As a discourse genre, statements of purpose are characterized by their occluded status in the academy and by their hybrid nature. Statements of purpose are required in applications for a place in a postgraduate course, and they are requested to obtain information about the academic and professional background and skills of each applicant. A study of the genre’s linguistic and textual features is needed in Spanish to discover and understand writers’ and readers’ perception of this genre. A corpus of 50 (...) motivation letters in Spanish is analyzed here. We study the distinguishing macro- and microtextual features of this particular genre and co-occurrences between both kinds of features. At the macrotextual level, statements of purpose display prototypical rhetorical moves, which can be classified as writers’ moves and readers’ moves. On the microtextual level, modalization resources and discourse markers are discussed. This multiple perspectives analysis of the corpus shows evidence of significant co-occurrences among modalization, discourse markers, and rhetorical moves. Writers’ ideal representations of this discourse genre, which spans the academic and professional fields, can also be deduced. (shrink)

En la introducción a Grundlinien der Philosophie des Rechts (Líneas fundamentales de la filosofía del derecho), Hegel expone de un modo breve, pero esencial, su concepción de la voluntad libre dentro del marco especulativo de su filosofía. Las reflexiones anteriores sobre este tema se encuentran en la primera edición de la Enciclopedia de 1817. En la Introducción a la Filosofía del derecho, la concepción del derecho y de la libertad sugiere la línea principal de pensamiento sobre el modo en que (...) Hegel entiende la voluntad, que es libre en sí y para sí en las diferentes etapas de su desarrollo. Entendemos que la doctrina hegeliana de la voluntad es fundamental para toda la argumentación sobre el “Derecho abstracto”, la “Moralidad” y la “Eticidad”. (shrink)

RESUMEN. El presente trabajo trata de mostrar cómo algunos de los presupuestos teóricos de una concepción tradicional de los derechos, como el modo en el que operan la autonomía y la racionalidad y la forma en la que se articula la separación entre lo público y lo privado, han permitido que resulte fácilmente justificable que las corporaciones y, entre ellas, las empresas transnacionales, sean titulares de derechos humanos, pero también han operado como obstáculos para atribuirles obligaciones. Tales presupuestos han de (...) revisarse para que los derechos humanos sirvan efectivamente para proteger a los seres humanos y no tanto a las ‘personas’ en el sentido jurídico. ABSTRACT. This work is aimed to show how some of the theoretical premises of a traditional conception of rights (such as autonomy, rationality or the public/private separation) have allowed an easy justification of the human rights for corporations, and for transnational enterprises as corporations. However, these assumptions have also hampered the justification of human rights duties for these entities. These ideas should be reviewed to make human rights protect human beings over ‘legal persons’. (shrink)

The present paper adresses the objective of elucidating the phenomenological mechanisms which, according to the celebrated queer theory author Judith Butler, operate within performative politics. In this connection, this paper analyses the power of agency of minor identities as a resistance force against what Butler calls frames and its politic-ontological regularisation. Such biopolitical potential is fostered by the vulnerability and precarity of abject bodies. In this context, it will be considered the case of Bolivian anarcha-feminist group Mujeres Creando, which generates (...) powerful alternatives in order to reactivate agency by means of artistic practices. (shrink)

This is an study of phrases and topics by which was known the Cuba island during the XIX century. Analysis of the origins of phrases such as "la Albión ofAn-ierica". "La Siempre Fiel Isla de Cuba", "La perla de las Antillas", "La llave del Golfo": of systems as slavery, plantations, miscegenation, the idea of death, and the myth of mulatto. It is concluded that travelers, and well-read, even the own inhabitants, generated upon this extremely complex society, a series of ideas, (...) coined images. and spred expressions from subjective and particular forms of envisaging reality. (shrink)

