One usually makes assertions by means of uttering indicative sentences like “It is raining”. However, not every utterance of an indicative sentence is an assertion. For example, in uttering “I will be back tomorrow”, one might be making a promise. What is to make an assertion? C.S. Peirce held the view that “to assert a proposition is to make oneself responsible for its truth” (CP 5.543). In this thesis, I interpret Peirce’s view of assertion and I evaluate Peirce’s reasons for (...) holding it. I begin by reconstructing and assessing Peirce’s case for such view as it appears in (EP 2.140, 1903), (EP 2.312-313, 1904), and (CP 5.546, 1908). Then, I continue by elaborating on three aspects of Peirce’s view of assertion, namely, assertion as an act involving a certain kind of responsibility, the proposition as what is asserted, and responsibility for truth as a responsibility to give reasons. With respect to these three aspects, I argue for the following claims: (1) Peirce construed the responsibility involved in asserting as a moral responsibility; (2) Peirce held that propositions are types; and (3) Peirce was committed to a dialogical interpretation of “responsibility to give reasons”. Finally, I end by presenting two objections to Peirce’s view of assertion and its corresponding replies. I conclude that Peirce’s account of assertion is a valuable contribution to the philosophical debate on assertion. (shrink)

C.S. Peirce defended a pragmatist view of assertion in terms of its normative effect. This paper has two goals. First, to reconstruct and assess Peirce’s argument for the thesis that to assert a proposition is to make oneself responsible for its truth. Second, to argue that Peirce interpreted “responsibility for truth” as the acquisition of a dialogical commitment, namely, the duty to defend the proposition asserted by giving reasons upon challenge.

Political Freedom By George G. Brenkert Routledge, 1991. Pp. 278. ISBN 0–415–03372–1. £35 hbk.Wittgenstein: A Bibliographical Guide By Guido Frongia and Brian McGuinness Basil Blackwell, 1990. Pp. x + 438. ISBN 00631–13765–3. £60.00.Metaphysics By Peter van Inwagen Oxford University Press, 1993. Pp. xiii + 222. ISBN 0–19–8751400. £11.95 pbk.The Nature of Moral Thinking By Francis Snare Routledge, 1992. Pp. 187. ISBN 0–415–04709–9. £9.99 pbk.Filosofía analitica hoy: Encuentro de tradiciones Edited by Mercedes Torrevejano Servicio de Publications Universidade de Santiago de Compostela, (...) 1991. Pp. 284. ISBN 84–7191–722‐X. $15.5 pbk.The Puzzle of Experience By J.J. Valberg Clarendon Press, 1992. Pp. 227. ISBN 0–19–824291–3. £25.Religion and Philosophy Edited by Martin Warner Royal Institute of Philosophy Supplement: 31 Cambridge University Press, 1992. Pp. vi + 155. ISBN 0–521–42951‐X. £10.95 pbk.The Uses of Philosophy By Mary Warnock Blackwell, 1992. Pp. 256. ISBN 0–631–18038–9. £35.00 hbk. £11.95 pbk.The Disappearance of Time: Kurt Godel and the Idealistic Tradition in Philosophy By Palle Yourgrau Cambridge University Press, 1991. Pp. x + 182. ISBN 0–521–41012–6. £27.50. (shrink)

The global precedence effect, originally referring to processing hierarchical visual stimuli composed of letters, is characterised by both global advantage and global interference. We present herein a study of how this effect is modulated by the variables letter and sex. The Navon task, using the letters “H” and “S,” was administered to 78 males and 168 females. No interaction occurred between the letter and sex variables, but significant main effects arose from each of these. Reaction times revealed that the letter (...) “H” was identified more rapidly in the congruent condition both in the global and the local task, and the letter “S” in the incongruent condition for the local task. Also, although RTs showed a GPE in both males and females, males displayed shorter reaction times in both global and local tasks. Furthermore, luteal women showed higher d’ index in the congruent condition for the local task than both follicular women and hormonal contraceptive users, as well as longer exploration time of the irrelevant level during the global task than males. We conclude that, according to the linear periodicity law, the GPE is enhanced for compound letters with straight vs. curved strokes, whereas it is stronger in males than in females. Relevantly, luteal phase of the menstrual cycle seems to tilt women to rely on finer grained information, thus exhibiting an analytical processing style in global/local visual processing. (shrink)

