In this paper I examine the figure of the monster, in both its negative and positive aspects, such as the notion of biopolitics. As a negative figure, the monster would represent the dehumanized subject produced by exclusion mechanisms operating in destructive version of biopolitics, resulting in thanatopolitics, and in this sense provokes horror and abjection. Here I will use the analyses of the anthropological machine (Agamben), the device of the person (Esposito) and indefinite detention (Butler). As a positive figure, the (...) monster would represent the new subject trying to articulate productive versions of biopolitics, and is distinguished by its metamorphic and posthuman appearance, and in this sense would be subject and object of joy. Finally, as a project of affirmative biopolitics, I discuss Butler’s proposal of a new way of thinking about the political community that assumes the original vulnerability of the subject. (shrink)

En este artículo se examina la común estrategia metódica de los estudios sobre la discapacidad y la crítica feminista, que sitúa la experiencia de la discapacidad en el contexto de los derechos y las exclusiones. Este modelo social de la discapacidad critica el modelo biomédico que concibe la discapacidad como anormalidad y patología, como error de un orden natural dado. Para deconstruir este sujeto naturalizado se analiza una de las representaciones históricas de la discapacidad: la figura del monstruo. Por último, (...) se propone la discapacidad como ocasión para pensar la vulnerabilidad esencial de todo sujeto. (shrink)

In this article I shall propose María Zambrano's poetic reason as a suitable method for developing a knowledge of animal being. To do so, I will follow the analyses (Derrida, Coetzee) that place animal thinking in the poetic sphere, thus showing the need for a poetic/literary knowledge to make a philosophical knowledge of the animal possible. Animal writing expresses our nature in relation to animal nature; it discloses our animal interbeingness. Finally, I will point to some of the principles of (...) ecofeminist/animal ethics, like care and empathy, which arise both in what I propose to call animal writing and in Zambranian poetic reason. (shrink)

En este trabajo se analizan, por una parte, los datos sobre la presencia de las mujeres en los movimientos de derechos de los animales en el estado español; por otro lado, tratamos de encontrar marcos explicativos que aclaren cuál es el vínculo que conecta la sensibilidad feminista con la sensibilidad animalista. Hemos realizado un sondeo sobre el porcentaje de mujeres entre los miembros de las organizaciones animalistas más importantes de España y, con estos resultados, hemos hecho una revisión de los (...) diferentes marcos teóricos que pueden explicar esta significativa orientación de género en la defensa del bienestar animal. Por último, defendemos que hay un vínculo entre la ideología patriarcal y la explotación ecológica, en tanto que ambos comparten la dominación y la opresión de género. En este sentido, la sensibilidad animalista movilizaría sentimientos morales de fraternidad con la naturaleza. (shrink)

En este artículo se analiza la transexualidad y la intersexualidad como dos fenómenos que desafían las concepciones dimórficas de la anatomía corporal, así como las concepciones binarias del sexo y del género. En este desafío de la norma cultural y médica, los sujetos transexuales e intersexuales construyen un lugar de resistencia, proponiendo, en un movimiento de autodesignación, la concepción de un nuevo sujeto transgenérico. Por último, se reseñan algunas cuestiones éticas vinculadas a los tratamientos médicos de la asignación de sexo (...) a los intersexuales y a la reasignación de los transexuales, relativas a la autonomía y dignidad de estos sujetos transgenéricos. (shrink)

In this paper I want to defend the necessary role played by the recognition of human animal subjectivity in the articulation of a posthuman ethics. For this I propose that what I have called “animal writing” is a way of writing that seeks to express that human animality. I will analyze the features of what animal writing is, proposing Zambrano’s poetic reason as an adequate method to articulate animal writing. As an example of animal writing, I will examine the narratives (...) of the feminist wild. Finally, going through these texts will allow me to highlight some principles of what I consider to be a posthuman ethics. (shrink)

Partiendo de la discusión del concepto de carne, en este trabajo analizo la común estructura ontológica/biopolítica que comparten los animales humanos y no humanos. Para ello me sirvo de los feminismos materiales y utilizo los hallazgos teóricos del feminismo animalista. También examino la noción de “encierro” en tanto que concepto biopolítico que produce un nuevo tipo de ser vivo. Todo ello para, en último lugar, articular un sentido positivo del concepto de encarnación que permita construir comunidad animal (humana y no (...) humana). (shrink)

