La perspectiva historiográfica ofrecida por la teoría de las consecuencias involuntarias puede ser reconceptualizada en una concepción del mercado que explique su funcionamiento como una continua interrelación entre individuos que desconocen las consecuencias colectivas de los cursos de acción que emprenden.Asimismo, podrían distinguirse dos versiones de dicha teoria; de un lado, Ia versión débil, que se correspondería con el concepto de mercado de Hayek, y, deI otro, Ia versión fuerte. EI objetivo de este artículo es proponer el concepto al que (...) hemos denominado el principio de ignorancia, que seria una concepción acerca deI desenvolvimiento deI mercado acorde con los rasgos propios de Ia versión fuerte de Ia teoría de las consecuencias involuntarias.The historiographical perspective of the theory of unintended consequences can be reconceptualized into a conception of the market which explains its operation as a continuous interaction among individuals that do not know the collective consequences of their behaviours.Also, two versions of this theory might be distinguished, the weak version, which corresponds to Hayek’s concept of market, and the strong version. The aim of this paper is to propose the concept that we have termed as ignorance principIe, which is a conception of the operation of the market that fits to the characteristics of the strong version of the theory of unintended consequences. (shrink)

Observations of ultrafast cognition in human performance challenge intuitive information processing and computation metaphors of cognitive processing. Instances of ultrafast cognition are marked by ultrafast response times of reliable, accurate responses to a relatively complex stimulus. Ultrafast means response times that are as fast as a single feedforward burst of activity across the nervous system connecting eye to hand. Thus the information processing and computation metaphors in question are those in which some amount of time is required to decide and (...) initiate a response, over and above the minimum time required, physiologically, for the eye-hand chain of action potentials—these are metaphors in which the brain does work that has a measurable duration in time. Ultrafast cognition can be explained by synergies spanning the mind and body. Synergies are temporary dynamical structures that anticipate context-appropriate behaviour. An anticipatory state poises the mind and body in symmetry among equivalent options for behaviour, and only a minimal change in context, favouring one option over any other, is sufficient to break symmetry and enact an ultrafast cognitive response. (shrink)

Brain damage may doubly dissociate cognitive modules, but the practice of revealing dissociations is predicated on modularity being true (T. Shallice, 1988). This article questions the utility of assuming modularity, as it examines a paradigmatic double dissociation of reading modules. Reading modules illustrate two general problems. First, modularity fails to converge on a fixed set of exclusionary criteria that define pure cases. As a consequence, competing modular theories force perennial quests for purer cases, which simply perpetuates growth in the list (...) of exclusionary criteria. The first problem leads, in part, to the second problem. Modularity fails to converge on a fixed set of pure cases. The second failure perpetuates unending fractionation into more modules. (shrink)

The method of positron emission tomography illustrates the circular logic popular in subtractive neuroimaging and linear reductive cognitive psychology. Both require that strictly feed-forward, modular, cognitive components exist, before the fact, to justify the inference of particular components from images after the fact. Also, both require a "true" componential theory of cognition and laboratory tasks, before the fact, to guarantee reliable choices for subtractive contrasts. None of these possibilities are likely. Consequently, linear reductive analysis has failed to yield general, reliable, (...) componential accounts. (shrink)

Brain damage may doubly dissociate cognitive modules, but the practice of revealing dissociations is predicated on modularity being true (T. Shallice, 1988). This article questions the utility of assuming modularity, as it examines a paradigmatic double dissociation of reading modules. Reading modules illustrate two general problems. First, modularity fails to converge on a fixed set of exclusionary criteria that define pure cases. As a consequence, competing modular theories force perennial quests for purer cases, which simply perpetuates growth in the list (...) of exclusionary criteria. The first problem leads, in part, to the second problem. Modularity fails to converge on a fixed set of pure cases. The second failure perpetuates unending fractionation into more modules. (shrink)

The method of positron emission tomography (PET imaging) illustrates the circular logic popular in subtractive neuroimaging and linear reductive cognitive psychology. Both require that strictly feed-forward, modular, cognitive components exist, before the fact, to justify the inference of particular components from images (or other observables) after the fact. Also, both require a "true" componential theory of cognition and laboratory tasks, before the fact, to guarantee reliable choices for subtractive contrasts. None of these possibilities are likely. Consequently, linear reductive analysis has (...) failed to yield general, reliable, componential accounts. (shrink)

