El De dogmatibus ecclesiasticis de Genadio de Marsella se encuentra próximo a la tradición de los símbolos, compilaciones doctrinarias de consulta ágil, por su estructura interna y contenidos. El examen del tratado genadiano contribuye a delimitar su contexto de composición, así como las preferencias dogmáticas de su autor. The De dogmatibus ecclesiasticis of Gennadius of Massilia is close to the tradition of symbols, easy to read doctrinal compilations, because of its structure and contents. The exam of Gennadius’ book contributes to (...) define its composition context and its author’s dogmatic choices. (shrink)

Hackles have been raised in biosemiotic circles by T. L. Short’s assertion that semiosis, as defined by Peirce, entails “acting for purposes” and therefore is not found below the level of the organism (2007a:174–177). This paper examines Short’s teleology and theory of purposeful behavior and offers a remedy to the disagreement. Remediation becomes possible when the issue is reframed in the terms of the complexity sciences, which allows intentionality to be understood as the interplay between local and global aspects of (...) a system within a system. What is called “acting for purposes” is not itself a type of behavior so much as a relationship between a dynamic system that “exists for a purpose” and its microprocesses that “serve purposes.” The “intentional object” of philosophy is recast here as the holistic self-organized dynamics of a system, which exists for the purpose of self-maintenance, and that constrains the parts’ behaviors, which serve the purpose of forming the system. (A “system” can be any emergent, e.g. an abiotic form, an adapted species, a self, a conditioned response, thought, or a set of ideas.) The self-organized whole, which is represented to the parts in their own constrained behaviors, assumes the guiding function so long attributed to the mysterious “intentional object.” If emergent self-causation is not disallowed, creative originality, as well as directionality, becomes part of the definition of purposeful behavior. Thus, key tools used here, required for understanding emergence, come from poetics rather than semoitics. In the microprocesses of self-organization, I find what I call “accidental” indices and icons — which are poetic in the sense that they involve mere metonymic contiguity and metaphoric similarity — and which are preferentially selected under constrained conditions allowing radically new connections to habituate into an “intentional” self-organized system that, not coincidentally, has some of the emergent characteristics of a conventional symbolic system. (shrink)

In C. S. Peirce, as well as in the work of many biosemioticians, the semiotic object is sometimes described as a physical “object” with material properties and sometimes described as an “ideal object” or mental representation. I argue that to the extent that we can avoid these types of characterizations we will have a more scientific definition of sign use and will be able to better integrate the various fields that interact with biosemiotics. In an effort to end Cartesian dualism (...) in semiotics, which has been the main obstacle to a scientific biosemiotics, I present an argument that the “semiotic object” is always ultimately the objective of self-affirmation (of habits, physical or mental) and/or self-preservation. Therefore, I propose a new model for the sign triad: response-sign-objective. With this new model it is clear, as I will show, that self-mistaking (not self-negation as others have proposed) makes learning, creativity and purposeful action possible via signs. I define an “interpretation” as a response to something as if it were a sign, but whose semiotic objective does not, in fact, exist. If the response-as-interpretation turns out to be beneficial for the system after all, there is biopoiesis. When the response is not “interpretive,” but self-confirming in the usual way, there is biosemiosis. While the conditions conducive to fruitful misinterpretation (e.g., accidental similarity of non-signs to signs and/or contiguity of non-signs to self-sustaining processes) might be artificially enhanced, according to this theory, the outcomes would be, by nature, more or less uncontrollable and unpredictable. Nevertheless, biosemiotics could be instrumental in the manipulation and/or artificial creation of purposeful systems insofar as it can describe a formula for the conditions under which new objectives and novel purposeful behavior may emerge, however unpredictably. (shrink)

