RESUMENEl propósito de este artículo es investigar la evolución de la lectura que hace Adorno de Kierkegaard para presentarla como un tema central en la formación de su filosofía materialista. Kierkegaard, la construcción de lo estético anticipa en buena medida algunas de las ideas importantes de sus obras posteriores. Y es que si bien critica la ruptura de la dialéctica entre sujeto-objeto que tiene lugar en Kierkegaard, ambos van a coincidir en su ataque al idealismo a través de la crítica (...) inmanente.PALABRAS CLAVECRÍTICA INMANENTE, DIALÉCTICA, COMUNICACIÓN, MATERIALISMOABSTRACTThe main goal of this article is to investigate the evolution of Adorno’s reading of Kierkegaard to present it as a central theme for the formation of his own materialistic philosophy. His work Kierkegaard: Construction of Aesthetic anticipates a good deal of his later work. While he criticizes Kierkegaard for breaking off the subject-object dialectic, they converge in their attacks on the concept of idealism through the immanent critique.KEY WORDSIMMANENT CRITIQUE, DIALECTIC, COMMUNICATION, MATERIALISM. (shrink)

Este artículo presenta una lectura de los momentos de afinidad y diferencia que existen entre las propuestas de interpretación materialista de la filosofía kantiana en A. Sohn-Rethel y Th. W. Adorno. Con sus propios matices, ambos autores utilizan las nociones de fetichismo de la mercancía y síntesis social para mostrar que el concepto de sujeto trascendental no sólo representa el índice de la máxima abstracción que se persigue en la teoría idealista de conocimiento, sino también la forma de la sociedad (...) como sistema funcional de dominio. (shrink)

Este trabajo propone una lectura de los momentos de continuidad y diferencia que existen entre las propuestas de recuperación de la filosofía marxista de Th. W. Adorno y G. Lukács, prestando especial atención a la manera en la que ambos desarrollan su teoría de la cosificación y el fetichismo de la mercancía.

El 19 de agosto de 1925 Walter Benjamin y Asja Lacis publican en el Frankfurter Zeitung «Nápoles», un ensayo sobre la ciudad italiana en el que analizan las costumbres y prácticas culturales de la zona a partir de un peculiar método de superposición de imágenes. Si bien resulta habitual estudiar Calle de dirección única o Infancia en Berlín como textos tempranos en los que Benjamin se aproxima a la fisionomía como forma de expresión, este trabajo pretende llamar la atención sobre (...) la primera de las Denkbilder sobre ciudades que Benjamin había elaborado en los años veinte y a la que seguirán «Moscú», «Marsella» o «San Gimignano». El objetivo es mostrar de qué manera estos retratos de ciudades no solo permiten al autor dar cuenta de los cambios que experimentaron las urbes europeas a partir del siglo XIX, sino también poner en marcha una teoría de la representación que parte del estudio de los recursos alegóricos en el Trauerspiel sobre los que trabajaba en esa época. Con ello, el ensayo sobre Nápoles será presentado como el primero de los esfuerzos llevados a cabo por Benjamin para conducir la investigación sobre la dramática barroca a problemas de la cultura contemporánea. (shrink)

El propósito de este artículo es prestar atención a la evolución de la lectura que hace Adorno de la fenomenología husserliana para abordar algunos de los problemas fundamentales que determinarán la formación materialista de su filosofía. Se pretende trazar la génesis de su pensamiento materialista desde su temprana afinidad con la obra de Cornelius, hasta los aspectos fundamentales de su filosofía de los años treinta.

La obra de Leo Löwental, destacado representante de la Teoría crítica, se ha ocupado de la destrucción del individuo en el mundo contemporáneo. La «herencia de Calibán» que aquí traducimos es un ejemplo de ese análisis.

En este trabajo se estudia la intervención del Derecho en la comunidad. Se parte de una definición social de comunidad rechazando como tales aquellas que el Derecho llama comunidades pero no lo son socialmente. El Derecho interviene en las comunidades como la familia, pero lo hace pensando esencialmente en los individuos que la componen no en la comunidad social como tal. El diseño individualista del Derecho occidental vigente impide o, incluso, produce consecuencias no buscadas cuando el Derecho actúa sobre comunidades (...) sociales. (shrink)