The critical discourse analysis is the tool used in this article, to study how audiovisual media have constructed mental representation about the historical facts occurred in Spain between the final stage of the Spanish Civil War and the late 1980s: the theft of newborn babies. The State has failed in an attempt to establish policies that support truth, justice and reparation as it has been recalled by United Nations experts to the Government of Spain, and the reports and documentaries have (...) become vehicles to capture and recover memories. Our objective is to analyze how this collective awareness has been realized and the contribution of reports and documentaries. Our results show that the Spanish television channels silence the Francoist context to depict the thefts as the product of economical mobs focused on child trafficking. The international channels, however, put the origin of the dictatorship at the center of the discourse. (shrink)

The aim of this article is to analyse Spanish conversational structure, more concretely, to investigate in depth the role of the third move, or follow-up, outside classroom discourse. Since first introduced by Sinclair and Coulthard, the follow-up move has attracted a great deal of attention, as proved by numerous studies. However, these studies have mostly focused on English while Spanish has been neglected. The present study intends to fill in this gap by analysing a corpus of 50 conversational exchanges in (...) Peninsular Spanish. The analysis is qualitative and based on Tsui’s conversational framework, which has proved methodologically useful. As results will show, the presence or absence of the third move in Spanish conversations seems to rely heavily on a gender-based distinction. (shrink)

Todo lo que pertenece a la prehistoria de los pueblos suramericanos permanece envuelto en la sombra; ninguna de sus culturas poseía una escritura; no conocemos tampoco con absoluta certeza el nombre de alguna de aquellas poblaciones, ni siquiera el nombre del pueblo de los Incas (ya que con este nombre se designaba sólo a sus jefes)�.

Zusammenfassung Die Vereinbarkeit von Spitzensport- und Schulkarriere gestaltet sich für schulpflichtige Nachwuchsathleten sehr schwierig. Der vorliegende Beitrag konstruiert diese Unvereinbarkeit zunächst als Inklusionsproblem und beschreibt dann prinzipielle Lösungsmöglichkeiten im Rahmen einer Funktionalisierung von Schulen. Dabei wird insbesondere die sachliche Funktionalisierung in Form der strukturellen Kopplung von Spitzensport und Schule in den Blick genommen. Am Beispiel der „NRW-Sportschulen" und der „Spezialschulen Sport" in Brandenburg werden schließlich Möglichkeiten und Grenzen dieser strukturellen Kopplung diskutiert und Barrieren der sachlichen Funktionalisierung von Schulen identifiziert.

Zusammenfassung Dem deutschen Fußball scheint es geradezu mühelos zu gelingen, Spielerinnen und Spieler mit Migrationshintergrund zu integrieren, was sich deutlich in der Zahl betreffender Spielerinnen und Spieler in den Auswahlmannschaften des Deutschen Fußball Bundes zeigt. Die Mannschaften des Deutschen Handball Bundes dagegen rekrutieren sich bislang ausschließlich aus rein deutschstämmigen Spielerinnen und Spielern. Beim Handballsport scheint es sich hierzulande bislang um etwas ausgesprochen „Deutsches“ zu handeln, mithin um eine Sportart, die fast 20 % der Bevölkerung kaum erreicht und dabei offenkundig sogar (...) die größte Migrantengruppe, nämlich diejenige mit muslimischem Hintergrund, so gut wie vollständig ausschließt. Der Aufsatz steckt sich das Ziel, all jene Mechanismen der Exklusion von Migranten im Handball zu identifizieren und in einem theoretischen Modell zusammenzufassen, die in Deutschland zur Unter- bzw. Nichtrepräsentanz von Spielerinnen und Spielern mit unterschiedlichem Migrationshintergrund im Handballsport beitragen. Aufbauend darauf werden Leitfragen für eine empirische Untersuchung der Exklusionsmechanismen abgeleitet. (shrink)

This paper describes the main drawbacks of extrapolating Noam Chomsky’s hypothesis about the existence of a Universal Grammar of language to the realm of morality as illustrated in Marc Hauser’s 2006 volume, Moral Minds.

