It is widely held that there is a distinctive norm of assertion. A plausible idea is that there is an analogous, perhaps weaker, norm for indirect communication via implicatures. I argue against this type of proposal. My claim is that the norm of assertion is a social norm governing public updates to the conversational record. Off the record implicatures are not subject to social norms of this type. I grant that, as happens in general with intentional actions, off the record (...) communicative acts may be subject to normative assessments on different levels (for instance, regarding their moral or prudential appropriateness). However, such assessments do not generate distinctive norms that apply to all cases of implicature. (shrink)

In times of climate change and public debt, a concern for intergenerational justice should lead us to have a closer look at theories of intergenerational justice. It should also press us to provide institutional design proposals to change the decision-making world that surrounds us. This book provides an exhaustive overview of the most important institutional proposals as well as a systematic and theoretical discussion of their respective features and advantages. It focuses on institutional proposals aimed at taking the interests of (...) future generations more seriously, and does so from the perspective of applied political philosophy, being explicit about the underlying normative choices and the latest developments in the social sciences. It provides citizens, activists, firms, charities, public authorities, policy-analysts, students, and academics with the body of knowledge necessary to understand what our institutional options are and what they entail if we are concerned about today's excessive short-termism. (shrink)

Our goal in this paper is to articulate a precise concept of at least a certain kind of disease-mongering, showing how pharmaceutical marketing can commercially exploit certain diseases when their best definition is given through the success of a treatment in a clinical trial. We distinguish two types of disease-mongering according to the way they exploit the definition of the trial population for marketing purposes. We argue that behind these two forms of disease-mongering there are two well-known problems in the (...) statistical methodology of clinical trials (the reference class problem and the distinction between statistical and clinical significance). Overcoming them is far from simple. (shrink)

The development of the Area of Freedom, Security and Justice has transformed the European Union and placed fundamental rights at the core of EU integration and its principles of mutual recognition and trust. The impact of the AFSJ in the development of an EU standard of fundamental rights, which has come to the fore since the Treaty of Lisbon, is a topic of great theoretical and practical importance. This is the first systematic academic study of the AFSJ and its implications (...) from the point of view of fundamental rights. The contributions to this collection examine the normative and jurisprudential development of the AFSJ in order to assess its effects on the overall construction of the scope and standards of protection of EU fundamental rights in this particularly complex and sensitive field of integration. The expert contributors systematically map and critically assess this area of EU law, together with the relevant case-law. (shrink)

Through the contributions of specialists in the field, this volume addresses the still open question of the role and status of myth in Plato’s dialogues and thereby speaks to the broader problem of the relation between philosophy and ...

Electronegativity is a quantified, typical chemical concept, which correlates the ability of chemical species to attract electrons during their contact with other species with measurable quantities such as dissociation energies, dipole moments, ionic radii, ionization potentials, electron affinities and spectroscopic data. It is applied to the description and explanation of chemical polarity, reaction mechanisms, other concepts such as acidity and oxidation, the estimation of types of chemical compounds and periodicity. Although this concept is very successful and widely used, and in (...) spite of the fact that it is still subject to scientific investigations, neither a more than intuitive definition nor a generally accepted, logically clear and standardized quantification model has been developed. In the present work, electronegativity is presented and discussed with respect to its main conceptual and operational continuities and discontinuities. We try to analyze the epistemological status of electronegativity, conceived as a typical notion of chemical sciences. Under ‘epistemological status’ we subsume the issues of its reference, its historical persistence, and the relationship between its measurement and quantification. (shrink)

El propósito del presente ensayo es desarrollar una lectura existencial del poema “Del país de la pena” escrita por la poeta venezolana Hanni Ossott con el fin de pensar el término “expatriación” como concepto filosófico. Luego de una introducción histórica que busca situar el poema de Ossott al filo de una tradición poética que busca recuperar la sensación de extranjeridad frente a lo propiamente nacional, éste ensayo se propone trazar los horizontes metodológicos de la interpretación del poema a través de (...) una lectura del ensayo “Paysage avec dépaysement” [Paisaje en desorientación] escrito por el filósofo francés Jean-Luc Nancy. La lectura del ensayo de Nancy posibilitará la lectura existencial del poema de Ossott con la que el presente ensayo buscará demonstrar la riqueza filosófica de este poema y la manera en que tematiza la expatriación. A modo de conclusión, se sugerirá que la expatriación puede entenderse como una condena pero no necesariamente de modo negativo sino a través de una valencia positiva que éste término puede tener para la conceptualización contemporánea sobre América Latina. -/- The purpose of this paper is to develop an existential reading of the poem “Del país de la pena” written by the Venezuelan poet Hanni Ossott with the aim of thinking the term “expatriation” as a philosophical concept. Following a historical introduction that seeks to situate Ossott’s poem within a poetic tradition that tries to recuperate the feeling of strangeness in the face of the properly national, this essay attempts to trace the interpretative and methodological horizons of the poem through a reading of the essay “Paysage avec dépaysement” [Uncanny Landscapes] written by the French philosopher Jean- Luc Nancy. The reading of Nancy’s essay will facilitate the existential reading of Ossott’s poem with which the present essay will seek to demonstrate the philosophical richness of this poem and the way in which it thematizes expatriation. By way of conclusion, it will be suggested that expatriation can be understood as a sentence, but not necessarily in a negative manner; rather, it can be thought through a positive valence that can aid in the contemporary conceptualization about Latin America. (shrink)