The method of positron emission tomography illustrates the circular logic popular in subtractive neuroimaging and linear reductive cognitive psychology. Both require that strictly feed-forward, modular, cognitive components exist, before the fact, to justify the inference of particular components from images after the fact. Also, both require a "true" componential theory of cognition and laboratory tasks, before the fact, to guarantee reliable choices for subtractive contrasts. None of these possibilities are likely. Consequently, linear reductive analysis has failed to yield general, reliable, (...) componential accounts. (shrink)

Many previous treatments of voluntary behavior have viewed intentions as causes of behavior. This has resulted in several dilemmas, including a dilemma concerning the origin of intentions. The present article circumvents traditional dilemmas by treating intentions as constraints that restrict degrees of freedom for behavior. Constraints self-organize as temporary dynamic structures that span the mind-body divide. This treatment of intentions and voluntary behavior yields a theory of intentionality that is consistent with existing findings and supported by current research.

Readers of TopiCS are invited to join a debate about the utility of ideas and methods of complexity science. The topics of debate include empirical instances of qualitative change in cognitive activity and whether this empirical work demonstrates sufficiently the empirical flags of complexity. In addition, new phenomena discovered by complexity scientists, and motivated by complexity theory, call into question some basic assumptions of conventional cognitive science such as stable equilibria and homogeneous variance. The articles and commentaries that appear in (...) this issue also illustrate a new debate style format for topiCS. (shrink)

The commentators expressed concerns regarding the relevance and value of non-computational non-symbolic explanations of cognitive performance. But what counts as an “explanation” depends on the pre-theoretical assumptions behind the scenes of empirical science regarding the kinds of variables and relationships that are sought out in the first place, and some of the present disagreements stem from incommensurate assumptions. Traditional cognitive science presumes cognition to be a decomposable system of components interacting according to computational rules to generate cognitive performances (i.e., component-dominant (...) dynamics). We assign primacy to interaction-dominant dynamics among components. Though either choice can be a good guess before the fact, the primacy of interactions is now supported by much recent empirical work in cognitive science. Consequently, in the main, the commentators have failed so far to address the growing evidence corroborating the theory-driven predictions of complexity science. (shrink)

Resumen: El presente trabajo intenta analizar los elementos críticos a la base de aquella suerte de prescripción que Edward Said formulara a los intelectuales bajo la célebre consigna de “decir las verdades al poder”, esto es, de interpelar públicamente al poder -político, económico, religioso, militar- frente a toda evidencia de injusticia, inconsistencia o turbia manipulación en su operar. En tanto tal, y a partir de nuestra lectura de Said, delimitamos cinco dilemas que el intelectual ha de resolver, en tanto requisitos (...) para decir las verdades al poder: orientación intramundana versus extramundana, rol profético versus sacerdotal, libertad universalista versus organicidad, racionalidad sustantiva versus instrumental y arrojo versus temor. Se comentan las implicaciones de estos dilemas a la luz de los desafíos y oportunidades que las sociedades contemporáneas -en particular, las latinoamericanas- presentan para el rol del intelectual.: This work analyzes the critical foundations of that quasi-rule posed by Edward Said to intellectuals through the famous motto “speaking truth to power”, that is, of publicly interpellating to power -political, economic, religious, military- whenever its exercise may involve injustice, inconsistency or underhanded manipulation. So, according to our interpretation of Said’s work, we identify five dilemmas the intellectual should resolve in order to be able to speak truth to power: a worldliness orientation versus an otherworldliness one, a prophetic role versus a priestly one, universalist freedom versus organic compromise, a substantive rationality versus an instrumental one, and courage versus fear. Involvements of these dilemmas are discussed according to the challenges and opportunities posed by current societies -in particular, the Latin American ones- to the intellectual’s role. (shrink)

Diese Arbeit zeigt, dass die Dualität des mathematischen und dynamischen Erhabenen bei Kant auch dem Zweck der dritten Kritik dient, die Kluft zwischen den Gebieten der Natur und der Freiheit zu schließen. In der Sekundärliteratur zu Kant wird das Erhabene oft als Anhang des Schönen oder aufgrund seiner mehrfachen Dualitäten als Bruch in Kants Ansatz angesehen. Dies geschieht, weil solche Interpretationen die Elemente der Theorie des Erhabenen atomisch und nicht systematisch rekonstruieren. Im Gegensatz dazu wird in dieser Arbeit mittels der (...) Resonanz der teleologischen Behandlung der Vernunft nicht nur die innere Systematik der dritten Kritik gezeigt, sondern auch die von der gesamten kritischen Philosophie. Die Vernunft als Vermögen der Zwecksetzung zu verstehen in ihrem praktischen und theoretischen Gebrauch, ist keine neue Idee oder neuer systematischer Rekonstruktionsversuch der kritischen Philosophie in der Kantforschung. Das eigentlich Neue in dieser Monografie ist, einen Beweis von ihrer teleologischen Einheit aus der ästhetischen Perspektive des paradoxen Gefühls des Erhabenen geleistet zu haben. (shrink)