Business ethics is one of the most significant demands made by institutional and individual investors, who usually require the participation of the board of directors in the planning and implementation of ethical behaviour in corporations. This is done by drawing up an ethics code and then monitoring its fulfilment. This study has a dual objective: first, to analyse the role played by the composition of the board of directors, and by that we mean its independence and the diversity of its (...) members, on the implementation and scope of an EC, and, second, to detect whether the corporate governance system moderates the level of involvement of the board in ethical issues. The findings obtained from a data panel sample made up of 760 listed companies from 12 countries for the years 2003–2009 show that the largest companies with large-sized and diverse boards implement the most developed ECs. Nevertheless, the extent of involvement of the independent directors is conditioned by the level of shareholder orientation characteristic of the system of CG in the corporation’s country of origin. (shrink)

The emotional connotation of words is known to affect word and sentence processing. However, the when and how of the interaction between emotion and grammar are still up for debate. In this behavioural experiment, 35 female university students read noun phrases (NPs) composed by a determiner and a noun in their L1 (Spanish), and were asked to indicate if the NPs were grammatically correct (elmasc camareromasc) or not (*lafem tornillomasc; i.e. a gender agreement task). The type of gender (arbitrary/natural), the (...) emotionality (unpleasant/neutral), and the gender class (feminine/masculine) of the nouns were manipulated. We found an overall grammaticality effect, responses being faster in grammatically correct trials than in incorrect ones. However, the effects of emotionality and gender class varied depending on gender type. For arbitrary gender, the grammaticality effect was greater in feminine nouns than in masculine nouns and independent of emotionality. For natural gender, the grammaticality effect interacted with gender class and emotionality, this effect only emerging in unpleasant stimuli for feminine nouns. Our results reveal that it is possible to find emotional effects at the behavioural level in an intrinsically grammatical task. Yet, these effects depend on gender properties like the type of gender and the gender class. (shrink)

Mentioning products or brands on Facebook enables individuals to display an ideal self to others through a form of virtual conspicuous consumption. Drawing on conspicuous donation behaviour literature, we investigate ‘conspicuous virtue signalling’, as conspicuous consumption on Facebook. CVS occurs when an individual mentions a charity on their Facebook profile. We investigate need for uniqueness and attention to social comparison information as antecedents of two types of CVS–self-oriented and other-oriented. We also explore the relationship between CVS and self-esteem, and offline (...) prosocial and unethical behaviour intentions. Data from two studies, a college survey and an adult survey via MTurk, were analysed using structural equation modelling. Results indicate that NFU predicts both forms of CVS, while ATSCI influences both forms of CVS for adults and other-oriented CVS for students. Self-esteem is enhanced by self-oriented CVS. Self-oriented CVS predicts donation intention whereas other-oriented CVS significantly reduces donation intention for both samples. Furthermore, a significant relationship between CVS and purchase intention of counterfeit luxury goods is revealed. Findings provide insights into conspicuous virtue signalling and the relationship between CVS on Facebook and offline behavioural intentions. (shrink)

Like many humans in the wake of genocide and war, most wildlife today has sustained trauma. High rates of mortality, habitat destruction, and social breakdown precipitated by human actions are unprecedented in history. Elephants are one of many species dramatically affected by violence. Although elephant communities have processes, rituals, and social structures for responding to trauma—grieving, mourning, and socialization—the scale, nature, and magnitude of human violence have disrupted their ability to use these practices. Absent the cultural, carrier groups who traditionally (...) lead and teach these healing practices, humans must assume the role. Trauma theory has brought attention to victims' severe, sustained psychological damage. Looking through the lens of trauma theory provides a better understanding of how systematic violence has affected individuals and groups and how the pervasive nature of traumatic events affects human-nonhuman animal relationships. The framing of recent trauma theory compels conservationists to create new relationships—neither anthropocentric nor powerbased—with nonhuman animals. The David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust, Kenya, shows how humans, taking on the role of interspecies witness, bring orphan elephants back to health and help re-build elephant communities shattered by genocide. (shrink)

The long-standing vision of universities as the “alma mater” of students and graduates is a demonstration of its role as sustaining the person, the expert/professional, and the citizen. This role has persisted in the face of rising global challenges such as the emergence of new learning spaces, the growing diversity of publics, the call for productivity and performativity, and the hope for a significant engagement with the community and the public good. These sometimes conflicting tendencies have also stimulated higher education (...) institutions to further pedagogical strategies that articulate in novel ways the classical elements of learning: action/experience and reflection/theory. In this context, service learning received a new impetus, particularly in the post-Bologna European Higher Education Area, as universities were looking for ways in which to articulate the social dimension of HEI and their “third mission” as institutions not only committed to addressing and solving societal problems, but also committed to fostering public-minded alumni through powerful experiences of engagement for both the students and the community.This paper is based on the experience of Erasmus+project ESSA, a service earning based project focused on University social responsibility (USR). ESSA engaged four groups of students from three European universities (Edinburgh, Porto, and Kaunas) in conducting a 1-week on-site USR audit based on an ecologic and situated concept of social responsibility. We will consider the perceived impact of ESSA on 44 students through a thematic analysis of focus group discussions and student self-assessment reports produced during and after their participation in the USR audit. (shrink)

We argue that quantum theory does not allow for a generalization of the notion of classical conditional probability by showing that the probability defined by the Lüders rule, standardly interpreted in the literature as the quantum-mechanical conditionalization rule, cannot be interpreted as such.

