This book introduces readers to central concepts and ideas in Mexican philosophy. Couched in stories and anecdotes from the author's life, the book offers these concepts and ideas as orientations, recommendations, or exhortation for navigating today's world. The structure and the style of the book aims at making these accessible to both specialists and non-specialist or anyone who may have had some experience with contemporary forms of marginalization, alienation, objectification, or any of the various forms of dread and accidentality familiar (...) to modern life. This, the author thinks, is most of us. Narrowing down the scope of the tradition, the author draws from the history of Mexican philosophy in the 20th century, as it is at this time that Mexican philosophy comes into its own. The book begins with two short introductions, one is an introduction philosophy in Mexico, the other to Mexican philosophy. Here, readers are introduced to Alfonso de la Veracruz, who offered the first philosophy course in the Americas in 1540 in the monastery of a small town in Michoacán, Mexico. From there, it presents four main themes from Mexican philosophy that recur in the philosophical literature. The remainder of the book serves as a "guide" for living a better, more fulfilling life. The main characters in what the author considers an uncontroversial retelling of Mexican philosophy are Antonio Caso, Samuel Ramos, Emilio Uranga, Leopoldo Zea, Jorge Portilla, Rosario Castellanos, Elsa Cecilia Frost, and, of course, persons in the author's own life. (shrink)

The purpose of the paper is to present a logical framework that allow to formalize a kind of prima facie duties, defeasible conditional duties, indefeasible conditional duties and actual (indefeasible) duties, as well as to show their logical interconnections.

We obtain, for the first time, a modular many-valued semantics for combined logics, which is built directly from many-valued semantics for the logics being combined, by means of suitable universal operations over partial non-deterministic logical matrices. Our constructions preserve finite-valuedness in the context of multiple-conclusion logics, whereas, unsurprisingly, it may be lost in the context of single-conclusion logics. Besides illustrating our constructions over a wide range of examples, we also develop concrete applications of our semantic characterizations, namely regarding the semantics (...) of strengthening a given many-valued logic with additional axioms, the study of conditions under which a given logic may be seen as a combination of simpler syntactically defined fragments whose calculi can be obtained independently and put together to form a calculus for the whole logic, and also general conditions for decidability to be preserved by the combination mechanism. (shrink)

Resumen: Este artículo sostiene que la regla en el mundo social es el cambio, en todas las escalas de tiempo, sin ciclos ni periodicidades. Por consiguiente, el tema que emerge inmediatamente es la irregularidad del mundo. Si esto es cierto, deben ser posibles unas ciencias sociales irregulares. El mejor antecedente para una idea semejante se encuentra en la comprensión del propio Mandelbrot acerca de los fractales y multifractales. Las ciencias sociales tratan radicalmente, de fenómenos irrepetibles, singulares. Estos han sido llamados (...) como eventos raros. De esta suerte, una nueva epistemología emerge y es posible. Al final se muestra que existen nexos fuertes entre las ciencias sociales con la biología y la ecología. Pero en ese punto, el texto termina abierto.: This paper claims that change is the rule in the social world, in all scales of time, without cycles or periodic dynamics. Hereafter, the topic that immediately arises is the irregularity of the world. If this is true, then irregular social sciences are to be possible. The best antecedent of such an idea is to be found in Mandelbrot’s own understanding of fractals and multifractals. Thus, the social sciences radically deal with phenomena that are in no way repeated, for they are singular. Such events have been called as rare events. In thus tenure, a brand-new epistemology arises and is possible. At the end, some connections between the social sciences and biology and ecology are depicted. That, however, is where this text ends and remains open. (shrink)

No cartesianismo contemporâneo, devido à retomada da teoria da livre criação das verdades eternas, alguns intérpretes trazem ao debate internacional um interessante viés interpretativo do pensamento de Descartes. Segundo eles, ao apresentar a indiferença da vontade como atributo de Deus, Descartes instaura uma concepção totalmente perigosa, da qual derivam a incompatibilidade entre a indiferença divina e o sistema cartesiano, deflagrando, enfim, um irracionalismo radical.