El Elogio de la Locura de Erasmo de Rotterdam ha sido calificado como una crítica a la Europa del Renacimiento. El presente trabajo expone además como hipótesis que en dicha obra hay, detrás del uso de la ironía, una exhortación a sus lectores a reflexionar. Esto se afirma con apoyo en ciertos elementos que aquí se mostrarán, y en la comparación entre las críticas que hizo Lutero a la iglesia católica y las que había hecho Erasmo, enraizadas en una espiritualidad (...) especial que él llamaba Philosophia Christi, basada en la practicidad, la sencillez, la verdad y la humildad, cualidades que, a través de la ironía, Erasmo invitaba a practicar en su Elogio. (shrink)

En este artículo se estudia con cierto detenimiento y con abundantes textos la relación entre filosofía, fe y cultura cristiana, que ha resultado a veces problemática, quizá porque se tenía una concepción racionalista de la filosofía -casi asimilable a las matemáticas- o porque se creía erróneamente que un cristiano no podía ser un verdadero filósofo. La exposición está organizada a grandes rasgos en sentido histórico con una primera sección dedicada al impacto del cristianismo en la filosofía antigua; en segundo lugar, (...) la grave situación en la modernidad y la reacción de la Iglesia Católica en el siglo XIX; para finalmente sugerir en la tercera sección algunas claves para la renovación de la filosofía cristiana en el siglo XXI. (shrink)

La archidiócesis hispalense estuvo marcada en el último tercio del siglo XVII por el gobierno del arzobispo don Jaime de Palafox y Cardona (1685-1701), cuyo pontificado estuvo marcado por los continuos pleitos que mantuvo con los diferentes cabildos de la ciudad. Su actividad como patrono y mecenas de las artes quedó difuminada por su intensa labor en la defensa de la inmunidad eclesiástica, pero sus devociones personales hacia el Santísimo Sacramentado, a Santa Teresa de Jesús, a Santa Rosalía, además (...) de la admiración y respeto que sintió por el sacerdocio, tendrán una fuerte repercusión en la religiosidad y la estética de la Sevilla de finales de siglo XVII, manifestándose en diversas expresiones artísticas en la ciudad y en la promoción de edificios dedicadosa dichas advocaciones. (shrink)

En 1933, el escritor mexicano Jaime Torres Bodet publicó en Madrid su novela Estrella de día, en la cual continúa con la tradición narrativa de la Hollywood novel que en España se había manifestado en textos de Ramón Gómez de la Serna, J. Calvo Alfaro o Vicente Blasco Ibáñez, entre otros. A partir del estudio de cómo una actriz se convierte en un ser ideal para el protagonista, se comprueba la manera en la que las estrategias de márquetin (...) favorecen su mitificación. Sin embargo, también existen críticas al control mercantil sobre los cuerpos femeninos. Al estudiar ambos aspectos, se constata la paradoja de que, en la novela de Torres Bodet, el ascenso hacia el estatus de mito de la intérprete desmitifica la industria hollywoodiense por las técnicas de promoción que utiliza. (shrink)

This article is a review of Franz Brenatno’s material ontology. We support the thesis that Brentano defends an original type of monism. This monism can be seen as the conjunction of three theories: reism (the thesis that there are only concrete individual things), priority monism (the thesis that there is only one substance), and supersubstantivalism (the thesis that this substance is space).