Esta investigación implementó un modelo multicomponente para promover competencias prosociales y prevenir la violencia escolar. Se desarrolló en once escuelas primarias marginadas en Sonora y Chiapas. Se utilizó un protocolo mixto, la fase cuantitativa se efectuó mediante un cuasiexperimento; la cualitativa recurrió a la investigación-acción participativa. Algunos resultados muestran un aumento en la práctica de competencias prosociales en los participantes; el índice de prosociabilidad estudiantil aumentó en ambas ciudades, y hubo una reducción en la violencia escolar. Las estrategias incidieron en (...) el mantenimiento de climas escolares de cordialidad, mayor participación y cohesión, desarrollo de la empatía, asertividad, mejor manejo de emociones y de resolución pacífica de conflictos, lo que en suma coadyuvó a la mejora del aprovechamiento educativo y al aumento de redes de amistad. (shrink)

En este documento se parte de la resiliencia como componente que influye de manera positiva para el éxito escolar, se describen los elementos que la configuran, y se discuten con los rasgos particulares de jóvenes que asisten a una escuela secundaria inserta en un contexto considerado de alto riesgo social en México. Se trata de un trabajo cualitativo de perspectiva fenomenológica. El análisis de los datos permitió identificar que los estudiantes responden positivamente a algunos de los atributos que se (...) necesitan para el desarrollo de la resiliencia, mientras que la familia y escuela se convierten en espacios de tensión. (shrink)

El objetivo de este trabajo es discutir la urgencia de evaluar el modelo bilingüe, Lengua de Señas Mexicana y español, implementado para la comunidad sorda. Y conocer los resultados de las escuelas que adoptaron este modelo en: la adquisición de la LSM; la enseñanza del español como segunda lengua en su forma escrita; y en favorecer la identidad sorda. Palabras clave: LSM, modelo bilingüe, identidad, español.

RESUMEN Introducción: Son escasos los servicios en salud mental dentro del contexto escolar que permitan una integración intersectorial para superar la brecha de falta de asistencia en salud mental en la población infanto - juvenil, aun cuando, es en la escuela donde se detectan mayoritariamente los problemas de salud mental. Objetivo: Comentar el uso de servicios de salud mental en el ambiente escolar en relación con los trastornos mentales y trastornos subumbrales. Método: El presente resultado se obtiene a partir (...) del “Estudio de Prevalencia Comunitaria de Trastornos Psiquiátricos y Utilización de Servicios de la Población Infanto-Juvenil Chilena”. La muestra estuvo representada por sujetos entre 4 y 18 años. La información sobre el uso de servicio de salud mental se recogió con una versión modificada de la Escala Service Assesment for Children and Adolescent. Se realizó un modelo de regresión logística para analizar cinco áreas del uso de servicios en el ambiente escolar, las cuales se correlacionaron con diagnósticos de trastorno mentales y trastorno subumbral de ansiedad, disruptivo y depresión en el último año. Resultados: Las escuelas se enfrentan a grandes desafíos sobre cómo proporcionar apoyo efectivo de salud mental para los estudiantes, que presentan algún tipo de trastorno mental o trastorno subumbral. Discussión: Las instituciones educativas requieren ser visualizadas como una entidad que podría satisfacer las necesidades que se advierten de manera urgente en atención, prevención y promoción de problemas mentales en la población infanto- juvenil, si se vinculan de forma más directa con los servicios de salud mental. ABSTRACT Introduction: Mental health services are scarce within the school context that allow intersectoral integration to overcome the gap in mental health care in the child and adolescent population, being the school where mental health problems are mostly detected. Objective: to know the use of mental health services in the school environment in relation to mental disorders and subthreshold disorders. Method: The present secondary study is carried out from the "Study of Community Prevalence of Psychiatric Disorders and Utilization of Services of the Chilean Child-Youth Population". The sample was represented by subjects between 4 and 18 years old. Information on the use of mental health service was collected with a modified version of the Service Assessment Scale for Children and Adolescents. A logistic regression model was performed to analyze five areas of the use of services in the school environment, which were correlated with diagnoses of mental disorders and subthreshold anxiety, disruptive and depression disorder in the last year. Results: Schools face great challenges on how to provide effective mental health support for students, who present some type of mental disorder or subthreshold disorder. Discusion: Educational institutions need to be visualized as an entity that could meet the needs that are urgently noticed in attention, prevention and promotion of mental problems in the child and adolescent population, if it is linked more directly with health services. (shrink)

