This paper aims to analyze Jürgen Habermas’s critique of liberal eugenics and why it should be stopped. For this purpose, the concept of liberal eugenics, its features and goals, postmetaphysics in Habermas’s philosophy, will be exposed, as well as the notions of Körper and Leib, which are three key elements that the philosopher presents to articulate his critique. Next, the importance of the naturalness of birth and reciprocal relations between individuals, and how they can be affected by genetic modifications, will (...) be explored to finally expose the measurements that Habermas proposes against the effects and consequences of genetic engineering. (shrink)

Background: In an unprecedented situation of interruption of the sporting dynamics, the world of sport is going through a series of adaptations necessary to continue functioning despite coronavirus disease 2019. More than ever, athletes are facing a different challenge, a source of discomfort and uncertainty, and one that absolutely alters not only sports calendars, but also trajectories, progressions, and approaches to sports life. Therefore, it is necessary to identify the levels of psychological vulnerability that may have been generated in the (...) athletes, because of the coexistence with dysfunctional responses during the COVID-19 experience, and which directly influence the decrease of their mental health.Methods: With a descriptive and transversal design, the study aims to identify the state of the dysfunctional psychological response of a sample of Spanish athletes. The DASS-21, Toronto-20, and Distress Tolerance Scale questionnaires were administered to a sample of high-level Spanish athletes in Olympic programs.Results: The results suggest that the analyzed athletes indicate high levels of dysfunctional response when their tolerance is low. In addition, the variables show less relational strength, when the capacity of tolerance to distress is worse and age is lower. At the same time, the greater the anxiety and uncertainty are, leading to more catastrophic and negative thoughts, the younger the athletes are.Conclusions: It is clear that both age and tolerance to distress are considered adequate protective factors for psychological vulnerability in general and for associated dysfunctional responses in particular. Moreover, the psychological resources offered by more experienced athletes are also a guarantee of protection against negativity and catastrophism. (shrink)

