The contents of linguistic and mental representations may seem to be individuated by what they are about. But a problem arises with regard to representation of the non-existent - words and thoughts that are about things that don't exist. Fourteen new essays get to grips with this much-debated problem.

This article considers the process of ethical review of research on human subjects at a very large multinational consumer products company. The commercial context of this research throws up unique challenges and opportunities that make the ethics of the process of oversight distinct from mainstream medical research. Reflection on the justification of governance processes sheds important, contrasting light on the ethics of governance of other forms and context of research.

La psicología contemporánea parece caracterizarse desde sus propios orígenes por la multiplicidad de sus contenidos, además de por su casi infinita fragmentación en corrientes encontradas. Esto crea importantes dificultades, no sólo a quienes quieran tener una primera aproximación, sino también a los especialistas, que muchas veces no llegan a una opinión suficientemente clara sobre la naturaleza epistemológica de la psicología, ni sobre su unidad disciplinar. Esta obra, sin descuidar el problema global, se centra en un aspecto particular: el que presenta (...) la praxis de la psicología, en particular la psicoterapia y sus fundamentos teóricos. Se pone especial interés en una visión crítica del psicoanálisis, punto de referencia inevitable (positivo o negativo) para la mayoría de las corrientes de psicoterapia. Pero este intento de esclarecimiento epistemológico y práctico se lleva a cabo desde un punto de vista original: a la luz del pensamiento de Santo Tomás de Aquino (1225-1274), conocido como uno de los más grandes teólogos y filósofos de la Iglesia Católica. Las calidades del Aquinate como epistemológico son sobradamente conocidas. Menos conocida es su faceta de psicólogo, que esta obra quiere poner de manifiesto con gran detalle para evidenciar la actualidad de las líneas maestras de la psicología de Santo Tomás, como también la posibilidad de practicar hoy la psicología bajo la guía fundamental del Doctor Humanitatis.\n. (shrink)

Nietzsche wrote The Gay Science, which he later described as 'perhaps my most personal book', when he was at the height of his intellectual powers, and the reader will find in it an extensive and sophisticated treatment of the philosophical themes and views which were most central to Nietzsche's own thought and which have been most influential on later thinkers. These include the death of God, the problem of nihilism, the role of truth, falsity and the will-to-truth in human life, (...) the doctrine of the eternal recurrence, and the question of the proper attitude to adopt toward human suffering and toward human achievement. This volume presents the work in a new translation by Josefine Nauckhoff, with an introduction by Bernard Williams that elucidates the work's main themes and discusses their continuing philosophical importance. (shrink)

The automated identification of national implementations of European directives by text similarity techniques has shown promising preliminary results. Previous works have proposed and utilized unsupervised lexical and semantic similarity techniques based on vector space models, latent semantic analysis and topic models. However, these techniques were evaluated on a small multilingual corpus of directives and NIMs. In this paper, we utilize word and paragraph embedding models learned by shallow neural networks from a multilingual legal corpus of European directives and national legislation (...) to develop unsupervised semantic similarity systems to identify transpositions. We evaluate these models and compare their results with the previous unsupervised methods on a multilingual test corpus of 43 Directives and their corresponding NIMs. We also develop supervised machine learning models to identify transpositions and compare their performance with different feature sets. (shrink)

Experimental studies have suggested that variables such as aptness or conventionality are predictors of people’s preference for expressing a particular topic–vehicle pair as either a metaphor or a simile. In the present study, we investigated if such variables would also be predictive within a more naturalistic context, where other variables, such as the intention to include an explanation, may also influence people’s decision. Specifically, we investigated the production of metaphor and simile expressions on the Internet via the Google search engine (...) and checked for accompanying explanations, as well as the properties they expressed, to examine whether ratings such as aptness, conventionality, as well as participants’ own stated preference or the intention to produce an explanation, would predict which topic–vehicle pairs appeared more often as metaphor. We found that participants’ stated preference predicted metaphor dominance on the Internet, and that apt topic–vehicles occurred more often as metaphors. The explanations collected, however, occurred 82% of the time after similes, and familiar expressions were the most explained. Finally, comparing the properties expressed in these explanations to normed property lists, we found that simile explanations typically expressed a novel conception of the topic–vehicle relationship. Therefore, we found that Internet posters use metaphors to convey an apt relationship, as found in previous laboratory studies, but prefer using a simile frame when they want to express a relationship that readers will find novel. (shrink)