Previous research has shown that inconsistencies across repeated interviews do not indicate deception because liars deliberately tend to repeat the same story. However, when a strategic interview approach that makes it difficult for liars to use the repeat strategy is used, both consistency and evasive answers differ significantly between truth tellers and liars, and statistical software (binary logistic regression analyses) can reach high classification rates (Masip et al., 2016b ). Yet, if the interview procedure is to be used in applied (...) settings the decision process will be made by humans, not statistical software. To address this issue, in the current study, 475 college students (Experiment 1) and 142 police officers (Experiment 2) were instructed to code and use consistency, evasive answers, or a combination or both before judging the veracity of Masip et al.'s ( 2016b ) interview transcripts. Accuracy rates were high (60% to over 90%). Evasive answers yielded higher rates than consistency, and the combination of both these cues produced the highest accuracy rates in identifying both truthful and deceptive statements. Uninstructed participants performed fairly well (around 75% accuracy), apparently because they spontaneously used consistency and evasive answers. The pattern of results was the same among students, all officers, and veteran officers only, and shows that inconsistencies between interviews and evasive answers reveal deception when a strategic interview approach that hinders the repeat strategy is used. (shrink)

Technological advances in the information and knowledge society have influenced and transformed economic, social and educational dynamics. Currently there are many digital gaps related to the access to technology, lack of digital literacy and social use. These gaps vary based on the population ages and become more notorious in elders. This digital illiteracy is making all technological developments of the XXI Century to be underused, not making possible to take advantage of all the possibilities that they offer to our society, (...) in this case, to Colombia. This study aims at analyzing the penetration level and use of handheld digital devices, especially the cellular phone, in adult population, based on the 2016 national survey of life quality in Colombia, elaborated by Departamento Administrativo Nacional de Estadística-DANE, specifically on the module of ownership and use of ICT goods. Results of four age groups are compared: 32 years or under, from 33 to 45, from 46 to 59, and over 60. The total sample is 37047 inhabitants of the Colombian territory, grouped by regions (Antioquia, Bogota, Caribbean, Eastern Central, Orinoquia, Amazonia, Pacific, San Andres, and Valle del Cauca). Data have been analyzed by using descriptive and inferential statistical procedures, contingency tables analysis, and logistic regression, in order to identify and know the effect of age on the level of penetration and use of handheld digital devices when comparing results in young adults and older ones. Findings show that young adults use these technologies in a greater proportion when comparing to older adults, showing a significant correlation between age and the increase of the digital gaps of access and social use of handheld digital devices. Even when characteristics like country regions, level of education, and the urban or rural setting are taking into account, the probability of obtaining penetration and use of handheld digital devices decreases significantly when attaining old age. (shrink)

We compare two approaches given to the parallelogram law as a fundamental notion in eighteenth century mechanics. The authors we study are Kant and d’Alembert and we use the context created by Newton’s Principia as our point of departure.

Dienes & Perner argue that the explicit representation of an individual to which a property is attributed requires explicit representation of the attributed property. The reasons for this conclusion are similar to the reasons why another of their conclusions may be considered suspect: A property may be explicit without an explicit representation of an individual or the predication of the property to an individual. We question the latter conclusion and draw connections to neurophysiological and cognitive evidence.

Given the crucial role of the mass media in influencing public discourse, this study examines the discourses around climate change within the Brazilian press, covering the time period of 2003–2013. Survey evidence has shown that Brazilians’ degree of concern about climate change is higher than almost anywhere else, with nine out of 10 Brazilians considering climate change a serious problem. The primary purpose of this study is to investigate how the press engendered Brazilians’ striking level of climate change concern, with (...) special attention to how the discourse developed over time. To this end, I undertake a corpus-assisted discourse analysis to examine the most dominant linguistic patterns in the discourse, presenting evidence on an unprecedented scale and with considerable depth. The corpus consists of 19,686 newspaper texts published by 12 Brazilian broadsheet papers. The results are interpreted in the light of available opinion polls on the public’s perception of climate change as well as Brazil’s national context and environmental governance. (shrink)