Neuroscience research has shown that meditation practices have effects on brain structure and function. However, few studies have combined information on the effects on structure and function in the same sample. Long-term daily meditation practice produces repeated activity of specific brain networks over years of practice, which may induce lasting structural and functional connectivity changes within relevant circuits. The aim of our study was therefore to identify differences in FC during the resting state between 23 Sahaja Yoga Meditation experts and (...) 23 healthy participants without meditation experience. Seed-based FC analysis was performed departing from voxels that had shown structural differences between these same participants. The contrast of connectivity maps yielded that meditators showed increased FC between the left ventrolateral prefrontal cortex and the right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex but reduced FC between the left insula and the bilateral mid-cingulate as well as between the right angular gyrus and the bilateral precuneus/cuneus cortices. It thus appears that long-term meditation practice increases direct FC between ventral and dorsal frontal regions within brain networks related to attention and cognitive control and decreases FC between regions of these networks and areas of the default mode network. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The Knock at the Door: Utopian Dreams for Post-Covid TimesPedro Mora-Ramírez, María Amo-Hernández, and Paula García-RodríguezAnswering the Knock at the Door, Welcoming Utopian Futures, The Knock at the Door: Utopian Dreams for Post-Covid Times, May 21–24, 2023, University of Huelva, Spain, and University of Calgary, CanadaThe COVID-19 pandemic has fostered new adversities and vulnerabilities, prompting reflection on the economic, social, and political paradigms that endanger human and (...) nonhuman lives. For many, it was anxiety and uncertainty that “knock[ed] at the door”; for others, however, those same feelings of unease prompted one of hopefulness: reflecting on the possibilities for resilience and regeneration in the process of changing our vision of the world.1 The Knock at the Door conference brought contemporary utopianism to the forefront of thinking about how to respond to global crises while remaining attentive to other adversities of daily life. Scholars and artists answered the knock in an attempt to examine paths toward utopia, and to take advantage of the regenerative and resilient potential of the present.The conference was the culmination of author/activist Larissa Lai’s fellowship period at the University of Huelva. The 2022–23 María Zambrano Fellowship for the academic year2 allowed Lai to complete the project “Utopian Dreams for Post-Covid Times,” carried out in collaboration with the Huelva research group led by Professor Pilar Cuder-Domínguez, who hosted a number of online and in-person seminars on speculative fiction with Lai. The Knock at the Door conference, marking the end of Lai’s fellowship, created yet another space for scholars, artists, and critics to discuss the potential of utopian narratives. Lai asks: “What does our cultural moment require, and how can we get where we need to go from where we are? How can literature, especially speculative fiction literature, help us get from here to there?”3 [End Page 641] The intention of the conference was to encourage others to continue Lai’s work on how to imagine futures where human and posthuman beings need to remain vigilant to adversities. Utopian scholars, among others, might find the complications of “getting there from here” closely related to Lai’s conception of “insurgent utopias,” or “emergent insurgency.” They could find Lai’s concept of “insurgent utopianism” interesting as it lays the foundations of futurity in terms of crisis responses.The aim of the conference was to explore the imagination of better futures through utopian thinking and practice. In addition, it focused on “the knock at the door,” which is “a moment of contingent arrival... open to cooptation, destruction, bastardization, incorporation, death, or defusal.” Yet, it presents “the powerful possibility of critique—narratively or discursively, in its very materiality.”4 One way of doing this might be to look back at the past century of utopianism and ask who or what has been missing. The conference took up Lai’s idea of insurgent utopianism as a method of paving a path toward a multitude of dreams and actions, all shaped by the unique circumstances of one’s positionality.After the COVID-19 pandemic, the need for utopian thinking has become more pressing than ever. New horizons of hope must be created in the face of emerging anxieties. In a world where anthropocentrism is showing signs of its deadly potential, conference participants reflected on the relevance of the utopian imagination to political resistance and resilience building.Utopian Visions: Contesting Better Worlds in Neoliberal and Feminist UtopiasThe first two panels of the conference addressed the critique of two dominant theoretical (and interrelated) frameworks: capitalism and neoliberalism. Speakers reflected on both in light of theoretical interventions by theorists Rosi Braidotti and Francesca Ferrando. Panelists Benjamin Ghan and Marc Lynch reflected on how creative writers envision ideal worlds and temporalities. In Ghan’s view, utopian narratives create a symphony of voices historically excluded from the category of “the human”: women; LGBTQ+ people; Indigenous peoples. In a similar vein, Lynch described his own novel, A Wasp’s Waist, as highlighting the impossibility of imagining utopias within the capitalist paradigm—and thus the necessity of imagining futures beyond capitalism, and beyond... (shrink)

Different approaches have been proposed in order to achieve knowledge integration for coronary care monitoring applications, usually in the form of expert systems. The clinical impact of these expert systems, which are based only on "shallow" knowledge, has not been remarkable due to the difficulties associated with the construction and maintenance of a complete knowledge base. Model-based systems represent an alternative to these problems because they allow efficient integration of the "deep" knowledge on the underlying physiological phenomena being monitored. In (...) this work, a brief review of existing model-based systems for cardiac rhythm interpretation is presented, followed by the description of a new system forCardiac Arrhythmia Recognition by Model-Based ECG Matching (CARMEM). Fundamental characteristics of CARMEM are presented; in particular, its ability to provide on-line parameter adaptation to simulate complex rhythms and to match observed ECG signals. The proposed model can be useful for the explanation of the origin of cardiac arrhythmias and contribute towards their robust characterization in the context of coronary care units. (shrink)

En este artículo se realiza una reflexión de carácter filosófico sobre el fenómeno de la especialización centrado en las ciencias naturales. Trataremos los siguientes aspectos del fenómeno de la especialización: 1. El contexto en el que se empieza a hacer notable el fenómeno de la especialización, ligado al proceso de profesionalización que se produjo en la ciencia en la segunda mitad del siglo XIX. 2. La conceptualización del fenómeno de la especialización a través del concepto de jerarquía y las ventajas (...) y limitaciones de esta propuesta. 3. El problema de la fiabilidad de los especialistas. 4. La forma cómo se imparte el conocimiento científico cuando se inscribe en un proceso de especialización. Y, finalmente, 5. Algunas consecuencias negativas del proceso de especialización. (shrink)