La Universidad como centro de investigación y conocimiento debe propiciar una cultura para investigar. El artículo tiene como objetivo presentar la construcción y análisis estructural de una escala para evaluar la cultura investigativa en universitarios, constituida en seis dimensiones y treinta ítems calificados en escala Likert con cinco opciones de respuesta. La escala fue aplicada a 438 estudiantes del último año de estudios de dieciséis Escuelas de una Universidad del norte peruano, luego de su validación por cinco expertos. El análisis (...) factorial exploratorio y confirmatorio permitió validar la estructura multidimensional y su fiabilidad se estableció con el coeficiente omega (w=0.96). (shrink)

Las relaciones que entre mística y filosofía contemporánea establecieron algunos filósofos de la Escuela de Madrid, fueron expuestas a colación del cuarto centenario de San Juan de la Cruz celebrado en México (1942), las cuales -y según la visión de José Gaos en su breve pero denso Filosofía y mística aquí y ahora- tuvieron fuertes concomitancias entre sí, y su estela permanece en forma de “vasos comunicantes” con autores contemporáneos como Fernando Rielo (1923-2004), quien también nos ofreció su (...) visión (1992) sobre la mística y la Escuela. (shrink)

En 1966, Jean Orcibal advirtió la influencia directa del Maestro Eckhart en San Juan de la Cruz, y podemos preguntarnos si sucedió lo mismo con Santa Teresa de Jesús. De ser así, tendrían que haber llegado a España los escritos del Dominico alemán. A través de estas líneas mostraremos, en primer lugar, las vías de transmisión de los textos eckhartianos y cómo estuvieron a disposición de los místicos españoles en el siglo XVI: se hallaban presentes en las ediciones latinas (...) de Tauler y de Ruysbroeck, y en la traducción castellana de las Instituciones. En un segundo momento abordaremos la influencia de Eckhart en San Juan de la Cruz (1542-1591) y en Santa Teresa de Jesús (1515-1582), teniendo en cuenta el estado de la investigación. Por último, señalaremos los grandes temas en los que aparece una ‘confluencia’ de perspectivas y seguramente también una ‘influencia’ del Maestro Eckhart y su escuela en estos grandes escritores y místicos carmelitas del siglo XVI. (shrink)

Ibn Masarra y su escuela -- El místico Abū-l-ʻAbbās ibn al-ʻArīf de Almería y su "Mahāsin al-Maŷālis" -- Un precursor hispanomusulmán de San Juan de la Cruz.

Se problematizan los efectos de las regulaciones escolares sobre los sentidos que les estudiantes del nivel secundario técnico enuncian respecto a la juventud, la formación y su relación con las expectativas de inserción laboral. Trabajamos con un diseño múltiple de investigación a través de datos de encuestas implementadas durante 2018 y entrevistas en profundidad realizadas en 2019 a jóvenes que asisten a un secundario técnico de orientación industrial en Caleta Olivia (Santa Cruz). Nuestros análisis se inscriben en los debates (...) sobre los procesos de escolarización en tiempos en que la regulación escolar se caracteriza por la auto-responsabilización de les sujetes respecto de su propio devenir (Grinberg, 2008). Entre los resultados destacamos que les estudiantes consideran que la regulación del tiempo escolar condiciona la realización de prácticas que asocian a lo juvenil. Para elles ser estudiante de escuela técnica implica un sacrificio que encuentra sus razones en el valor del título para su futura inserción laboral, manifestando cierta persistencia de la promesa de la formación que caracterizó históricamente a dicha modalidad. Por último, consideramos que los sentidos producidos por les estudiantes dan cuenta de la articulación entre formas de regulación con características disciplinarias (Foucault, 2021a) y aquellas propias de las sociedades del rendimiento (Han, 2012). (shrink)

ABSTRACT In several works by the Circle (Bakhtin, Vološinov, Medvedev), the reference to Saussure and/or the specificities of Linguistics, as a science of language, can be found in a dialogue, more or less controversial, between thinkers and epistemological, theoretical and methodological trends that propose different approaches to the complexity represented by human language and, consequently, to its study. In this article, the objective is to circumscribe and discuss the presence of Linguistics, as a science of language established by Saussure, in (...) the writings of Mikhail Bakhtin. After an introduction, the text is organized into three sections, which deal with (1) Saussure’s strong presence in the Circle’s writings; (2) Bakhtin’s dialogue with science in the unity of culture; (3) the dialogue with the linguistic science of the Geneva school in “PCMF”; and, finally, of inconclusive but necessary considerations. Important key moments of reflection stand out in texts signed by Bakhtin, in which Saussure (although not named, but designated by the science he established) deserves to be highlighted, as a necessary scientific-philosophical counterpoint for the constitution of another possibility of understanding and study of language: the dialogical perspective. As a result, it is expected to demonstrate that, since the 1920s, the Bakhtin/Saussure dialogue has been established to distinguish and qualify two complementary ways of understanding language and the place of science in the unity of culture. (shrink)