La diversificación moderna de los saberes sobre el ser humano ha llevado a una visión diversificada de la antropología tomista. Se impone una vuelta revitalizadora a esta antropología que muestre la unidad estructural que para Santo Tomás tienen el alma y el hombre. El trabajo se centrará en las tres tesis que articulan la teoría tomista del espíritu y, en concreto, la exposición que nuestro autor hace en la Summa contra gentiles, obra capital en la producción del Angélico que, sin (...) embargo, ha sido bastante marginada. (shrink)

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, or so we are told. Filippo Contesi, Enrico Terrone, Marta Campdelacreu and Genoveva Martí argue that the traditional view in philosophy of art is that, whilst most of us claim to believe that beauty is subjective, we actually act as though it is objective. The true problem of aesthetics then, is not whether or not we believe that beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but why our behaviour around beauty (...) doesn’t match up with our stated beliefs. Beauty, it seems, is more than skin-deep. (shrink)

A series of recent experimental studies have cast doubt on the existence of a traditional tension that aestheticians have noted in our aesthetic judgments and practices, viz. the problem of taste. The existence of the problem has been acknowledged since Hume and Kant, though not enough has been done to analyse it in depth. In this paper, we remedy this by proposing six possible conceptualizations of it. Drawing on our analysis of the problem of taste, we argue that the experimental (...) results in question are not a real challenge to its existence. By contrast, they provide empirical evidence in its support. (shrink)

This paper addresses how impairments in prediction in young adults with autism spectrum disorder relate to their behavior during a collaboration. To assess it, we developed a task where participants play in collaboration with a synthetic agent to maximize their score. The agent’s behavior changes during the different phases of the game, requiring participants to model their sensorimotor contingencies to play collaboratively. Our results (n = 30) show differences between autistic and neurotypical individuals in their behavioral adaptation to the other (...) partner. Contrarily, there are no differences in the self-reports of that collaboration. (shrink)

A modo de recurso de aprendizaje, el mundo del juego se ofrece como un poderoso aliado en la empresa de la renovación de métodos y estilos de enseñanza de la Historia que la Didáctica de las Ciencias Sociales lleva reclamando ya por un largo tiempo. El presente artículo explora desde una perspectiva teórica las diferentes metodologías didácticas que se sirven del juego y presenta un ejemplo de diseño didáctico gamificado en base a un juego de narrativa interactiva de ambientación histórica. (...) Puesta a prueba la funcionalidad didáctica de la herramienta en una primera ocasión experimental, el análisis de las percepciones del docente durante la actividad y las valoraciones del alumnado recogidas por encuesta complementan los resultados de una prueba de conocimientos y permiten reflexionar sobre el potencial y las limitaciones de recursos de esta índole a la hora de promover un aprendizaje más significativo. (shrink)

X. Zubiri, uno de los pensadores espanoles mas sobresalientes en el presente siglo, nos ha hecho ver que el mal se entiende como condicion de la realidad en respectividad ante el hombre, o sea, en la interaccion del hombre con las cosas reales o consigo mismo en cuanto realidad. En este sentido, el mal se entiende desde la realidad condicionada. Como se entiende que el mal surja desde la realidad? Cual es la consistencia del mal en cuanto condicion? En que (...) supera Zubiri la vision del mal como privacion del bien? El presente estudio pretende dar respuesta a tales cuestiones, considerando el planteamiento del mal segun Zubiri desde el contexto de su pensamiento filosofico. Julio Martin Castillo nacio en 1960 en las Yayas, La Vega (Rep. Dominicana). Ordenado sacerdote en 1986. Ha terminado su doctorado en Filosofia en la Pontificia Universidad Gregoriana (Roma). (shrink)

Women account for 70% of healthcare workers, so their role has been – and still is – fundamental in addressing and managing the current pandemic event caused by the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus. Far from being an opportunity to highlight the importance of women in the field, the healthcare crisis, together with lockdown policies and care responsibilities, have contributed to increase the gender gap. To study the depiction of women healthcare professionals, this paper analyses 401 cartoons on the COVID-19 pandemic that depict (...) healthcare workers. Most represent doctors as men and nurses as women, in roles subordinate to men. The representation of women is also impacted by stereotypes that do not contribute to better reflect the roles and professional skills of women in the healthcare field today. (shrink)