We present a distributed control modeling approach for an automated manufacturing system based on the dynamics of one-dimensional cellular automata. This is inspired by the fact that both cellular automata and manufacturing systems are discrete dynamical systems where local interactions given among their elements can lead to complex dynamics, despite the simple rules governing such interactions. The cellular automaton model developed in this study focuses on two states of the resources of a manufacturing system, namely, busy or idle. However, the (...) interaction among the resources such as whether they are shared at different stages of the manufacturing process determines the global dynamics of the system. A procedure is shown to obtain the local evolution rule of the automaton based on the relationships among the resources and the material flow through the manufacturing process. The resulting distributed control of the manufacturing system appears to be heterarchical, and the evolution of the cellular automaton exhibits a Class II behavior for some given disordered initial conditions. (shrink)

En más de 100 conflictos bélicos que se han producido en los últimos diez años, más del 80 por ciento de las víctimas son civiles. Se ha producido un desarrollo acelerado en las investigaciones concernientes a las consecuencias psico-sociales de la guerra en la población civil, la cual es el blanco principal de las víctimas en la guerra contemporánea. Este trabajo constituye una revisión bibliográfica sobre la guerra como desastre, acerca de los conceptos “modernos” de “guerra total”, desastre y las (...) consecuencias psicológicas de la guerra en la población civil, la utilización de los niños como soldados lo cual acarrea desórdenes mentales marcados y se aborda el problema de la violencia sexual como arma de guerra. Las mujeres, las jóvenes, e incluso niñas, son a menudo sometidas, violadas, secuestradas y forzadas a la esclavitud sexual o cualquier tipo de abuso sexual; son vejadas, humilladas y dañadas en lo más profundo de sus sentimientos psicológicos, y valores morales, lo que también trasciende al grupo social, comunidad, clase social o etnia a la que pertenecen. El deterioro o la destrucción de la infraestructura económica, social y política de las naciones en conflicto impide la atención de las necesidades básicas de la población. El trastorno por estrés postraumático es la entidad nosológica más frecuente en las víctimas de la guerra, pero existen otros trastornos mentales que hay que tener en cuenta In over 100 war conflicts that have occurred in the last 10 years, m ore than 80 percent of the victims were civilians. The scope of recent studies has been increasingly focused on psychological and social effects among civilians who are the target and main victims of contemporary wars. This article is an explanation of why war is considered a disaster, a revision of modern terms for war, disaster and the psychological effects of war on civilians, the training of children as soldiers, and the resulting mental disorders. It touches upon sexual violence problem as a war weapon. Women, adolescents and young children are often violated and forced into sexual slavery or any other type of sexual abuse, causing humiliation and psychological, ethical and moral damage, which can affect social groups, communities, social classes, or races. The deterioration or destruction of the economic, social and political infrastructure of the countries in conflict hinders the satisfaction of the citizens' basic needs. The most common psychological effect among war victims is posttraumatic stress, but there are also other mental disorders which must be taken into consideration. (shrink)

Esta obra se concentra en cuatro temas cruciales de la formación de docentes, tanto antes como durante el servicio y en la enseñanza en diferentes áreas y niveles educativos. En primer lugar, se aborda el asunto de las creencias que los docentes tienen sobre el proceso educativo, las cuales parecen influir en la práctica profesional que estos desarrollan y, por lo tanto, deberían recibir la atención explícita de los procesos de formación de docentes que deseen promover prácticas específicas. El segundo (...) tema de la obra es la relación entre la formación de docentes y la política pública que la rige. En particular, se analizan las reformas curriculares implementadas por varias licenciaturas en universidades privadas colombianas, en respuesta a reformas a la normatividad sobre las condiciones de calidad que a las que deben ajustarse todas las licenciaturas del país. El tercer tema analizado es en qué medida los docentes en educación superior van más allá del dominio de su saber disciplinar atribuyendo importancia a la pedagogía, la didáctica y la práctica reflexiva en su propia práctica docente. Finalmente, se discuten aspectos de la formación de docentes relacionados con los procesos vividos y los retos encontrados por los docentes al entrar en la profesión, su socialización en la comunidad docente, sus identidades como maestros y su motivación para ser docentes. Vale la pena señalar que las contribuciones a este libro comparten el uso de metodologías cualitativas y presentan los resultados de historias de vida, entrevistas, observaciones, y análisis documentales, entre otros. (shrink)