Education as Freedom is a groundbreaking edited text that documents and reexamines African-American empirical, methodological, and theoretical contributions to knowledge-making, teaching, and learning and American education from the nineteenth through the twenty-first century, a dynamic period of African-American educational thought and activism. Education as Freedom is a long awaited text that historicizes the current racial achievement gap as well as illuminates the myriad of African American voices and actions to define the purpose of education and to push the limits of (...) the democratic experiment in the United States. (shrink)

This volume presents the concept of Ecoscape as spatial interrelations, or spatially patterned processes, that are constitutive of an environment_an ecosystem. Contributors investigate environmental issues concerning the human impact on geohistory, food distribution, genetically modified biota, waste management, scientific mapping, and the rethinking of human identity.

O presente Relato é resultado dos estudos na disciplina Antropologia Visual, ministrada pelo professor Dr. Flavio Leonel no Programa de mestrado em Linguagens e Saberes na Amazônia da Universidade Federal do Pará, Campus de Bragança. Diante da fundamentação teórica apreciada durante a disciplina pensamos discutir o conceito de memória apresentado por Paul Ricoeur, em que o autor baseia-se em duas perguntas: de que há lembrança? De quem é a memória? Podemos atribuir a esses questionamentos a passagem de paradigma: do fato (...) que é lembrado, ao sujeito que lembra tal fato. Dessa forma, a memória dos Ka’apor pode remeter a imagens do passado e reconstituir o presente das novas aldeias criadas dentro do seu Território. Assim, o relato faz um recorte teórico de conceitos chaves do que foi o desenvolvimento da pesquisa, cujo tema é A SIGNIFICAÇÃO DO LUGAR E AS NOVAS TERRITORIALIDADES DOS KA’APOR NAS ALDEIAS IPU’Y RENDA E TURIZINHO. Além disso, proponho apresentar as reflexões dos pesquisadores Ana Luiza Carvalho, Fernando Tacca, Carlo Severi e Jacques Aumont no bojo do conceito de imagem relacionando com as fotografias adquiridas durante experiência como professora do projeto de escolarização ka’apor, nos anos 2012 e 2013, denominado Ka’a namõ jumu’e ha katu – Aprendendo com a Floresta. (shrink)

Humans and other animals have an evolved ability to detect discrete magnitudes in their environment. Does this observation support evolutionary debunking arguments against mathematical realism, as has been recently argued by Clarke-Doane, or does it bolster mathematical realism, as authors such as Joyce and Sinnott-Armstrong have assumed? To find out, we need to pay closer attention to the features of evolved numerical cognition. I provide a detailed examination of the functional properties of evolved numerical cognition, and propose that they prima (...) facie favor a realist account of numbers. (shrink)

Religious disagreement is an emerging topic of interest in social epistemology. Little is known about how philosophers react to religious disagreements in a professional context, or how they think one should respond to disagreement. This paper presents results of an empirical study on religious disagreement among philosophers. Results indicate that personal religious beliefs, philosophical training, and recent changes in religious outlook have a significant impact on philosophers' assessments of religious disagreement. They regard peer disagreement about religion as common, and most (...) surveyed participants assume one should accord weight to the other's opinion. Theists and agnostics are less likely to assume they are in a better epistemic position than their interlocutors about religious questions compared with atheists, but this pattern only holds for participants who are not philosophers of religion. Continental philosophers think religious beliefs are more like preferences than analytic philosophers, who regard religious beliefs as fact-like. (shrink)

Este artículo aborda la importancia de la comprensión del discurso en la relación médico-paciente. Su objetivo radica en valorar los múltiples condicionamientos que favorecen o entorpecen la comprensión en el proceso comunicativo que se produce entre el profesional de la salud y el enfermo. Se proporcionan, además, algunas sugerencias que el médico ha de tener en cuenta por ser quien conduce el intercambio con el paciente. This article deals with the importance of understanding doctor-patient's typical discourse. It values the several (...) conditionings that favor or hinder understanding during the communicative process between health professionals and patients. It also provides doctors with suggestions since they are in charge of leading doctor-patient interaction. (shrink)