Este artículo se enmarca en la macroinvestigación “Barreras psicosociales para la construcción de paz y reconciliación en Medellín y tres municipios de Antioquia”, desarrollado por el Grupo de Investigación en Psicología Sujetos, Sociedad y Trabajo, de la Universidad Pontificia Bolivariana, y pretende comprender los significados que los participantes han construido sobre perdón y reconciliación en el contexto de transición y negociación política del conflicto armado entre el gobierno colombiano y las Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia. A la luz de la (...) psicología social crítica latinoamericana, emergieron discursos alrededor de las dimensiones individuales, colectivas y sociales del perdón y la reconciliación, las relaciones que se encuentran con la verdad, la justicia, la reparación, el olvido y la memoria; las similitudes y distinciones que encuentran las víctimas entre perdón y reconciliación y la importancia de contextualizar y particularizar estos procesos en función de la desaparición forzada. Los procesos de perdón y reconciliación que se emprendan deben tener como protagonistas a las víctimas, puesto que la intervención del Estado en estos escenarios, cuando hay impunidad, omisiones y encubrimientos por su parte, puede ser contraproducente. Cuando estas se apropian del proceso se producen transformaciones subjetivas y la reconstrucción del tejido social. (shrink)

This article seeks to address the problem of the ‘resource consumption bottleneck’ of creating legal semantic technologies manually. It describes a semantic role labeling based information extraction system to extract definitions and norms from legislation and represent them as structured norms in legal ontologies. The output is intended to help make laws more accessible, understandable, and searchable in a legal document management system.

Even though sacred scriptures emphasize the key role that Creation and respect for living creatures play in all religions, the so-called religious schools seem to show little interest in putting this sacred mandate into effect. To shed light on this subject, this work investigates the role of teachers in the process, focusing on their environmental competencies. Our hypotheses are tested through a structural equation model on a sample of 214 biology and religion teachers from 118 Catholic schools in Spain who (...) voluntary participated in a survey. The research findings confirm that it is crucial that environmental competencies are developed in teachers to enable the greening of schools. Theoretical and practical implications for defining the job training of teachers in religious schools are drawn from the study. (shrink)

Modern moral and political philosophy is in debt with natural law theory, both in its ancient and mediaeval elaborations. While the very notion of a natural law has proved highly controversial among 20th Century scholars, the last decades have witnessed a renewed interest in it. Indeed, the threats and challenges as result of multiculturalism, plural societies and global changes have generated a renewed attention to natural law theory. Clearly, it offers solid basis as possible framework to a better understanding of (...) human goods without contradictions and partial bias. The purpose of the present volume is to provide an overview of the history of this concept (Cicero, St. Paul, Aquinas, Melanchthon, Montaigne, Descartes, Leibniz, Hume, Burke, Kant, MacIntyre, etc.) as well as a deep understanding of ongoing research, both in Europe and in America. Furthermore, the specificity of these studies will be of particular value to philosophers, law-philosophers, historians, anthropologists, sociologists and theologians, and those concerned on such issues as the relation between law and moral norm, law and practical reason, and the presence of the idea of natural law in several prominent thinkers. It includes a selected bibliography on natural law. The book also provides an excellent introduction to several of the major topics in natural law theory making it useful both as a reference text and as a sourcebook for academics alike. Natural law is a rich, complex, and highly disputed term. Since its first appearances in the history of Western civilization, it has been used both to point to God as the source of the moral order and to assert that there is an objective order of justice in nature that men and their laws ought to respect. In modern times, natural law theory gave birth to what we usually call "human rights." Unlike the meaning of the term, the importance of an ongoing debate on natural law and on the theories related to it is undisputable. This is why I welcome today this new collection of essays edited by Alejandro Nèstor Garcìa Martìnez, Mario Å ilar and Josè M. Torralba. Natural Law: Historical, Systematic and Juridical Approaches includes a wide variety of studies, covering key authors and issues in natural law theory. Younger students will appreciate the clarity of the chapters, and more trained readers the detailed and accurate bibliographical references that each of them offers. The editors's choice to go from a historical approach to contemporary theories, and then to theoretical and more practical issues is also commendable. Students in philosophy and in legal theory will greatly benefit from this book. Fulvio Di Blasi, author of God and the Natural Law: A Rereading of Thomas Aquinas. (shrink)