This paper presents a new theory of modal reasoning, i.e. reasoning about what may or may not be the case, and what must or must not be the case. It postulates that individuals construct models of the premises in which they make explicit only what is true. A conclusion is possible if it holds in at least one model, whereas it is necessary if it holds in all the models. The theory makes three predictions, which are corroborated experimentally. First, conclusions (...) correspond to the true, but not the false, components of possibilities. Second, there is a key interaction: it is easier to infer that a situation is possible as opposed to impossible, whereas it is easier to infer that a situation is not necessary as opposed to necessary. Third, individuals make systematic errors of omission and of commission. We contrast the theory with theories based on formal rules. (shrink)

In this special issue, our objective is to clarify what biosemioticians may mean insofar as they claim that living systems are capable of making choices or that biosemiotic interpretations are partially indeterminate. A number of different senses of the term “chance” are discussed as we move toward a consensus. We find that biosemiosic chance may arise out of conditions involving quantum indeterminacy, randomness, deterministic chaos, or unpredictability, but biosemiosic chance is mainly due to the fact that living entities invest their (...) environments with different meanings and values, which are not inherent in the material aspects. Accordingly, interpretive responses are in part self-determined. A self-determined interpretation may be thought of as a process in which localized biases constrain the probabilities of the outcomes of the interactions between an agent and its environment. The agent’s internal formal constraints that are defined by similarity and proximity are relative and, as such, vague, and thus interpretation may be somewhat underdetermined and involve an element of chance. (shrink)

The article deals with the structure and function of perceptual judgment in the perception theories of the Buddhist Diṅṅāga and the Vaiśeṣika Praśastapāda. I show their indebtedness to the Vyākaraṇa tradition and particularly to Patañjali. Following Shōryū Katsura’s idea that the status of perceptual judgment with regard to the Buddhist system of instruments of valid cognition was first established by Dharmakīrti, I argue that Diṅṅāga’s examples in his definition of perception in Pramāṇasamuccaya-vṛtti I,3d could be considered as perceptual judgments in (...) the sense of Charles Peirce. After the examination of Diṅṅāga’s and Praśastapāda’s examples of perceptual judgments, I come to the conclusion that Diṅṅāga, as a nominalist, sees in them an expression of ordinary linguistic behaviour shaped by convention and grammatical tradition, while Praśastapāda, as a realist, seeks to show that perceptual judgments follow the Vaiśeṣika ontological categories. If in Diṅṅāga’s epistemology perceptual judgement remains outside the pramāṇa system, in Praśastapāda’s Vaiśeṣika it pertains to the pramāṇa of perception. (shrink)

Modern public-health initiatives in industrialized countries revolve around immunization against contagious diseases. The practice of engendering immunity against disease through disease first emerged in Western European social and medical landscapes in the eighteenth century as inoculation, based on the imported Middle Eastern practice of ‘engrafting’. By the nineteenth century, this practice had evolved into the procedure of vaccination, in the first instance directed against smallpox. Popular and academic narratives thus often categorize inoculation as a procedure from the Middle East which (...) was transformed into the truly scientific procedure of vaccination by English and French knowledge. This characterization has obscured the complex traditions of intellectual exchange between English and French networks and Middle Eastern societies in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. This article examines these networks in order to show how knowledge was transformed as it circulated between communities during this period. Both Western Europeans and Egyptians across different social hierarchies translated foreign or new medical practices according to the needs of their knowledge and goals, creating cycles of adoption and adaptation. This exploration of inoculation and vaccination furthers our understanding of the bilateral translation processes ingrained in the global circulation of knowledge. (shrink)

There is little doubt that Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is now a global concept and a prominent feature of international business, with its practice localised and differing across countries. Despite the growing body of research focussing on CSR in developing countries, there is dearth research on CSR institutionalisation in African countries. Drawing on institutional theory (IT), this article examines the focus and form of CSR practice of companies in Kenya. It is evident from our findings that the nature and orientation (...) of CSR differ across companies with operations only in Kenya and those headquartered abroad or with international operations. Significantly, firm-related drivers such as public relations and performance, as well as global institutional pressures explain the focus and form of CSR in Kenya. This article concludes that for the institutionalisation of CSR in Kenya, attention must be paid to conditions that stifle CSR uptake such as lack of government regulations, and the government's capacity and commitment to enforce regulation. The establishment of functional CSR institutions and a vibrant civil society that advance civil regulation ought to be encouraged. (shrink)