The feeling of error (FOE) is the subjective experience that something went wrong during a reasoning or calculation task. The main goal of the present study was to assess the accuracy of the FOE in the context of mental mathematical calculation. We used the number bisection task (NBT) to evoke this metacognitive feeling and assessed it by asking participants if they felt they have committed an error after solving the task. In the NBT participants have to determine whether the number (...) presented in the middle of a triplet corresponds to the arithmetic mean of the two outer numbers (e.g., 07_16_25) with a Yes/No answer. Our results show that FOE reports were strongly correlated with arithmetic errors and numerical properties of the NBT, suggesting that the FOE accurately represents the error. This finding indicates that even very fast metacognitive feelings are reliable when it comes to evaluating one’s own mental performance. Moreover, our results suggest that the occurrence of FOEs is determined by the fluency with which each triplet was solved and the post-decision evaluation processes that occurred after the NBT was solved. Additionally, we asked participants to report their confidence in the given answer for the cases where they did not report FOEs. Participants reported less confidence for the (objectively) incorrect answers than for the (objectively) correct ones, suggesting that in cases where they did not have a conscious FOE they still were able to implicitly detect their errors. Remarkably, confidence was also determined by the fluency of the NBT. (shrink)

Experimental studies indicate that nonhuman animals and infants represent numerosities above three or four approximately and that their mental number line is logarithmic rather than linear. In contrast, human children from most cultures gradually acquire the capacity to denote exact cardinal values. To explain this difference, I take an extended mind perspective, arguing that the distinctly human ability to use external representations as a complement for internal cognitive operations enables us to represent natural numbers. Reviewing neuroscientific, developmental, and anthropological evidence, (...) I argue that the use of external media that represent natural numbers (like number words, body parts, tokens or numerals) influences the functional architecture of the brain, which suggests a two-way traffic between the brain and cultural public representations. (shrink)

Situationists such as John Doris, Gilbert Harman, and Maria Merritt suppose that appeal to reliable behavioral dispositions can be dispensed with without radical revision to morality as we know it. This paper challenges this supposition, arguing that abandoning hope in reliable dispositions rules out genuine trust and forces us to suspend core reactive attitudes of gratitude and resentment, esteem and indignation. By examining situationism through the lens of trust we learn something about situationism (in particular, the radically revisionary moral implications (...) of its adoption) as well as something about trust (in particular, that the conditions necessary for genuine trust include a belief in a capacity for robust dispositions). (shrink)

This study investigates professional tax practitioners' ethical judgments and behavioral intentions in cases involving client pressure to adopt aggressive reporting positions, an issue that has been identified as the most difficult ethical/moral problem facing public accounting practitioners. The multidimensional ethics scale (MES) was used to measure the extent to which a hypothetical behavior was consistent with five ethical philosophies (moral equity, contractualism, utilitarianism, relativism, and egoism). Responses from a sample of 67 tax professionals supported the existence of all dimensions of (...) the MES other than egoism. Regressions of ethical judgments and behavioral intentions on the MES dimensions indicate that ethical decision making is most heavily influenced by the moral equity dimension, followed by the contractualism dimension. In contrast, the utilitarianism and relativism dimensions were only related to ethical judgments and behavioral intentions in isolated instances. (shrink)

Our ability for scientific reasoning is a byproduct of cognitive faculties that evolved in response to problems related to survival and reproduction. Does this observation increase the epistemic standing of science, or should we treat scientific knowledge with suspicion? The conclusions one draws from applying evolutionary theory to scientific beliefs depend to an important extent on the validity of evolutionary arguments (EAs) or evolutionary debunking arguments (EDAs). In this paper we show through an analytical model that cultural transmission of scientific (...) knowledge can lead toward representations that are more truth-approximating or more efficient at solving science-related problems under a broad range of circumstances, even under conditions where human cognitive faculties would be further off the mark than they actually are. (shrink)

Because of its appeal to the imagination, the intellect, the affections, and the will, literature has an invaluable role in the applied ethics education of business professionals and college students. This essay reaps ethics and ethical leadership insights from King Lear, while relishing its aesthetic value. By its side, core concepts underlying a proper understanding of applied ethics and hence ethical leadership are emphasized; particularly, the elements of human nature, moral agency and responsibility, the difference between morality and ethics, and (...) an overview of virtue ethics and key intellectual and moral virtues. Stressing the connection between literature and moral philosophy, this essay shows how poetry can engagingly and compellingly transmit ethical concepts and values in leadership education. (shrink)

