and vice versa. Thus, sometimes the two mutually reinforce each other, while at other times they tend to undermine the other. This volume comprehensively explores the complex relationship between the elements and powers (...) of freedom and coercion in various contexts and from various perspectives. It is structured in four systematic sections: I Politics and economy, II. Institutions and personal life, III. Physiological aspects, IV. Aesthetic contexts. Der Band durchleuchtet das keineswegs einfach oppositive Verhältnis von Freiheit und Zwang, wie es sich seit der Formierung der Moderne in der Aufklärung entwickelt hat - politisch, philosophisch, anthropologisch, ästhetisch. Freiheit und Zwang stellen nur auf den ersten Blick binäre Gegensätze dar. Das eine kann graduell und oft unmerklich in das andere übergehen, und beide sind ohne das jeweils andere nicht denkbar. Häufig stehen Freiheit und Zwang in einem - negativen oder positiven - dialektischen Verhältnis zueinander, in dem sie sich gegenseitig bedingen und steigern oder aber unterminieren. Oder sind Freiheit und Zwang in der Moderne sogar zunehmend ununterscheidbar geworden? Der Band verleiht diesem schillernden Vexierbild in vier Abteilungen Ordnung und Struktur: I. Politik und Ökonomie, II. Institutionen und Lebensführung, III. Physiologische Dimensionen, IV. Ästhetische Verhandlungen. (shrink)

Se evaluó la autorregulación en estudiantes de nuevo ingreso en una licenciatura en psicología en línea. Se adaptó y aplicó el Inventario de Estilos de Aprendizaje y Orientación Motivacional de Castañeda y Ortega a una muestra de 204 estudiantes encontrando que la edad se relaciona con la eficacia percibida, la aprobación externa y el manejo de materiales de estudio. Palabras clave: autorregulación, educación en línea, educación superior, estrategias de aprendizaje, motivación.