Dentro del pujante aprendizaje basado en juegos (GBL por sus siglas en inglés), los juegos de mesa están entre los recursos clave y con más posibilidades educativas, aunque las investigaciones de los últimos años se hayan centrado mucho más en el potencial de los videojuegos. En este artículo definiremos algunos conceptos clave y expondremos un cierto marco teórico-metodológico. Abordaremos la potencialidad de los juegos de mesa para la enseñanza de la Historia, al tiempo que analizaremos los retos y problemas para (...) su aplicación en el aula y los diferentes contenidos que se pueden transmitir gracias a ellos, incluyendo ejemplos concretos. (shrink)

The interactions between genetic and environmental risk factors contribute to the aetiology of complex human diseases. Genome‐wide association studies (GWAS) have revealed that most of the genetic variants associated with complex diseases are located in the non‐coding part of the genome, preferentially within enhancers. Enhancers are distal cis‐regulatory elements composed of clusters of transcription factors binding sites that positively regulate the expression of their target genes. The generation of genome‐wide maps for histone marks (e.g., H3K27ac), chromatin accessibility and transcription factor (...) and coactivator (e.g., p300) binding profiles have enabled the identification of enhancers across many human cell types and tissues. Nonetheless, the functional and pathological consequences of the majority of disease‐associated genetic variants located within enhancers seem to be rather minor under normal conditions, thus questioning their medical relevance. Here we propose that, due to the prevalence of enhancer redundancy, the pathological effects of many disease‐associated non‐coding genetic variants might be preferentially (or even only) manifested under environmental stress. (shrink)

The blogosphere is full of personalities with masks, or pseudonyms. Although not a desired state of public communication, one could excuse the use of pseudonyms in blogs and social media, which are generally unregulated or weakly regulated. However, in science publishing, there are increasingly strict rules regarding the use of false identities for authors, the lack of institutional or contact details, and the lack of conflicts of interest, and such instances are generally considered to be misconduct. This is because these (...) violations of publishing protocol decrease trust and confidence in science and bring disrepute to those scientists who conform to the rules set out by journals and publishers and abide by them. Thus, when cases are encountered where trust and protocol in publishing are breached, these deserve to be highlighted. In this letter, I focus on Neuroskeptic, a highly prominent science critic, primarily on the blogosphere and in social media, highlighting the dangers associated with the use of pseudonyms in academic publishing. (shrink)

En este artículo se plantea la fertilidad del pensamiento marxista de Adolfo Sánchez Vázquez (1915-2011) al abordar los desafíos inherentes al desarrollo tecnológico. Se busca ofrecer una aproximación al pensamiento del autor acerca de la tecnología, temática tratada de manera implícita a lo largo de su obra. De esta manera, se aborda una cuestión apenas explorada en los estudios sobre Sánchez Vázquez, abriendo así la puerta a posteriores investigaciones sobre del tema. El trabajo se divide en tres partes. Una primera, (...) en la que se presenta someramente su filosofía de la praxis a partir de la hipótesis hermenéutica de la «trayectoria intelectual elíptica». Esta hipótesis de lectura permitirá comprender la obra de Sánchez Vázquez como articulada en torno a dos grandes preocupaciones principales: la creatividad y la emancipación política. Dos preocupaciones que definirán, a su vez, las reflexiones del autor acerca de la tecnología. En esta línea, será en la segunda parte donde se aborde la lectura sanchezvazquiana de la tecnología y su concepto de «racionalismo tecnológico». Finalmente, en la tercera parte, se proponen tres ámbitos estrechamente relacionados con el desarrollo tecnológico a los que las ideas del autor -marcadas por la doble preocupación anteriormente señalada-harían una contribución relevante: el de la ecología, el de la filosofía del trabajo y el de la socialización de la creación. (shrink)

Many journals and publishers employ online submission systems to process manuscripts. In some cases, one “template” format exists, but it is then molded slightly to suit the specific needs of each journal, a decision made by the editor-in-chief or editors. In the past few years, there has been an increase in the number of cases in which OSSs have been abused, mostly by the authorship, either through the creation of fake identities or the use of false e-mail accounts. Although the (...) abusive or fraudulent authors are at fault in such cases, the fact that such cases remained undetected for so long is of concern. Moreover, the current OSSs are imperfect, have security issues and may not be able to detect false information, except through post-submission verification. Sting operations, which involve the submission of false manuscripts with false identities and false affiliations, are no less unethical, and those who abuse the publishing protocol deserve to be as reprimanded as those who abuse OSSs. Finally, I question the ethics of editors or publishers creating OSS accounts on behalf of reviewers prior to obtaining their explicit permission. doi: 10.5294/pebi.2016.20.2.3. (shrink)