This article describes the creation of a lightweight ontology of European Union (EU) criminal procedural rights in judicial cooperation. The ontology is intended to help legal practitioners understand the precise contextual meaning of terms as well as helping to inform the creation of a rule ontology of criminal procedural rights in judicial cooperation. In particular, we started from the problem that directives sometimes do not contain articles dedicated to definitions. This issue provided us with an opportunity to explore a phenomenon (...) typically neglected in the construction of domain-specific legal ontologies. Whether classical definitions are present or absent, laws and legal sources in general are typically peppered with a number of hidden definitions (in the sense that they are not clearly marked out as such) as well as incomplete definitions, which may nevertheless help legal practitioners (and legal reasoning systems) to reason on the basis of analogy or teleology. In this article we describe the theoretical basis for building an analogical lightweight ontology in the framework of an EU project called _CrossJustice_. We present our methodology for collecting the data, extracting the data fields and creating the ontology with WebProtégé, followed by our conclusions and ideas for future work. (shrink)

The purpose of this study was to examine student perceptions of teaching behavior. Additionally the aim was to examine if teacher characteristics (educational level, gender, and teaching experience) could explain differences in student perceptions of their teachers. Teaching behavior was studied from the research on teaching and teacher effectiveness perspective. Secondary students (N = 7,114), taught by 410 teachers in Spain, participated in the study. Survey data were analyzed using non-parametric tests, Kruskal-Wallis, U Mann-Whitney with Bonferroni correction, and the analysis (...) of effect sizes. Furthermore, a regression model was applied. Results showed that teaching behavior was perceived as sufficient to good, depending on the teaching behavior domain. Results indicated interesting differences between lower secondary education, upper secondary education and vocational education and training teachers. The effect size values (rU statistic) ranged between 0.43 and 0.63, highlighting the significant effect of teachers’ teaching experience on the six teaching skills domains: learning climate, efficient classroom management, clarity of instruction, activating teaching, differentiation, and teaching learning strategies. Those teachers with less teaching experience were the ones who showed higher scores. Findings from the regression model showed that educational level had a significant predictive effect on the six teaching skills domains, mainly for male teachers. However, in several domains female teachers were perceived by students to outperform their male counterparts. (shrink)

Challenges to Legal Theory offers the reader a fascinating journey though a variety of multi-disciplinary topics, ranging from law and literature, and law and religion, to legal philosophy and constitutional law. The collection reflects some of the challenges that the field of legal theory currently faces. It is compiled by a selection of international and Spanish scholars, whose essays are made available in English translation for the first time. The volume is based on a collection of essays, published in Spanish, (...) in honour of Professor José Iturmendi Morales, of Complutense University, Madrid, and brings the rich scholarship of pre-eminent Spanish scholars of law and legal theory to an international audience. (shrink)

This is an interdisciplinary work product of reflection on the challenges today presented by a biological vision of the world regarding questions, concepts and notions of cosmology. Based on and in dialogue with the current state of biological research, this work deals with certain cosmological problems such as that between the living and the inert, the traditional division between the soul or the vital vegetative principle, sensitive or intellective; the problem of individuation and the concept of species, among others; the (...) solution found within classical philosophy in this paper takes into account the latest discoveries findings of modern biology. (shrink)

There is little research on the effectiveness of self-leadership programs (SLPs) in graduate education based on the progress in emotional competences development (ECD), and only a few of the studies incorporate its relationship with personality traits (PTs). This article studies the differentiated impact of an optional SLP, which has eight workshops with a learner-centered and experiential approach, depending on PTs. With a quasi-experimentalex post factodesign, students' scores in EDC were analyzed according to their PT extremes:introversion, antagonism, lack of direction, neuroticism, (...) andclosed to experience. ANCOVA tests, with ECD pretest as a co-variable, were applied for each PT. The results indicated that the SLP presented a differentiated impact in ECD in four of the five PTs: neuroticism, introversion, antagonism, and lack of direction. These findings can be a key element for the participating students in SLPs because self-leadership requires self-knowledge. ECD can contribute to more integral learning in the graduate education experience, enhancing the preparation for the world of work. (shrink)