In the Leviathan, power can be understood in two different senses, which are carefully discriminated in its Latin version by the use of the terms potentia and potestas to translate, depending on the context and the type of power concerned, the English power. Potentia and potestas, although types of power of a different nature – one, the physical power that bodies have to take effect on each other; the other, the juridical power, out of which legal effects as justice itself (...) come about –, are mutually implicated in the intertwining of juridical representations. This article aims to explore the consequences that follow from this ambivalent concept of power to think about justice and natural right. (shrink)

El hábito es una de las encrucijadas filosóficas en las que el dilema entre naturaleza y libertad se pone de manifiesto. El artículo expone la descripción que Paul Ricoeur ofrece sobre esta noción en Lo voluntario y lo involuntario (1950) y defiende que el hábito constituye una genuina y paradójica forma de libertad, pues ésta se realiza gracias y a través de la necesidad. Se tiene en consideración el difícil punto de partida de Ricoeur, quien, por una parte, rechaza lo (...) que él denomina la explicación cosmológica de Tomás de Aquino y, por otra, acoge la novedad del cogito cartesiano, siendo a la vez consciente de las limitaciones dualistas que el planteamiento conlleva. Inspirándose en Ravaisson, Ricoeur rechaza una interpretación maquinal del hábito y se acerca a la idea clásica de segunda naturaleza. En el artículo se muestran los problemas de Ricoeur en el empleo de este término y se señalan los límites de la propuesta del autor, para quien, al final, no hay sistema entre lo natural y lo libre. (shrink)

Stemming from Uexkull’s fundamental concepts of Umwelt and Innenwelt as developed in the biosemiotic approach of Ferreira 2010, 2011, the present work models mathematically the semiosis of cognition and proposes an artificial cognitive architecture to be deployed in a robotic structure.

The present paper stems from the biosemiotic modelling of individual artificial cognition proposed by Ferreira and Caldas (2012) but goes further by introducing the concept of Umwelt Overlap. The introduction of this concept is of fundamental importance making the present model closer to natural cognition. In fact cognition can only be viewed as a purely individual phenomenon for analytical purposes. In nature it always involves the crisscrossing of the spheres of action of those sharing the same environmental bubble. Plus, the (...) incorporation of that concept is vital to understand the complex semiosis that sustains collective tissues, societies, regulating collective cognition and consequently cooperative action. The concept of Umwelt Overlap broadens the range of applicability of the previous model to several distinct domains allowing for example for its application to multi-agent cooperative autonomous systems. In this paper a Middle Size League RoboCup soccer team is used as an example of a possible application. (shrink)

O presente artigo tem dois objectivos: por um lado, o de analisar os conceitos de percepçáo e memória no cinema segundo a fenomenologia de Maurice Merleau-Ponty em “Le Cinéma et la Nouvelle Psychologie” e, por outro lado, o de analisar estes mesmos conceitos no filme de Christopher Nolan, Memento . A nossa principal referência será a fenomenologia da percepçáo em Merleau-Ponty de modo a melhor compreendermos o interesse fenomenológico do cinema e deste filme em particular.

Neste artigo propomos uma leitura do conto “La exportación de cérebros” (Movimiento perpetuo, 1972), do guatemalteco Augusto Monterroso à luz do conceito de cosmopolitismo do pobre, do ensaísta brasileiro Silviano Santiago. Para isso, é feita uma análise crítica e abrangente do texto, relacionando-o com a realidade dos nossos dias.

O fio condutor dos argumentos apresentados por J. S. Mill em On Liberty é de que o aperfeiçoamento da humanidade tem como fonte infalível e permanente o espírito da liberdade. Nosso objetivo é mostrar que o conceito de liberdade milliana se equilibra entre a promoção do cultivo da individualidade, na sua mais ampla pluralidade, e o desenvolvimento moral da sociedade.