Cet article propose une interprétation de la philosophie de la Nouvelle Académie différente de celle qui a été défendue par J. Annas. Il nous semble que la prise en compte de l'ensemble des témoignages concernant cette école suggère une réalité plus complexe que celle que recouvre le concept de scepticisme, au moins dans sa version néopyrrhonienne. Nous croyons qu'Arcésilas et Carnéade n'ont pas délimité un Platon sceptique, mais qu'ils ont accepté à leur manière l'ensemble de l'héritage platonicien. La force de (...) la tradition apparaît donc plus forte dans l'histoire de l'Académie que ne l'admettent généralement les interprètes. The purpose of this article is to give an interpretation of the New Academy's philosophy quite different from the one defended by J. Annas. In our opinion the reading of the whole testimonies relating to this school suggests a greater complexity than what is embraced by the concept of skepticism, at least in its neopyrrhonian version. We believe that Arcesilas and Carneades, instead of confining Plato whithin the limits of skepticism, have accepted - in their own way - the whole Platonician legacy. Thus the burden of tradition seems more important in the history of the Academy than it is generally admitted. (shrink)

Having a “normal” professional job and doing research impose different social and personal connotations. These differences materialize at least in two clear ways. First, it is common that researchers in the making find it very difficult to communicate to their closest social network (e.g., family and old close friends) the content and the importance of their work, as they lose known sources of social comparison. Meanwhile, professional job titles (e.g., brand manager, auditor, lawyer) are self-explanatory, and they provide for the (...) owner an immediate social contextualization and recognition. Second, students normally receive delayed and ambiguous feedback and reinforcement while doing a PhD, contrasting with the continuous flow of assessment that companies give to their employees. In this article, I analyze how young researchers may develop a feeling of social isolation as the communication bridges with family, old friends, and undergraduate colleagues become narrower than before, making it difficult to receive external reinforcement on their social position and comparative achievement. This feeling, combined with the ambiguous feedback during the early stages of a research career, challenges the self-esteem of PhD students, forcing them to develop a self-contained personal security in order to cope with those two social contexts. Some young researchers might even withdraw from PhD programs should they fail to develop such psychological strength. I approach the issue through my own experience, first as a junior consultant in a multinational firm and then as a PhD candidate in economics. Second, I explore the behavioral phenomena that occur beneath those feelings in order to understand how to build such psychological strength. My goal is, through the exploration of my personal experience of becoming a researcher, to offer young researchers a useful narrative to help face the potentially negative feelings that may emerge when learning to balance these conflicting social roles. (shrink)

Se interpreta el relato del Génesis 11 como un factum de la condición humana, cuya historicidad nos es legada por la tradición judeocristiana. El relato bíblico supone para el temprano pensamiento occidental un reconocimiento de que la lengua (su pluralidad) juega un papel fundamental en la configuración del lazo social. Según Gadamer, el problema con el relato del Génesis 11 consiste en que induce a una visión inapropiada del lenguaje desde el punto de vista ontológico. La aproximación que se intenta (...) –siguiendo a Heidegger- destaca que la configuración ontológica del hombre lo muestra como un ser inmediatamente social y comprensivo. The hermeneutic circle and confusio linguarum, or how comprehension is possible The tale of Genesis 11 is usually interpreted as a factum of human condition, whose historicity is bequeathed to us by the Judeo-Christian tradition. For early Western thought, the biblical tale means the recognition of (the plurality of) language's key role in shaping social bonds. According to Gadamer, the problem with the story of Genesis 11 is that it induces an inappropriate view of language from an ontological point of view. The approach attempted here –following Heidegger– points out that the ontological configuration of man displays him as an immediately social and supportive being. (shrink)

Much work in the philosophy of action in the last few decades has focused on the elucidation and justification of a series of purported norms of practical rationality that concern the presence or absence of intention in light of belief, and that demand a kind of structural coherence in the psychology of an agent. Examples of such norms include: Intention Detachment, which proscribes intending to do something in case some condition obtains, believing that such condition obtains, and not intending to (...) do that thing; Intention-Belief Consistency, which proscribes intending to do what you believe you will not do; Intention Consistency, which proscribes intending each of two ends you believe to be inconsistent; and Means-End Coherence, which proscribes intending an end and not intending the means you believe to be implied by your end. In this paper, I present a series of examples that show that these requirements are not genuine requirements of rationality. The reason for this is simple: these requirements concern the presence or absence of intention in light of all-out belief. Rational agents like us, however, do not, and in fact should not, always form or revise their intentions in light of what they all-out believe. When such agents do not form or revise their intentions in light of what they all-out believe, they need not be irrational if they do not conform to these requirements. (shrink)