En este artículo se analiza la prestación de los servicios públicos domiciliarios de manera eficiente y oportuna como pilar fundamental en cumplimiento de los fines del Estado social de derecho, así como la función del Presidente de la República de ejercer control, inspección y vigilancia de las entidades prestadoras, a través de la Superintendencia de Servicios Públicos Domiciliarios, la cual está facultada para imponer sanciones a quienes violen las normas a las cuales están sujetas como manifestación de intervención del Estado (...) en la economía; y se finaliza con el estudio del alcance de aplicar el principio de proporcionalidad en las sanciones administrativas del derecho de los servicios públicos domiciliarios, visto como límite del poder punitivo del Estado y como mecanismo para evitar la toma de decisiones arbitrarias. (shrink)

Život -- Nepolitická politika -- Charta 77 -- Intelektual a politika -- Filosof a politika -- Politický realismus: pravda, reflexe a bída -- Morálka, slušnost a etika štědrosti -- Pravá politika -- Dodatek: Filosofie, víra a teologie.

Este artículo fue publicado originalmente como Jean Héring. De Max Scheler à Hans Reiner. Remarques sur la théorie des valeurs morales dans le mouvement phénoménologique. Revue d'histoire et de philosophie religieuses, 40, 152-164. Agradecemos a Matthieu Arnold, directeur Revue d'histoire et de philosophie religieuses, por la autorización para la publicación de esta traducción. La presente traducción toma como fuente original francesa citada en el párrafo anterior. Las notas del traductor se introducen con un *. Las notas del autor —Jean Héring— (...) siguen el orden de numeración del texto original en numeración arábica. Un agradecimiento especial a Paloma Vicente por las correcciones y sugerencias de traducción. (shrink)

According to Bergson, there is no laugh without an « anaesthesia of the heart ». A kind of malice always ultimately lies in the depths of the pleasure of laughter. Can this pleasure be mora l ? It creates an affective community which can be both the site of identity and that of challenge, of calling everything into question. Cathartic, conservative, revolutionary, philosophical, desperate, the pleasure of laughter is a complex passion which must be taken seriously.

Actualmente abundan conceptualizaciones sobre pensamiento crítico. Gran parte de estas se enfocan en habilidades cognitivas, otras en resolución de problemas; algunas más, en toma de decisiones y acción; y otras, que integran los elementos nombrados. Ante la proliferación de concepciones surge la necesidad de hacer una clasificación de estos modelos en aras de comprender mejor sus enfoques y, en especial, la incidencia de las corrientes filosóficas en los elementos constituyentes que los sustentan para que los maestros tengan claridad sobre qué (...) aporta cada uno de ellos en sus prácticas de aula. Objetivo: identificar elementos constituyentes de los fundamentos conceptuales sobre pensamiento crítico para clasificarlos en modelos según sus finalidades. Metodología: análisis conceptual, realizado desde la filosofía analítica para revisar los conceptos esenciales expuestos por 44 teóricos en sus teorías. Se diseñaron matrices de análisis con 12 constituyentes que permitieron evidenciar los elementos de cada modelo y determinar qué corrientes filosóficas los fundamentan. Resultados: se evidenciaron cuatro modelos: lógico-racional, cognitivo-emotivo, cognitivo-cientificista y sociopragmático, en los cuales han incidido los aportes de grandes filósofos, quienes en su interés epistémico han vinculado la criticidad como elemento esencial en la construcción del conocimiento. Conclusiones: estos modelos aportarán claridad a los docentes, quienes intencionan su trabajo en el aula para formar pensadores críticos que cuestionen y transformen su entorno social. (shrink)

Aristóteles afirma en el De Anima que percibir consiste en recibir una forma sensible sin materia. Cuando Tomás de Aquino comenta este pasaje precisa la definición del Estagirita y sostiene que esa forma sensible posee una existencia intencional en el sujeto cognoscitivo. De esta manera, denomina inmutación espiritual al proceso por el cual un ente recibe una forma sensible que posee una existencia intencional. Los problemas respecto a la inmutación espiritual surgen cuando se estudia en profundidad su status ontológico, (...) puesto que en varias de sus obras el Aquinate declara que se trata de una inmutación inmaterial, pero en muchas afirma que es una inmutación material. El objetivo de este artículo es resolver esta aparente contradicción y demostrar que para Tomás de Aquino existe una gradación ontológica. (shrink)