The contemporary debate in democracies routinely refers to online misinformation, disinformation, and deception, as security-issues in need of urgent attention. Despite this pervasive discourse, however, policymakers often appear incapable of articulating what security means in this context. This paper argues that we must understand the unique practical and normative challenges to security actualized by such online information threats, when they arise in a democratic context. Investigating security-making in the nexus between technology and national security through the concept of “cybersovereignty,” the (...) paper highlights a shared blind spot in the envisaged protection of national security and democracy in cyberspace. Failing to consider the implications of non-territoriality in cyberspace, the “cybersovereign” approach runs into a cul de sac. Security-making, when understood as the continuous constitution of “cybersovereign” boundaries presumes the existence of a legitimate securitizing actor; however, this actor can only be legitimate as a product of pre-existing boundaries. In response to the problems outlined, the article proposes an alternative object of protection in the form of human judgment and, specifically, “political judgment” in the Arendtian sense. The turn to political judgment offers a conceptualization of security that can account for contemporary policy practises in relation to security and the online information threat, as well as for the human communicating subject in the interactive and essentially incomplete information and communication environment. (shrink)

Julián Sanz del Río, fundador del movimiento filosófico del krausismo español, evolucionó políticamente desde el liberalismo moderado al progresista entre 1844 y 1854. Sus amigos moderados desconocían esta circunstancia, y se prestaron a ayudarlo, hasta que una recensión de dos libros franceses publicada en la Gaceta de Madrid, denunciada primero por la prensa tradicionalista por heterodoxia, y luego por los Obispos de Barcelona y Zamora, permitió conocer su verdaderos planteamientos políticos y su anticlericalismo.

Borrett, Kelly and Kwan [ Phenomenology, dynamical neural networks and brain function, Philosophical Psychology, 13, 000-000] claim that unbiased, self-evident, direct description is possible, and may supply the data that brain theories account for. Merleau-Ponty's [ Phenomenology of perception, London: Routledge] description of Schneider's apraxia is offered as a case in point. According to the authors, Schneider's apraxia justifies brain components of predicative and pre-predicative experience. The description derives from a bias, however, that parallels modularity's morphological reduction. The presence of (...) biasing presuppositions contradicts the goal of direct description. Moreover, the authors' brain account is not necessary to explain Schneider's apraxia, and morphological reduction is not sufficient to explain emergent phenomena of motor control. (shrink)

Models are not adequately evaluated simply by whether they capture the data, after the fact. Other criteria are needed. One criterion is parsimony; but utility and generality are at least as important. Even with respect to parsimony, however, the case against feedback is not as straightforward as Norris et al. present it. We use feedback consistency effects to illustrate these points.

How do people decide what to say in context? Many theories of pragmatics assume that people have specialized knowledge that drives them to utter certain words in different situations. But these theories are mostly unable to explain both the regularity and variability in people’s speech behaviors. Our purpose in this article is to advance a view of pragmatics based on complexity theory, which specifically explains the pragmatic choices speakers make in conversations. The concept of self-organized criticality sheds light on how (...) a history of utterances and subtle details of a situation surrounding a conversation may directly specify language behavior. Under this view, pragmatic choice in discourse does not reflect the output of any dedicated pragmatic module but arises from a complex coordination or coupling between speakers and their varying communicative tasks. (shrink)

El propósito de este artículo es estudiar la actualidad del binomio persona-naturaleza para fundamentar la unión hipostática de acuerdo con el pensamiento de Tomás de Aquino. Ambos conceptos se necesitan mutuamente no sólo como la parte y el todo para fundar una Metafísica de la Encarnación, sino también para poder predicar las naturalezas del único supuesto de modo de no destruir la unidad personal de Cristo. De este modo, para el Aquinate, persona y naturaleza no sólo expresan nociones metafísicas, sino (...) también conceptos que se predican del único supuesto subsistente. (shrink)

