The article presents a review of the role of language in Hobbes’ s philosophy and its relantionship with the nominalism of Occam. The article examines the relation of words with objects and finishes with a criticism of nominalism for its instrumental use of language and its confusion of logic with truth.El artículo presenta una revisión del rol del lenguaje en la filosofía de Hobbes y su relación con el nominalismo de Occam. El artículo examina la relación de las palabras con (...) los objetos y finaliza con una crítica al nominalismo por su uso instrumental del lenguaje y su confusión de la lógica con la verdad. (shrink)

1. Conocer y sentir arte abstracto y arte sacro.--2. La integración, tarea del hombre actual, colaboración e investigación.

El artículo analiza la cristología de Thomas Hobbes con el propósito de entender una de las principales causas de su descrito como un pensador cristiano o, incluso, ateo, lo que afecta eventualmente la validez de su teología política. El autor sostiene que si bien Hobbes hace uso de la Biblia como fundamento de su filosofía política, su recepción del cristianismo en general no es enteramente correcta, debido a que está fuertemente influenciada por su decisión política en favor del absolutismo. Esta (...) posición política lo lleva a escoger textos ad-hoc que apoyan su teoría y a rechazar otros que no lo hacen, dejando así fuera importantes aspectos del cristianismo, uno de los cuales, el más central, es la naturaleza de Jesucristo como Dios-hombre y la interpretación contractualista del federalismo judío. El artículo hace uso de estudios de reconocidos investigadores (Elazar, Pangle, Kraynak, Ratzinger entre otros) y el autor concluye que Hobbes exhibe una visión reduccionista del cristianismo que influye en su teología política. (shrink)

Este artículo presenta la cuestión de si las creencias religiosas son o no razonables, es decir, si tienen o no una evidencia razonable que las sustente. El interés no es comprobar la existencia de Dios, sino simplemente saber si el lenguaje religioso como tal tiene o no sentido. Para esto, primero veremos la concepción de la creencia en general. A continuación, trataremos las creencias religiosas bajo dos puntos de vistas totalmente opuestos: por un lado, se expondrá la posición de autores (...) que dicen que las creencias religiosas sí tienen una evidencia razonable que las sustenta y, por otro, nos encontraremos con autores que afirman que dichas creencias no pueden ser justificadas racionalmente porque lo espiritual refiere el ámbito de lo indecible, en el cual no es factible afirmar que los enunciados religiosos son apropiados a ser verdaderos o falsos. (shrink)

The current study examined the effects of an intervention aimed at blocking the transfer of frustration from a previous experience (i.e. recall task) to a subsequent and unrelated task (i.e. ultimatum bargaining task). Participants who went through the intervention were more likely to accept unfair offers in the ultimatum bargaining task than those who did not go through the intervention. These results show that participants who were blocked from transferring their feelings of frustration from the recall task to the subsequent (...) bargaining task (no-transfer condition) more likely accepted unfair offers than those who inadvertently transferred their feelings of frustration (transfer condition). The effect of conditions on accept-reject decisions in the ultimatum bargaining was mediated by reported feelings of frustration. (shrink)

This article inquires whether or not religious beliefs are rational, that is to say, whether or not they can be rationally sustained. The point of the article is not to prove the existence of God, but rather simply to show whether or not religious language has real meaning. To do this, we shall examine the concept of belief in general. Then we shall look at religious beliefs in particular from two opposing points of view: on the one hand, from the (...) position of authors who claim that religious beliefs can in fact be sustained by rational evidence, and on the other hand, from the perspective of other authors who affirm that these beliefs cannot be rationally justified, because spiritual discourse refers to the ineffable, which deprives it of the means to verify or deny its propositions. (shrink)

BackgroundReflexive pitch perturbation experiments are commonly used to investigate the neural mechanisms underlying vocal motor control. In these experiments, the fundamental frequency–the acoustic correlate of pitch–of a speech signal is shifted unexpectedly and played back to the speaker via headphones in near real-time. In response to the shift, speakers increase or decrease their fundamental frequency in the direction opposing the shift so that their perceived pitch is closer to what they intended. The goal of the current work is to develop (...) a quantitative model of responses to reflexive perturbations that can be interpreted in terms of the physiological mechanisms underlying the response and that captures both group-mean data and individual subject responses.MethodsA model framework was established that allowed the specification of several models based on Proportional-Integral-Derivative and State-Space/Directions Into Velocities of Articulators (DIVA) model classes. The performance of 19 models was compared in fitting experimental data from two published studies. The models were evaluated in terms of their ability to capture both population-level responses and individual differences in sensorimotor control processes.ResultsA three-parameter DIVA model performed best when fitting group-mean data from both studies; this model is equivalent to a single-rate state-space model and a first-order low pass filter model. The same model also provided stable estimates of parameters across samples from individual subject data and performed among the best models to differentiate between subjects. The three parameters correspond to gains in the auditory feedback controller’s response to a perceived error, the delay of this response, and the gain of the somatosensory feedback controller’s “resistance” to this correction. Excellent fits were also obtained from a four-parameter model with an additional auditory velocity error term; this model was better able to capture multi-component reflexive responses seen in some individual subjects.ConclusionOur results demonstrate the stereotyped nature of an individual’s responses to pitch perturbations. Further, we identified a model that captures population responses to pitch perturbations and characterizes individual differences in a stable manner with parameters that relate to underlying motor control capabilities. Future work will evaluate the model in characterizing responses from individuals with communication disorders. (shrink)

In _Time’s Causal Power_, Antonio Vargas explains how Proclus (412-485 C.E.) developed the unique theory that time is a cause and a god, the world’s first unmoved mover by addressing Aristotle’s criticisms of Plato’s claim that time is a change.