En el presente artículo se reflexiona sobre dos propuestas de Arturo Andrés Roig: la conciencia de la alteridad y el a priori antropológico para reconocer sus posibilidades de cara al progreso de la ideas y programas filosóficos. Para ello, se muestran las insuficiencias y posibilidades. Las primeras emergen al adoptar uno de los principios más importantes que sostienen el programa filosófico de la modernidad: el mantenimiento del ser humano como fundamento del mundo. Las posibilidades de sus aportes cobran fuerza a (...) la luz de las nuevas propuestas filosóficas que pretenden superar los postulados de la modernidad. (shrink)

This paper intends to explore an aspect of Blumenberg’s metaphorology as memory of mankind and the ethical commitment derived from it. It is seen as the culmination of the fight that the human being maintains against the senselessness of reality. It manifests itself and it is perceived by a human being as theimmensurability of world time and life time (i.e. that the human being is born and dies), that impedes the human being from having all of the world i.e. the (...) satisfaction of its infinite desires. In the fight against finity technology and money play a vital role. They have in common the power to enable an expansion of human capacities over the boundaries of factual existence: through technology and money the human being can do more or, do the same in less time. That is: tobring closer life time and world time. But in this process the instrumental character of technology and money causes homogenisation in the societies where they thrive. That’s one of the characteristics of globalization. This homogenisation is to be understood as the forgetting of other essential possibilities of the human creation of meaning. Thus, what technological and monetary processes construct on one side, come to be destroyed on the other side. Blumenberg’s metaphorology is the adequate response: it is understood both as the self-consciousness of the process of reason in its making sense of the universe, and as an “ideal store” of everything the human being has come to make in this process. (shrink)

Vulnerability has become part of our everyday vocabulary. We are used to hearing that we ought to act so as to protect the highly vulnerable; the qualifier suggests that we are all vulnerable. In addition to being of contemporary relevance, the notion of vulnerability has also been at the heart of philosophical reflection since the birth of the discipline, playing a vital role across many different traditions. Its prevalence is unsurprising. Vulnerability, which partially defines us as human beings, has appeared (...) in many guises: mortality, finitude, sin, ignorance, etc. However, no attempt has yet been made to fully apply the notion of vulnerability to the domains of epistemology and the philosophy of science, to relate it to our general human vulnerability, and to explore the wide range of consequences that derive from it. The contributors of this book fill this gap; they present new approaches to classical problems. They highlight different aspects of our cognitive vulnerability, from issues related to the realism/antirealism debate to reflections on epistemic success and trust. (shrink)

The current quality assurance culture demands the explicit articulation, by means of publication, of what have been hitherto tacit norms and conventions underlying disciplinary genres. The justification is that publication aids student performance and guarantees transparency and accountability. This requirement makes a number of questionable assumptions predicated upon what we will argue is an erroneous epistemology. It is not always possible to articulate in a publishable form a detailed description of disciplinary practices such as assessment. As a result publication cannot (...) achieve its stated goals. There are always elements of our knowledge that cannot be linguistically articulated. (shrink)

We discuss the role of practical costs in the epistemic justification of a novice choosing expert advice, taking as a case study the choice of an expert statistician by a lay politician. First, we refine Goldman’s criteria for the assessment of this choice, showing how the costs of not being impartial impinge on the epistemic justification of the different actors involved in the choice. Then, drawing on two case studies, we discuss in which institutional setting the costs of partiality can (...) play an epistemic role. This way we intend to show how the sociological explanation of the choice of experts can incorporate its epistemic justification. (shrink)

Within the current economic situation, poverty indexes in developed countries are becoming more and more alarming. This makes the role of food banks very relevant, and in addition contributes towards reducing the problem of food waste. Motivated by the social importance of these non-profit organizations, this paper analyzes the impact of food banks on the supply chains to which they belong. Differences in the functioning of these supply chains are highlighted attending to the relations induced by the food banks. First, (...) the international research background for this topic is summarized; then, the results of an empirical study in Spain are presented. Data were collected through surveys and analyzed using cluster methodology. Two different types of food bank were identified. These are described, characterized, and compared in terms of efficacy and efficiency. (shrink)

Este artículo pretende realizar un estudio comparado del proceso de profesionalización de la filosofía española y mexicana, con el fin de evaluar la contribución específica del ethos del exilio filosófico español a la profesionalización de la filosofía mexicana. El trabajo se apoya en la sociología de las profesiones para definir las condiciones de posibilidad de una actividad intelectual profesionalizada como tipo ideal. A continuación lleva a cabo un ejercicio de historia social de la filosofía para comparar el tipo ideal con (...) los dos casos empíricos. Finalmente se realiza una comparación entre ambos casos para poder evaluar la contribución específica del exilio filosófico español a la profesionalización de la filosofía en México. (shrink)