Existe un principio en el pensamiento de Tomás de Aquino que sostiene que todo acto cognoscitivo es intencional. Este principio resulta problemático en el ámbito del conocimiento sensitivo porque contrasta con la idea de que los sentidos son totalmente pasivos y los objetos sensibles son causa suficiente de la percepción. La sinergia de estas tesis genera, al menos, dos conflictos: 1) entre la pasividad de los sentidos y su acción de dirigirse a los objetos; 2) entre la necesidad de (...) la direccionalidad para conocer y la suficiencia de los objetos sensibles para causar la percepción. La aparente inconsistencia en la que caería el Aquinate puede resolverse analizando el rol que cumplen los apetitos intelectual, sensitivo y natural en su teoría del conocimiento sensitivo. (shrink)

This work aims to contribute new elements to the debate which took place in Tópicos, Revista de Filosofía between Ezequiel Téllez Maqueo and Jörg Alejandro Tellkamp about Thomas Aquinas’s theory of sensitive knowledge. The concepts of spiritus and immutatio spiritualis will be the key to solve the dilemma between the coherence or inconsistency of that theory.

The dichotomy between the qualitative and the quantitative has been a classic throughout the history of science. As will be seen, this dichotomy permeates all ontological levels of reality. In this work, phenomenological examples potentially related to semiosis are presented at the different levels established by Mario Bunge and Josep Ferrater Mora, contrasting the qualitative categorizations with the quantifiable physical reality. Likewise, the need to continue in the quantification of the biosemiotic and linguistic studies will be presented, while, in (...) contrast, the need to establish a qualitative framework in the little-addressed study of technosemiotics will be raised, of potential interest given the notable advances that are expected in communication systems for inert artifacts in the next years. In short, in the thesis defended here the qualitative precedes the quantitative in the defining path of science. (shrink)

En este trabajo, exponemos una experiencia de digitalización de modelos anatómicos pertenecientes a colecciones históricas mediante fotogrametría a partir de ráfagas de fotografías, y también de videogrametría, con el fin de agilizar el proceso de toma de datos.Los resultados mostraron una clara disminución del tiempo requerido para la captura de imágenes con ambos métodos sin una pérdida de calidad significativa empleando la fotogrametría basada en ráfagas y una pérdida más evidente en el caso de la videogrametría.La principal conclusión de este (...) estudio es que estos métodos pueden ser de utilidad para la digitalización de colecciones anatómicas. (shrink)

"Esta guía se organiza a partir de ejercicios prácticos que estimulan la participación, interacción y curiosidad con y a partir de la ciudad; en donde cada ejercicio toma como referencia la manera enque algunos filósofos, cineastas, fotógrafos, artistas y arquitectos contemporáneos se han aproximado al espacio urbano. Cada ejercicio contiene un instructivo de cómo llevar a cabo las acciones de observación, registro ytoma de evidencia, cada uno ilustrado por el autor. Escrito con un estilo anecdótico, el libro se convierte en (...) una herramienta con la cual caminar la ciudad sintiéndose acompañado, en un atravesí que promueve una aproximación lúdica a nuestro entorno."-- Cubierta trasera. (shrink)