Internalism in epistemology is the view that all the factors relevant to the justification of a belief are importantly internal to the believer, while externalism is the view that at least some of those factors are external. This extremely modest first approximation cries out for refinement (which we undertake below), but is enough to orient us in the right direction, namely that the debate between internalism and externalism is bound up with the controversy over the correct account of the distinction (...) between justified beliefs and unjustified beliefs.1 Understanding that distinction has occasionally been obscured by attention to the analysis of knowledge and to the Gettier problem, but our view is that these problems, while interesting, should not completely seduce philosophers away from central questions about epistemic justification. A plausible starting point in the discussion of justification is that the distinction between justified beliefs and unjustified beliefs is not the same as the distinction between true beliefs and false beliefs. This follows from the mundane observation that it is possible to rationally believe.. (shrink)

This paper examines the role of prestige bias in shaping academic philosophy, with a focus on its demographics. I argue that prestige bias exacerbates the structural underrepresentation of minorities in philosophy. It works as a filter against (among others) philosophers of color, women philosophers, and philosophers of low socio-economic status. As a consequence of prestige bias our judgments of philosophical quality become distorted. I outline ways in which prestige bias in philosophy can be mitigated.

[from the publisher's website] Questions about the existence and attributes of God form the subject matter of natural theology, which seeks to gain knowledge of the divine by relying on reason and experience of the world. Arguments in natural theology rely largely on intuitions and inferences that seem natural to us, occurring spontaneously—at the sight of a beautiful landscape, perhaps, or in wonderment at the complexity of the cosmos—even to a nonphilosopher. In this book, Helen De Cruz and Johan (...) De Smedt examine the cognitive origins of arguments in natural theology. They find that although natural theological arguments can be very sophisticated, they are rooted in everyday intuitions about purpose, causation, agency, and morality. Using evidence and theories from disciplines including the cognitive science of religion, evolutionary ethics, evolutionary aesthetics, and the cognitive science of testimony, they show that these intuitions emerge early in development and are a stable part of human cognition. -/- De Cruz and De Smedt analyze the cognitive underpinnings of five well-known arguments for the existence of God: the argument from design, the cosmological argument, the moral argument, the argument from beauty, and the argument from miracles. Finally, they consider whether the cognitive origins of these natural theological arguments should affect their rationality. (shrink)

This Element examines what we can learn from religious disagreement, focusing on disagreement with possible selves and former selves, the epistemic significance of religious agreement, the problem of disagreements between religious experts, and the significance of philosophy of religion. Helen De Cruz shows how religious beliefs of others constitute significant higher-order evidence. At the same time, she advises that we should not necessarily become agnostic about all religious matters, because our cognitive background colors the way we evaluate evidence. This (...) allows us to maintain religious beliefs in many cases, while nevertheless taking the religious beliefs of others seriously. (shrink)

The argument from design stands as one of the most intuitively compelling arguments for the existence of a divine Creator. Yet, for many scientists and philosophers, Hume's critique and Darwin's theory of natural selection have definitely undermined the idea that we can draw any analogy from design in artifacts to design in nature. Here, we examine empirical studies from developmental and experimental psychology to investigate the cognitive basis of the design argument. From this it becomes clear that humans spontaneously discern (...) purpose in nature. When constructed theologically and philosophically correctly, the design argument is not presented as conclusive evidence for God's existence but rather as an abductive, probabilistic argument. We examine the cognitive basis of probabilistic judgments in relationship to natural theology. Placing emphasis on how people assess improbable events, we clarify the intuitive appeal of Paley's watch analogy. We conclude that the reason why some scientists find the design argument compelling and others do not lies not in any intrinsic differences in assessing design in nature but rather in the prior probability they place on complexity being produced by chance events or by a Creator. This difference provides atheists and theists with a rational basis for disagreement. (shrink)

The cultural transmission of theological concepts remains an underexplored topic in the cognitive science of religion (CSR). In this paper, I examine whether approaches from CSR, especially the study of content biases in the transmission of beliefs, can help explain the cultural success of some theological concepts. This approach reveals that there is more continuity between theological beliefs and ordinary religious beliefs than CSR authors have hitherto recognized: the cultural transmission of theological concepts is influenced by content biases that also (...) underlie the reception of ordinary religious concepts. (shrink)