Human neural and behavioral activities have been reported to exhibit fractal dynamics known as 1/f noise, which is more aptly named 1/f scaling. Some argue that 1/f scaling is a general and pervasive property of the dynamical substrate from which cognitive functions are formed. Others argue that it is an idiosyncratic property of domain‐specific processes. An experiment was conducted to investigate whether 1/f scaling pervades the intrinsic fluctuations of a spoken word. Ten participants each repeated the word bucket over 1,000 (...) times, and fluctuations in acoustic measurements across repetitions generally followed the 1/f scaling relation, including numerous parallel yet distinct series of 1/f fluctuations. On the basis of work showing that 1/f scaling is a universal earmark of metastability, it is proposed that the observed pervasiveness of 1/f fluctuations in speech reflects the fact that cognitive functions are formed as metastable patterns of activity in brain, body, and environment. (shrink)

La estética se introdujo en España con ocasión de la constitución del sistema de instrucción pública y vinculada a la enseñanza de la retórica y la poética. En 1814, los liberales propusieron reunir la retórica y la poética en una única disciplina que ofreciese los principios de la literatura. Estos principios se venían elaborando para las bellas letras y las bellas artes desde el siglo XVIII y de ellos surgiría la estética como ciencia del gusto y de lo bello. La (...) estética entró a formar parte de la asignatura de _Literatura _en 1846 bajo la influencia de la filosofía ecléctica francesa y, en particular, de la teoría estética de Victor Cousin. Esto propició la producción de los primeros textos sobre estética en España, orientados a la enseñanza de la literatura. (shrink)

Primer estudio exhaustivo sobre la metafísica krausiana, que permite conocer las peculiaridades de esta filosofía dentro del conjunto del idealismo alemán así como facilita el estudio de los distintos movimientos krausistas, que tenían en el sistema panenteísta su inspiración filosófica primordial. Cada capítulo del libro corresponde a un período de la evolución de esta filosofía sistemática.

Primer estudio exhaustivo sobre la metafísica krausiana, que permite conocer las peculiaridades de esta filosofía dentro del conjunto del idealismo alemán así como facilita el estudio de los distintos movimientos krausistas, que tenían en el sistema panenteísta su inspiración filosófica primordial. Cada capítulo del libro corresponde a un período de la evolución de esta filosofía sistemática.

La obra más popular de Francisco Sánchez, Quod nihil scitur (1581), transmite un pensamiento completamente escéptico. No obstante, otros escritos como Carmen de Corneta anni MDLXXVII (1578), nos ofrecen diversas ideas de cómo consideraba Sánchez que era posible el conocimiento científico como, por ejemplo, su pensamiento sobre las relaciones causales entre objetos naturales.

The most popular work of Francisco Sánchez, Quo nihil scitur (1581), transmits an absolutely sceptic thought. However, other writings like Carmen de Cometa anni M.D.LXXVII (1578), offer us different ideas about how Sánchez considers possible the scientific knowledge like, for example, his idea about the casual relations between natural objects.

Among the hundreds of sites that housed survivors of Nazi persecution who came to Sweden in the spring and summer of 1945, one of the largest was at the small village of Öreryd. Between June 1945 and September 1946, around a thousand Jewish and non-Jewish Polish survivors came to this site, where they were expected to stay only until they were well enough to return to their home countries or migrate elsewhere. This article contributes to filling a gap in refugee (...) history in Sweden, dealing with how survivors experienced Swedish refugee camps and shaped the refugee camp environment on their own terms. Thinking with Peter Gatrell’s framework of ‘refugeedom’, a wide range of sources have been examined for insight into how Polish survivors in the Öreryd refugee camp navigated the precarity and uncertainty of their existence as survivors and refugees in Sweden and endeavoured to shape their immediate and future lives. (shrink)

The suggestion of seeking specificity in a higher-order array is attractive, but Stoffregen & Bardy fail to provide a compelling empirical basis to their claim that specificity exists solely in the global array. Using the example of relative motion, the alternate hypotheses that must be considered are presented.

In some areas of cognitive science we are confronted with ultrafast cognition, exquisite context sensitivity, and scale-free variation in measured cognitive activities. To move forward, we suggest a need to embrace this complexity, equipping cognitive science with tools and concepts used in the study of complex dynamical systems. The science of movement coordination has benefited already from this change, successfully circumventing analogous paradoxes by treating human activities as phenomena of self-organization. Therein, action and cognition are seen to be emergent in (...) ultrafast symmetry breaking across the brain and body; exquisitely constituted of the otherwise trivial details of history, context, and environment; and exhibiting the characteristic scale-free signature of self-organization. (shrink)