Introducción: El consentimiento informado es un procedimiento que brinda oportunidad a los pacientes de disponer de información y participar en la toma de decisiones médicas. Sin embargo, existe el criterio de que el nivel de entendimiento de la información aportada por los facultativos al paciente, sus familiares o ambos, es bajo y además, muchos médicos lo consideran como una herramienta de trabajo secundaria o que no es necesario realizarla con inmediatez. Objetivo: Evaluar la percepción y experiencia del personal sanitario de (...) la unidad de terapia polivalente del Hospital Docente Clínico Quirúrgico "Joaquín Albarrán" acerca del consentimiento informado. Método: Estudio descriptivo realizado en la unidad de terapia polivalente del Hospital "Joaquín Albarrán" de enero a marzo del 2013. Se aplicó una encuesta a 67 trabajadores que accedieron voluntariamente a responderla. Resultados: El 60 % de los encuestados tenía menos de dos años de trabajo en la unidad y solo el 45 %, conocimientos básicos de ética médica. Únicamente el 50 % de los interrogados consideró que este procedimiento puede mejorar la relación médico-paciente. Conclusiones: Es necesario incrementar el conocimiento sobre la utilidad del consentimiento informado entre los trabajadores de la unidad para aprovechar al máximo sus beneficios. Introduction: Informed consent is a procedure that offers full opportunity for patients to have access to information and participate in medical decision-makings. However, it is believed that the information given by the doctors are not fully understood by the patients, their families or both, and besides that many doctors consider it as a second tool or something that doesn't have to be done right away. Objective: Evaluate the perception and experience of the health staff of the polyvalent unit of the surgical clinical teaching hospital Joaquin Albarrán about informed consent. Method: Descriptive study carried out in the polyvalent unit of Joaquin Albarrán Hospital from January to march 2013. A survey was given to 67 workers who voluntarily agreed to answer it. Results: The 60% of the participants had been working in the unit for less than 2 years and only 45% of them had basic knowledge of medical ethics. Only 50% of the participants considered that this procedure could help to improve doctor-patient relationship. Conclusions: It is necessary to increase the knowledge of the usefulness of the informed consent among the workers of the unit to have full profit from it. (shrink)

El desarrollo de la tecnología y de la inteligencia artificial provocan desde hace años preguntas éticas y antropológicas. La Suma Teológica de Santo Tomás permite categorizar términos tecnológicos y establecer ontologías en clave filosófica. Con esta metodología de la Suma se va a estudiar aquí el término “metaverso” y sus implicaciones éticas. El artículo aporta además una revisión sistemática de literatura científica para elaborar un mapa de conocimiento desde un punto de vista cualitativo y cuantitativo que visibilice el impacto (...) de esta terminología emergente en la investigación. (shrink)

Humans and AI systems are usually portrayed as separate sys- tems that we need to align in values and goals. However, there is a great deal of AI technology found in non-autonomous systems that are used as cognitive tools by humans. Under the extended mind thesis, the functional contributions of these tools become as essential to our cognition as our brains. But AI can take cognitive extension towards totally new capabil- ities, posing new philosophical, ethical and technical chal- lenges. To (...) analyse these challenges better, we define and place AI extenders in a continuum between fully-externalized systems, loosely coupled with humans, and fully-internalized processes, with operations ultimately performed by the brain, making the tool redundant. We dissect the landscape of cog- nitive capabilities that can foreseeably be extended by AI and examine their ethical implications. We suggest that cognitive extenders using AI be treated as distinct from other cognitive enhancers by all relevant stakeholders, including developers, policy makers, and human users. (shrink)

There is a curious phenomenon where people from marginalized populations are taken to be arrogant when they show no signs of superiority. In effect, their actions are misconstrued, and their attitudes are rendered unintelligible. Given that arrogance is standardly taken to be a flaw in one’s moral character, understanding such misattributions should give us insight into the affective marginalization many people face. This talk aims to give a thorough exploration of arrogance under oppression. I argue that arrogance is a kind (...) of self-preoccupation that involves projecting one’s values, goals, and concerns onto others as if they were objective values, goals, and concerns. When the affectively marginalized communicate their self-respect through things like protest, people mistake that self-respect as self-preoccupation given how the affectively marginalized are constructed. Furthermore, given how affective marginalization not only inhibits how the marginalized are understood by others, but inhibits their own affective lives, I argue that taking up an arrogant attitude is not always morally vicious, but can be a beautiful form of political resistance but all things considered good. (shrink)

Philosophers of race and other writers in the Black and Latinx intellectual traditions have remarked on what it is like to live under “the racial gaze,” to be shaped and limited by the way whites perceive us. However, little work has been spent developing how the racial gaze functions in whites’, and other racially privileged people’s, moral psychology. I argue in this paper that there is a morally objectionable way of perceiving people of color. This claim builds on an insight (...) from Iris Murdoch that our perception can be morally evaluable and extends it to issues of race. I articulate how racial stereotypes and misvaluing distort one’s perception of people of color and that these distortions are organizing around a dominant conception for race that plays an important role in the oppression of people of color. I believe understanding racist perception lays a foundation for understanding the moral dimensions of interpersonal (as opposed to structural) racism. (shrink)