When listening to degraded speech, such as speech delivered by a cochlear implant, listeners make use of top-down linguistic knowledge to facilitate speech recognition. Lexical knowledge supports speech recognition and enhances the perceived clarity of speech. Yet, the extent to which lexical knowledge can be used to effectively compensate for degraded input may depend on the degree of degradation and the listener’s age. The current study investigated lexical effects in the compensation for speech that was degraded via noise-vocoding in younger (...) and older listeners. In an online experiment, younger and older normal-hearing listeners rated the clarity of noise-vocoded sentences on a scale from 1 to 7. Lexical information was provided by matching text primes and the lexical content of the target utterance. Half of the sentences were preceded by a matching text prime, while half were preceded by a non-matching prime. Each sentence also consisted of three key words of high or low lexical frequency and neighborhood density. Sentences were processed to simulate CI hearing, using an eight-channel noise vocoder with varying filter slopes. Results showed that lexical information impacted the perceived clarity of noise-vocoded speech. Noise-vocoded speech was perceived as clearer when preceded by a matching prime, and when sentences included key words with high lexical frequency and low neighborhood density. However, the strength of the lexical effects depended on the level of degradation. Matching text primes had a greater impact for speech with poorer spectral resolution, but lexical content had a smaller impact for speech with poorer spectral resolution. Finally, lexical information appeared to benefit both younger and older listeners. Findings demonstrate that lexical knowledge can be employed by younger and older listeners in cognitive compensation during the processing of noise-vocoded speech. However, lexical content may not be as reliable when the signal is highly degraded. Clinical implications are that for adult CI users, lexical knowledge might be used to compensate for the degraded speech signal, regardless of age, but some CI users may be hindered by a relatively poor signal. (shrink)

El artículo que a continuación se presenta, forma parte de la tesis doctoral1 donde se presenta una actual investigación sobre la llamada Competencia Reflexiva en el marco del desarrollo profesional de los docentes. Se profundiza en el concepto de competencia profesional y se realiza un exhaustivo estudio de las competencias de la profesión docente que han fijado diferentes países2 hasta llegar a la relevante aportación sobre la competencia reflexiva. Desde el análisis de la praxis docente la investigación consigue determinar el (...) concepto de competencia reflexiva de la que señala su estructura y revela su dinámica. Mediante la implementación y evaluación de un programa formativo basado en el desarrollo de la reflexividad, la investigación demuestra que en la formación docente el desarrollo de la competencia reflexiva emerge como la de mayor potenc ia l profesionalizador. Al mismo tiempo el estudio justifica que la competencia reflexiva presenta un carácter instrumental, funcional y transversal en el ejercicio de la profesión, la cual se activa en movilizar todas las competencias docentes. En la actualidad la discusión acerca del desarrollo profesional del docente constituye uno de los puntos neurálgicos en lo que se refiere al cambio educativo, en un contexto donde el proceso de descentralización de la gestión pedagógica y las transformaciones de la sociedad reclaman un replanteamiento de las funciones y roles del profesor para conseguir las finalidades de la educación en el siglo XXI. Es este escenario cambiante el que propicia y justifica un nuevo discurso que enfatiza la mejora de las competencias profesionales y docentes. Palabras clave : Competencia, competencia reflexiva, profesiona lizac ió n docente, desarrollo de la reflexividad. (shrink)

Este trabajo indaga las resemantizaciones del mito de Venus en tres poetas latinoamericanos: Julián del Casal, Rubén Darío y José Lezama Lima teniendo en cuenta la intertextualidad y las poéticas correspondientes. This paper analyses the Venus myth appropiation into the poetry of Julián del Casal, Rubén Darío and José Lezama Lima considering their poetry and intertextuality.