This article explores the loss of social justice reported by individuals living in the environs of industrial wind turbines (IWTs). References indicate that some individuals residing in proximity to IWT facilities experience adverse health effects. These adverse health effects are severe enough that some families have abandoned their homes. Individuals report they welcomed IWTs into their community and the negative consequences were unexpected. Expressions of grief are exacerbated by the emotional and physical toll of individuals’ symptoms, loss of enjoyment of (...) homes and property, disturbed living conditions, financial loss, and the lack of society’s recognition of their situation. The author has investigated the reported loss of social justice through a review of literature, personal interviews with, and communications from, those reporting adverse health effects. The author’s intention is to create awareness that loss of social justice is being associated with IWT development. This loss of justice arises from a number of factors, including the lack of fair process, the loss of rights, and associated disempowerment. These societal themes require further investigation. Research by health professionals and social scientists is urgently needed to address the health and social impacts of IWTs operating near family homes. (shrink)

En el primer tercio del siglo XX, Carmen de Burgos realizó una notable tarea para lograr el conocimiento de la literatura extranjera en España y tradujo más de treinta obras de autores tan variados como Ruskin, Renan, Moebius, Salgari o Rachilde. Se ha elegido ordenar sus traducciones de acuerdo con las editoriales que las publicaron para distinguir la línea editorial de cada una de ellas.

Data are lacking with regard to participants' perspectives on return of genetic research results to relatives, including after the participant's death. This paper reports descriptive results from 3,630 survey respondents: 464 participants in a pancreatic cancer biobank, 1,439 family registry participants, and 1,727 healthy individuals. Our findings indicate that most participants would feel obligated to share their results with blood relatives while alive and would want results to be shared with relatives after their death.

The c‐ros, c‐met and c‐neu genes encode receptor‐type tyrosine kinases and were originally identified because of their oncogenic potential. However, recent progress in the analysis of these receptors and their respective ligands indicate that they do not mediate exclusively mitogenic signals. Rather, they can induce cell movement, differentiation or morphogenesis of epithelial cells in culture. Interestingly, the discussed receptors are expressed in embryonal epithelia, whereas direct and indirect evidence shows that the corresponding ligands are produced in mesenchymal cells. In development, (...) signals given by mesenchymal cells are major driving forces for differentiation and morphogenesis of epithelia; embryonal epithelia are generally unable to differentiate without the appropriate mesenchymal factors. The observed activities of these receptor/ligand systems in cultured cells and their expression patterns indicate that they regulate epithelial differentiation and morphogenesis also during embryogenesis and suggest thus a molecular basis for mesenchymal epithelial interactions. (shrink)

Zusammenfassung Alle Versuche von Trainern, auf Psyche, Einstellungen und Verhalten von Athleten einzuwirken, sind immer nur auf dem Wege von Kommunikation möglich. Wenn Trainer ihre Athleten steuern wollen, dann müssen sie Experten in Sachen Kommunikation sein. Was aber macht Trainer zu solchen Experten? Der vorliegende Beitrag geht dieser Frage nach, indem er die Trainer-Athlet-Kommunikation einer soziologischen Analyse unterzieht und auf der Basis systemtheoretischer Überlegungen Erfolgsstrategien im Hinblick auf die Probleme „Verständigung“ und „Steuerung“ ableitet.