Esta investigación da cuenta de cómo ha sido expresada, interpretada y fundada poéticamente la ciudad colombiana durante el siglo XX en las obras de los poetas colombianos Luis Vidales (Suenan Timbres), Rogelio Echavarría (El Transeúnte) y Juan Manuel Roca (Luna de ciegos y Los ladrones nocturnos). Indaga cómo estos tres poetas colombianos han fundado ciudades como textos escriturales y levantado cartografías simbólicas citadinas; realiza una interpretación de los universos de sus poéticas, de las constelaciones simbólicas que asume el poema como (...) universo del lenguaje, el cual construye topologías imaginarias sobre la ciudad, revelando arquetipos fundamentales, presentes en la poesía urbana colombiana. (shrink)

O presente trabalho visa analisar a possibilidade de se utilizar a ontologia matemática, conforme se pode observar na obra de Badiou, para conformar a estrutura lógica de teorias sociais. Trata-se de exemplificar como o conceito de multiplicidade sem unidade pode substituir a noção grega tradicional de que a unidade é anterior à multiplicidade. Para isso se apresentam as inovações matemáticas de Cantor, com a teoria dos conjuntos, e Paul Cohen, que apresenta as noções de “genérico” e “forçamento”, as quais permitem (...) a concepção de uma multiplicidade sem unidade. Por fim, aborda-se a analogia levantada por William Widen que aproxima o raciocínio lógico-matemático utilizado pela teoria dos conjuntos ao método de “subtração” utilizado por John Rawls para a formação de sua teoria da justiça. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to point out significant and meaningful overlapping between several styles of scientific thinking, as they were proposed by Crombie (1981) and discussed by Hacking (1985; 2009). This paper is divided in four sections. First, I examine an interpretation made by Barnes (2004) about the incompatibility among scientific styles. As explained by its author, this interpretation denies any possibility of similarities between styles of scientific reasoning. In opposition, the following sections of this paper include explanations (...) of relevant characteristics of Geometry, as stated in Euclid's Elements, which are also present in other three scientific styles: modeling, experimental exploration and taxonomic style (and some of the shared characteristics are even used to define such styles). By stressing out these characteristics I argue that these four styles discussed by Hacking are not so different from each other, in fact, they overlap and may even be abridged into one foundational style: geometric. El objetivo de este artículo consiste en explicar traslapes importantes y significativos entre varios estilos de pensamiento científico, tal como fueron propuestos por Crombie (1981) y discutidos por Hacking (1985; 2009). El presente artículo está dividido en cuatro secciones. Primero, se examina la interpretación de Barnes (2004) sobre la incompatibilidad entre diversos estilos. Según este autor, no existe posibilidad alguna de encontrar similitudes en los estilos de razonamiento científico. En oposición a esta interpretación, las siguientes secciones explican características relevantes de la Geometría, tal como fueron plasmadas en Los Elementos de Euclides, y que están presentes en otros tres estilos: de modelación, de experimentación y taxonómico (las características compartidas incluso definen algunos de estos estilos). Destacar estas características me permite argumentar que estos cuatro estilos discutidos por Hacking no son tan diferentes entre sí, de hecho, se traslapan e incluso pueden ser condensados en un estilo fundacional: el geométrico. (shrink)

Con las propuestas realizadas en este artículo lo que se pretende de alguna manera es marcar toda una línea de trabajo, tanto individual como social para tratar de hacer del consumo responsable no sólo una práctica de comportamiento de compra, sino todo un estilo de vida, donde se recogen aspectos políticos, educativos, de participación ciudadana, etc. A la vez que se intentan dar pautas para las conductas.

The objective of this work is to analyse the phenomena and the implications of hyperglobalization on current companies. To introduce this purpose, we are going to review the different processes of global economic cohesion produced throughout history. We will focus on the hyperglobalization stage and on the effect that hyperconnectivity has had for companies and their operation. We will analyze the phenomenon of big data, his new technological innovations and how they have affected the companies act and the global society. (...) Finally, we will present an ethical analysis of these new technological phenomena and their implications for society. (shrink)

Oaksford (2001) considers that the findings of Espino, Santamaria, and GarciaMadruga (2000a) could be explained by the Probability Heuristics Model (PHM) proposed by Chater and Oaksford (1999). He specifically voices three objections, the two main ones being based on the fact that PHM is not a theory about syllogism representation. If this is the case, we consider that PHM cannot explain our data, because most of them were registered before the participants evaluated the conclusion. We argue that only a theory (...) at the representational level can property explain these data. (shrink)