Este artículo se orienta en sentido inverso al sugerido por Cristina Rivera Garza y refrendado por la mayoría de los textos especializados en su obra: en vez de priorizar la ruptura y la innovación, atiende la trabazón que ata _Autobiografía del algodón_ con una fecunda tradición narrativa en América Latina: aquella empecinada en representar la alteridad sociocultural. Mi hipótesis es que, sin menoscabo de los ademanes vanguardistas de esta novela, es dable hallar en ella tensiones que, en distintos niveles, remiten (...) a la dificultad de asir la imagen de los algodoneros a los que se pretende reivindicar. Así, pese a que _Autobiografía del algodón_ se ofrece como un tránsito de lo personal y familiar a lo comunitario/nacional (en tanto que extiende temporal y territorialmente los efectos de la siembra de algodón), lo cierto es que Rivera Garza se enfrenta a la dificultad de encarar literariamente un referente cuya filiación sociocultural es disímil a la suya. La fluctuación entre los atributos de la narración homodiegética y la heterodiegética, la exteriorización de las capas que componen el texto y el asomo a una temporalidad diferente son los recursos puestos en juego para tratar de menguar la ajenidad sustantiva frente al mundo aludido. (shrink)

Medieval Integration Challenge for Intellection (MICI) in Albert the Great, Siger of Brabant, and Radulphus Brito.

We argue that prediction success maximization is a basic objective of cognition and cortex, that it is compatible with but distinct from prediction error minimization, that neither objective requires subtractive coding, that there is clear neurobiological evidence for the amplification of predicted signals, and that we are unconvinced by evidence proposed in support of subtractive coding. We outline recent discoveries showing that pyramidal cells on which our cognitive capabilities depend usually transmit information about input to their basal dendrites and amplify (...) that transmission when input to their distal apical dendrites provides a context that agrees with the feedforward basal input in that both are depolarizing, i.e., both are excitatory rather than inhibitory. Though these intracellular discoveries require a level of technical expertise that is beyond the current abilities of most neuroscience labs, they are not controversial and acclaimed as groundbreaking. We note that this cellular cooperative context-sensitivity greatly enhances the cognitive capabilities of the mammalian neocortex, and that much remains to be discovered concerning its evolution, development, and pathology. (shrink)

Savulescu and Cameron supported selectively locking down the elderly during the COVID-19 pandemic on two grounds: first, that preserving total lockdown would entail levelling down and, second, that levelling down is wrong. Their first assumption has been thoroughly addressed, but more can be said about their wider antiegalitarian point that levelling down is simply wrong. Egalitarians are not defenceless against the levelling-down objection. Even though some consider it the most serious challenge to supporters of equality, egalitarianism possesses sound reasons to (...) assert, not only that something valuable is preserved when we level down, but also that preserving it may be, in certain circumstances, preferable to pursuing other fundamental moral goals. Although troublesome from a well-being maximising standpoint, levelling down ensures that healthcare policy reflects a commitment with the idea that people are equal in moral worth. That commitment is important enough to trump certain improvements in individual well-being. In the case of pandemic lockdowns, not all the interests protected by free movement are as fundamental as to pursue them at the cost of equality. Savulescu and Cameron’s framework is so reliant on the view that levelling down is wrong that it fails to account for the valuable loss that having the elderly suffer alone represents. (shrink)

This chapter explores Marcel’s relationship with German idealism, the impact idealism had on his existentialism, his philosophical evolution beyond idealist conceptions of objectivity and consciousness, and his own move towards the authentic “ethical self,” whose goal is a reciprocal, intersubjective relationship with others who are freely seeking the inner meaning of experience. It will argue that the authentic self is fundamentally personal because it is embodied, non-objective, and creates opportunities for others to existentially flourish. The continuing progress of the ethical, (...) authentic self in a world that threatens it establishes Marcel’s existentialism as way to flourish in the midst of absurdity, and so establishes it as more than a mere reaction to German idealism. (shrink)