La "yesería" constituye uno de los elementos decorativos más característicos de nuestra arquitectura medieval. La imagen que hoy tenemos de La Alhambra, de la Sinagoga del Tránsito, y de tantos otros palacios y conventos, se debe a ese barato elemento constructivo que logró crear la misma apariencia de lujo de las telas o el marfil. Como hemos podido estudiar en nuestro artículo del número anterior (Al-Qantara, XX, 275-297), en el palacio de Ruy López Dávalos de Toledo se conserva uno de (...) los conjuntos más fascinantes del siglo XIV, el cual nos ha llevado a preparar estas páginas sobre la técnica de la yesería medieval. (shrink)

The informational disorder that permeated recent events such as the Brazilian and American elections, the pandemic crisis and the refutation of climate issues highlighted by several scientists highlights a complex phenomenon that presents itself with transnational characteristics, as it is experienced in societies on all continents. Therefore, this scenario has led social and international actors to reflect on this informational environment, seeking to understand its causes and characteristics and point out measures that can mitigate the harmful effects they are capable (...) of causing. The emergence of the extreme right in several countries contributed to this situation being established and maintained. Thus, Hannah Arendt's understanding of the relationship between truth, lies and politics, as well as the contributions regarding propaganda perpetrated by the totalitarian regimes she studied - Nazism and Bolshevism - prove to be a pertinent reference for approaching the phenomena that cause informational disorder in society. present. This article aims to establish a dialogue between Arendt's understandings and the contemporary scenario, in which there is an intense dissemination of untrue and disinformative content, such as fake news and denialism. The intention of this work is, therefore, to identify to what extent Arendt's conclusions about totalitarian propaganda are close to/far from the communicational model of the contemporary extreme right. The research is qualitative and documentary and aims to carry out context analysis based on Arendtian understandings. In the end, we can see points of rapprochement between the two movements – totalitarianism and the contemporary extreme right. (shrink)

Resumen: Spinoza afirma que las decisiones, elecciones y acciones de un agente son necesarias porque están determinadas causalmente. ¿Acaso los seres humanos no son agentes morales? ¿son sólo eslabones de una cadena de causas cuyo curso no pueden controlar y que los exime de las consecuencias de sus actos, así como de premios y castigos? ¿ser un individuo libre significa aceptar pasivamente lo que ocurre y abandonar la pretensión de modificarlo? Este artículo responde a estas preguntas mediante la distinción en (...) la obra spinoziana de dos conceptos de libertad, la verdadera libertad y el libre albedrío, así como con la distinción entre la responsabilidad civil fundada en el concepto de potestas humana -y no en la verdadera libertad, aunque la posibilita-.: Spinoza sustains that the agents' decisions are necessary because they are causally determined. But then, are humans really moral agents? Is it possible that they are only passengers in a train of causes, whose course they cannot control and exempts them from the consequences of their acts, of reward or punishment? Is accepting whatever happens and quitting the aspiration of changing things the hallmark of the free man? This paper answers these questions by distinguishing two concepts of freedom, real freedom and free will, as well as two concepts of responsibility. Civil responsibility is grounded in free will, whereas moral responsibility is not grounded in true freedom, but in human power. (shrink)

This article analyzes the legacy of the idea of an Axial Age with a particular focus on Habermas, Taylor, Assmann, and Jaspers. I ask what has motivated the use of the concept and illustrate the ways in which it is situated in the twentieth-century debate on myth. I then respond to the limitations of the concept’s legacy and turn to two overlooked elements of Jaspers’s initial intervention: In contrast to the dominant discourse, he argued that myth changed its form and (...) was not replaced by logos; he also argued that the Axial Age failed rather than succeeded. (shrink)

Gene editing techniques, such as CRISPR, are being heralded as powerful new tools for delivering agricultural products and foods with a variety of beneficial traits quickly, easily, and cheaply. Proponents are concerned, however, about whether the public will accept the new technology and that excessive regulatory oversight could limit the technology’s potential. In this paper, we draw on the sociotechnical imaginaries literature to examine how proponents are imagining the potential benefits and risks of gene editing technologies within agriculture. We derive (...) our data from a content analysis of public comments submitted to the Food and Drug Administration’s 2017 docket titled “Genome Editing in New Plant Varieties Used for Food.” Our sample frame consists of 26 comments representing 30 agriculture and biotech companies, organizations, and trade associations. Our findings reveal three key sociotechnical imaginaries, including that gene editing technologies in agriculture: are not GMO but instead equivalent to traditional plant breeding; have the potential to usher in a new Green Revolution; and could facilitate the democratization of agricultural biotechnologies. We argue that forming and projecting these collective interpretations of the potential of gene editing technologies for crops and foods plays an important role in efforts by proponents to influence regulatory oversight, modes of governance, and build public acceptance. This research contributes to calls by science and technology studies scholars to investigate emergent concerns and imaginaries for novel technoscientific advances to help inform upstream models of public engagement and governance decisions. (shrink)