In this paper, we draw on developmental findings to provide a nuanced understanding of background emotions, particularly those in depression. We demonstrate how they reflect our basic proximity (feeling of interpersonal connectedness) to others and defend both a phenomenological and a functional claim. First, we substantiate a conjecture by Fonagy & Target (International Journal of Psychoanalysis 88(4):917–937, 2007) that an important phenomenological aspect of depression is the experiential recreation of the infantile loss of proximity to significant others. Second, we argue (...) that proximity has a particular cognitive function that allows individuals to morph into a cohesive dyadic system able to carry out distributed emotion regulation. We show that elevated levels of psychological suffering connected to depressive background emotions may be explained not only in terms of a psychological loss, but also as the felt inability to enter into dyadic regulatory relations with others—an experiential constraint that decreases the individual’s ability to adapt to demanding situations. (shrink)

The only test theory used by workers in the field of testing special relativity to analyze the significance of their experiments is the proof by H. P. Robertson [Rev. Mod. Phys. 21, 378 (1949)] of the Lorentz transformations from the results of the experimental evidence. Some researchers would argue that the proof contains an unwarranted assumption disguised as a convention about synchronization procedures. Others would say that alternative conventions are possible. In the present paper, no convention is used, but the (...) Lorentz transformations are still obtained using only the results of the experiments in Robertson's proof, namely the Michelson-Morley, Kennedy-Thorndike, and Ives-Stilwell experiments. Thus the revised proof is a valid test theory which is independent of any conventions, since one appeals only to the experimental evidence. The analysis of that evidence shows the directions in which efforts to test special relativity should go. Finally it is shown how the resulting test theory still has to be improved for consistency in the analysis of experiments with complicated experimental setups, how it can be simplified for expediency as to what should be tested, and how it should be completed for a missing step not considered by Robertson. (shrink)

La Iglesia de América Latina y el Caribe recibe del Concilio Vaticano II una fuerza crítica y profética, que se evidencia en la Segunda Conferencia del Episcopado, reunida en Medellín, en 1968. A partir de la originalidad propia de nuestra amerindia, este Concilio se asume, integra y traduce para vivir su inspiración y derroteros fundamentales. La iglesia de la que somos testigos hoy, 50 años después de Medellín, se ha entretejido desde allí. Prueba fehaciente de ello, en este continente, son (...) aquellas comunidades que testimonian a una iglesia liberadora y misericordiosa, nazarena y samaritana, una iglesia que es pueblo de Dios y de los pobres, una iglesia comunitaria de comunidades y, siempre, en salida. Comunidades que han trabajado en aras de la paz, la justicia y la dignidad de todos; en una búsqueda y respuesta real de organización, de lucha ante la opresión y explotación de cualquier orden. (shrink)

Our focus in this article concerns Leibniz’s views on evil. Our goal is to examine which are the consequences of his conception of moral agency for the moral psychology of the genuinely evil person. For Leibniz, moral failure is an epistemic error since it involves some false practical judgement. Moral maxims may be represented in blind or symbolic cognitions, but then moral agents can misrepresent the evil consequences of their behaviour. Finally, we discuss Leibniz’s view on habits that may help (...) virtuous persons strive for perfection but also enable evil persons to continue sinning. (shrink)

Between the mid-1960s and the early 1970s, the quotidian dimension took political centrality in Japan thanks to the leading role of the New Left movement and its ideology. This went hand in hand with an appreciation of the philosophical approaches of Marxist intellectuals such as Jun Tosaka and Gorō Hani, who saw the quotidian as a fundamental space for historical transformation. We know how Tosaka and Hani developed an everyday-centred philosophy of history through their writings, but we know little about (...) how formats other than the written word – such as cinema – contributed to thinking historical reality from the same ideological approach. To address this gap in our understanding, this article analyses the intersection of two highly representative films with Tosaka and Hani’s historical thought: Secrets Within Walls ( Kabe no naka no himegoto, Kōji Wakamatsu, 1965) and Ceremonies ( Gishiki, Nagisa Ōshima, 1971). These films’ cinematic allegorisation of post-war Japan’s everyday relationships was a way to reflect on the political character of that period. (shrink)

It is sometimes instructive to reflect on a problem as it appeared before our current philosophical presumptions became ingrained. In this context, Maurice Mandelbaum’s “Determinism and Moral Responsibility” is of particular interest. Published in 1960, it appeared only a few years before the wave of work that gave us much of our contemporary understanding of moral responsibility, free will, and determinism. Mandelbaum’s account repays reconsideration. Mandelbaum argues that (1) there is an underappreciated threat to “determinist” or compatibilist accounts of responsibility, (...) and (2) this threat can be met with a suitable compatibilist account of the etiology of action. (shrink)

This article presents a case that former President of the United States Donald Trump was a tyrant-like leader in the mold of the tyrant in Plato’s Republic. While he does not perfectly embody the tyrant as presented in the Republic, he captures its core feature. Like the tyrant, Trump is driven by unregulated desires that reflect what Plato describes as an extreme freedom that underlies and threatens democratic regimes. Extreme freedom is manifested in Trump’s disregard for social and legal norms, (...) which mirrors the lawlessness of the tyrant. The people, in turn, interpret that posture as a mark of authenticity. Understanding Trump’s appeal in the United States helps alert friends of democracy to the possible rise of tyrant-like figures. In closing, and as a way of remedying the harm done by the tyrannical soul, the article recommends that society help temper tyrant-like passions in the people through a rededication to civic equality. (shrink)