During postembryonic development, all organs of a plant are ultimately derived from a few pluripotent stem cells found in specialized structures called apical meristems. Here we discuss our current knowledge about the regulation of plant stem cells and their environments with main emphasis on the shoot apical meristem of Arabidopsis thaliana. Recent studies suggest that stem cells are localized in specialized niches where signals from surrounding cells maintain their undifferentiated state. In the shoot meristem, initiation of stem cells during embryogenesis, (...) regulation of stem‐cell homeostasis and termination of stem‐cell maintenance during flower development appear to primarily involve regulation of the stem‐cell niche. BioEssays 25:961–970, 2003. © 2003 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. (shrink)

En este artículo voy a profundizar en una interpretación aplicada de la obra del segundo Wittgenstein, propuesta por José Medina, Miranda Fricker y Peg O’Connor, entre otros. Estos autores equiparan juegos de lenguaje y formas de vida, entienden las reglas de los juegos como normas sociales y trasladan la argumentación del filósofo vienés a un ámbito sociopolítico. Concretamente, José Medina propone un argumento en oposición a los juegos de lenguaje sociales, que es la versión social al argumento de Wittgenstein en (...) oposición a los juegos de lenguaje privados. En segundo lugar, analizaré dos casos: las distintas denominaciones de los indios huicholes y el uso del plural inclusivo por parte de algunos feminismos. Lo más interesante de estos dos casos es que estos grupos proponen significados privados o usos del lenguaje que sólo parecen ser válidos para ellos. Preguntaré si estos usos se pueden entender como juegos de lenguaje sociales y ser criticados desde los argumentos de Medina. Este estudio de casos servirá para evaluar la adecuación, validez y límites de esta interpretación de la obra de Wittgenstein. (shrink)

En este artículo desarrollo una crítica hacia posturas transexcluyentes, que niegan el reconocimiento como mujeres de las mujeres trans, bajo la óptica de la filosofía del lenguaje cotidiano del segundo Wittgenstein. Aunque este autor nunca se posicionó en ese tema, varias de sus intérpretes feministas, como Toril Moi, Cressida Heyes y Hilde Lindemann-Nelson, han elaborado una crítica antiesencialista para evitar el reduccionismo biológico del término «mujer» y ampliar su uso. Siguiendo a estas filósofas, mi tesis es que varios contenidos de (...) la obra tardía de Wittgenstein (uso cotidiano del lenguaje, argumento contra el juego de lenguaje privado, parecidos de familia y conceptos de límites borrosos) pueden contribuir a aclarar ciertos usos del concepto de «mujer» y a criticar los presupuestos esencialistas que subyacen a las propuestas feministas transexcluyentes. (shrink)

Offering an original contribution to the field of luxury and fashion studies, this edited collection takes a philosophical perspective, addressing the idea that humans need luxury. From this framework it delves deep into two particular dimensions of luxury, emotions and society, and concludes with cases of brand building in order to illustrate the two dimensions at work. Comparative analysis between countries is brought together with an emphasis on China. Chapters address the ongoing growth in the market, as well as the (...) significant changes in the sector brought about by fast international expansion and an increased focus on ethical supply and sustainability, making the book an insightful read for scholars of fashion business, luxury and branding. (shrink)

Notre travail s’inscrit dans les ancrages théoriques de l’ethnométhodologie et de l’analyse conversationnelle. Notre intérêt est avant tout d’analyser les pratiques interactionnelles entre joueurs en situation de jeux vidéo ; et d’autre part, de comparer différents jeux sur le plan de leur organisation interactionnelle ainsi que leur structure séquentielle et multimodale. Á partir des pratiques de joueurs, nous questionnons les problèmes et contraintes rencontrés, d’une part lors des analyses de ces données en situation de jeux vidéo, et d’autre part lors (...) de présentations académiques de nos recherches. Une étude en cours, sur les séquences d’encouragement et d’instruction dans les interactions entre joueurs, nous permet de montrer qu’il est indispensable de contextualiser le type de jeu joué, ses règles, ses options spécifiques parfois, les relations entre les joueurs, les rôles de chacun à l’instant de l’extrait, et aussi les actions en cours dans l’univers du jeu lui-même qui donneraient du sens à l’analyse. Ces contextualisations et prises en compte des ressources multimodales permettent d’expliquer et de décrire plus clairement et objectivement le phénomène linguistique, l’action ou encore la problématique analysée. (shrink)

AbstarctThis research responds to the call for a greater understanding of how sustainable consumption leads to quality of life. Previous studies have not yielded conclusive evidence regarding whether individuals’ sustainable consumption promotes well-being. We theorize that both well-being and sustainable consumption should be conceptualized and measured as multi-faceted constructs to reconcile and understand the contradictory previous findings. This study examines the association between three dimensions of sustainable consumption: purchasing, simplifying and activism, and the six markers of psychological well-being in a (...) sample of 423 young consumers. The findings show that the relationship between sustainable consumption and happiness is more intricate than depicted in previous studies. Happiness is mainly derived from simplifying behaviors, whereas engaging in activist behaviors is associated with lower levels of psychological well-being. Understanding the relationship between SC and well-being may help leverage points of action to support sustainable consumers and persuade more young consumers to embrace this lifestyle. (shrink)