La presente investigación consiste en el análisis de la obra del escritor y filósofo Fabrice Hadjadj, desde la perspectiva de uno de los conceptos clave en ella: la «carne». La importancia de la carne para entender al hombre es una intuición desarrollada por Hadjadj en contraposición al espiritualismo dominante de la nueva era tecnológica. Nos encontramos en una era post-ideológica que se caracteriza por el dominio de lo tecnológico. Además, otra de las grandes novedades de nuestro tiempo es la conciencia (...) mayoritaria de la posibilidad de extinción de la especie humana. La crisis actual es profunda, antropológica: se trata de la pérdida de sentido de lo «humano». Esta crisis se ve agravada por una visión cada vez más desencarnada del hombre o espiritualista, lo que supone una ruptura antropológica que es promovida por el impacto de las tecnologías en nuestra lógica. Según Hadjadj, es este espiritualismo lo que contribuye más profundamente a diluir lo humano y acelerar la deriva poshumana de los nuevos tiempos. Nuestro trabajo, además de despejar cuál es el sentido de la carne para Hadjadj, así como el porqué de su particular relevancia para la nueva era, muestra algunas de las principales consecuencias de esa ruptura antropológica que promueve el uso de las tecnologías. La finalidad de esta investigación es mostrar cómo una visión antropológica centrada en la carne como la que propone Hadjadj, constituye una poderosa alternativa (si no la única) para resistir a la tentativa de que el espiritualismo tecnológico acabe devorando lo humano. (shrink)

One of the most prevalent rationales for public healthcare policies is a human right to healthcare. Governments are the typical duty-bearers, but they differ vastly in their capacity to help those vulnerable to serious health problems and those with severe disabilities. A right to healthcare is out of the reach of many developing economies that struggle to provide the most basic services to their citizens. If human rights to provision of such goods exist, then governments would be violating rights without (...) doing anything wrong. I argue that such variable ability to provide healthcare depends not only on financial resources, but on institutional capacity, and that the latter represents a more fundamental challenge to the existence of a human right to healthcare than previously recognized. This challenge does not imply that government has no obligations to protect and improve the health of their citizens, but that it is best to think of such obligations as generated by conventional rights, namely rights arising from local legal and social conventions, which require governments to pursue health-related moral goals such as reducing suffering, closing opportunity gaps for the disadvantaged, and preventing the spread of contagious diseases. We need not think of such moral goals in terms of human rights. (shrink)

Modern jurisprudence has typically been presented as a debate between legal positivism and natural law. Though the demise of legal positivism has been touted despite its pre-eminence in past decades, it is clear that there remains a vigorous debate surrounding this theory. It is noteworthy that Hans J. Morgenthau’s legal thought and critique of legal positivism have remained unexplored in the context of this debate. Largely forgotten, his legal thought answers questions that lie at the heart of the natural law (...) and legal positivist debate. It showcases his deeply nuanced understanding of legal and political theory and contains a powerful and insightful commentary on the fundamental problems faced by international law. Building on existing literature, this paper unearths Morgenthau’s critique of legal positivism. It does this by re-examining his works, which address the question of whether moral considerations are relevant to determining the content of the law in force. It brings his legal thought to light, which highlights the artificiality of the division between law and morality and offers a nuanced analysis of problems inherent in international law. Ultimately, the paper challenges the claim that the law can be determined without resorting to moral judgement and shows how Morgenthau’s insights remain relevant to legal positivism and natural law debates today. (shrink)