This article briefly reviews categorization models in both cognitive psychology and cognitive phonology in order to set the background for a psycholinguistically plausible account of the classification of the allophones involved in category overlaps (i.e., the overlapping areas between phoneme categories) and in the so-called positions of neutralization. In addition, the traditional proposals of both Bloomfieldian phonemics (i.e., phonetic similarity) and the Prague School (i.e., archiphonemes) are discussed and an alternative proposal is offered. The latter claims that phonological theory should (...) be informed by psycholinguistic evidence obtained by experimental methods. This line of research will progressively make cognitive phonology a functional phonological theory consistent with the way speakers classify the sounds of their language and will contribute to theoretical progress in phonological theory. (shrink)

En una primera aproximación a la obra de Leibniz, podemos tener la impresión de enfrentarnos a una metafísica que sostiene tesis, las cuales, aparte de su enorme dificultad para ser comprendidas, también parecen entrar en conflicto entre sí. Uno de esos casos, particularmente destacado, es el tema de la libertad. En efecto, un sistema que reivindica radicalmente el principio de razón suficiente parece no poder explicar de manera satisfactoria los conceptos de espontaneidad, elección y libertad que quiere atribuir a las (...) acciones humanas. Este ensayo busca aclarar esos conceptos que son fundamentales para una correcta comprensión de la noción leibniziana de libertad. En dicha noción se encuentran fuertemente interconectados tanto elementos provenientes de su metafísica, como sus hallazgos en física y dinámica. A pesar de que estas tesis sobre dinámica son fundamentales para comprender las afirmaciones del autor acerca del tema de la libertad, son precisamente ellas las que suelen pasarse por alto, haciendo que la propuesta de Leibniz aparente cierta inconsistencia. Por el contrario, cuando comprendemos las nociones leibnizianas de fuerza, espontanei dad y elección—y cómo ellas operan en el resto de su sistema metafísico—, entendemos por qué nuestro autor, a pesar de ser un racionalista coherente, ve necesario sostener la libertad humana. Con ello, se pretende mostrar que tal noción es totalmente consistente con el resto de su sistema y cómo ella tiene un buen grado de plausibilidad. (shrink)

A diferencia de otros idiomas universales, el español ha estado sometido a una labor de resemantización de los conceptos, lo cual ha conducido a la especificidad que la labor de autoconciencia, momento de todo pensamiento, ha adquirido en el pensamiento producido en este idioma, tanto en América como en España. Tanto en la conciencia cotidiana como en el pensar filosófico, pensar la esencia ha implicado un sentido de la trascendencia que ha necesitado siempre sentido de la historia y memoria de (...) las luchas. De ahí la unidad de filosofía, poesía e historia en nuestra tradición. (shrink)

Con las últimas transferencias, a principios del año 2002, se cerró un proceso que se había iniciado años atrás en las Comunidades Autónomas llamadas históricas. Con ellas se repitió el tan manido dicho de «los árboles no dejan ver el bosque», siendo los árboles en este caso la Atención Especializada (AE) y el bosque la Atención Primaria (AP). Una vez, más, el sustrato del que se alimenta la AE, es decir, la AP (puerta de entrada al Sistema Nacional de Salud, (...) elemento distribuidor y dinamizador del mismo), es considerada a la hora de las transferencias económicas como la Cenicienta del sistema.…. (shrink)

Retomando el debate sobre los procesos que participan en la categorización, diferenciación y producción de migrantes irregulares, este trabajo propone realizar un análisis de los factores que han intervenido en las últimas décadas en la producción de irregularidad en el contexto español. En el primer apartado se revisan de forma somera algunas de las aportaciones más relevantes que se han realizado en el estudio crítico de la producción de irregularidad en los últimos años, prestando atención a las dimensiones que según (...) las distintas interpretaciones participan en este proceso. En el segundo apartado se plantea que la producción de irregularidad en la era del neoliberalismo cabe ser interpretada, de la mano de David Harvey, como un proceso de acumulación por desposesión debido a la forma que en él se conjugan las dinámicas del Estado y del capital. Por último, se atiende a la forma en la que se ha concretado el proceso de irregularización en el caso español en las últimas décadas. (shrink)

Como complemento documental de otro artículo anterior publicado en Arbor, “En el origen de la novela corta del Siglo de Oro: los novellieri en España”, el que ahora ve la luz es una una antología, con una nota inicial indicando los criterios de selección y edición de una serie de censuras, prólogos y dedicatorias en los que se manifiestan los problemas de traducción de algunos pasajes de obras italianas difíciles de asimilar en la España de la Contrarreforma, se aprecian los (...) recelos de la censura inquisitorial, y también se adivina, en las últimas décadas del siglo XVI, un estado de conciencia de estar haciendo algo nuevo, algo que podía despertar el genio de los literatos para que España se pusiese a la altura de Italia en el terreno novelístico. (shrink)