Both the physiological and the pathological morphogenetic processes that we can meet in embryogenesis, neogenesis and degenerative dysgenesis present common features: they are ruled by three different kinds of mechanisms, one related to cell migration, the second to cell differentiation and the third to cell proliferation. We deal here with an application to the cambial growth which essentially involves the third type of mechanism.Woody plants produce secondary tissue (secondary xylem and phloem) from a meristematic tissue called vascular cambium, responsible for (...) the radial growth of a tree. This paper focuses on the formation of secondary xylem, considered in two dimensions in a cross-section framework. A new discrete modelling approach is used, based on the cellular scale, in order to attain a more accurate understanding of how the elementary microscopic behaviour of each cell takes part in the macroscopic morphogenesis. The mathematical model essentially uses an occurrence method simulating the main features of radial growth with simple geometric rules, such as Thom's division rule (Thom,1972)to account for the cell proliferation. The study applies to concrete instances in which the changes made in the geometrical cellular patterns of the vascular cambium clearly affect the shape of the tree, as in Pinus radiata (D. Don.). (shrink)

El presente trabajo aborda la experiencia cotidiana de la violencia criminal entre estudiantes de preparatoria en la ciudad de Acapulco de Juárez en el Estado de Guerrero, en el sur de México. De forma particular, la investigación analiza el rol de la violencia en la conformación de campos de experiencia y horizontes de expectativas precarios entre esta población, mostrando cómo a través de dicho proceso se conforman lo que llamamos horizontes fragmentados, al interior de los cuales la producción de sentidos (...) contradictorios en torno a la experiencia de la inseguridad contribuye a los procesos de neoproletarización en el capitalismo contemporáneo. (shrink)

Dysfunction in motor skills can be linked to alterations in motor processing, such as the anticipation of forthcoming graphomotor sequences. We expected that the difficulties in motor processing in schizophrenia would be reflected in a decrease of motor anticipation. In handwriting, motor anticipation concerns the ability to write a letter while processing information on how to produce the following letters. It is essential for fast and smooth handwriting, that is, for the automation of graphomotor gestures. In this study, we examined (...) motor anticipation by comparing the kinematic characteristics of the first l in the bigrams ll and ln written on a digitiser. Previous studies indicated that the downstroke duration of the first l is modulated by the anticipation of the local constraints of the following letter. Twenty-four adult individuals with diagnosis of schizophrenia and 24 healthy adults participated in the study. The classic measures of duration, trajectory, and dysfluency were used for the kinematic analysis of the upstroke and downstroke. In the control group, the duration of the downstroke of the l was longer in ln than ll whereas no differences were found for the group with schizophrenia. Likewise, the control group showed a longer DS trajectory for the l of ln than ll in downstrokes, while the group of patients failed to show this effect. These results suggest that the motor alterations in patients with schizophrenia could also affect their ability for motor anticipation. (shrink)

Se presentan los resultados obtenidos en la tesis de maestría Sistema de talleres de trabajo educativo para la capacitación del profesor guía de Medicina en Nuevitas con el objetivo de demostrar el impacto a partir de su implementación en la brigada estudiantil. Se exponen las definiciones elaboradas y las contextualizaciones. Se concluye que el sistema contribuyó al adecuado desempeño del profesor guía y al desarrollo del modo de actuación de los estudiantes. La rapidez y la calidad que implicó en la (...) praxis educativa constituyó el resultado más importante en el contexto de la carrera de Medicina en la Filial. Results achieved through the master's thesis "Educational work workshops system for the Medicine degree guiding teacher training" in Nuevitas are presented, aimed at demonstrating its impact starting from its implementation on a class. Elaborate definitions and contexts are exposed. The conclusionreached through it was that the system contributed to the adequate guiding teacher's performance and to the development of students' behavior. The speed and quality it involved in educational praxis constituted the most important result in the context of the Medicine degree in La Filial town. (shrink)

Several recent publications attest to a renewed interest, at the dawn of the 21st century, in the philosophy of Charles S. Peirce. While agreeing with the relevance of Peirce philosophy for the 21st century, we disagree with some interpretations of Peirce as a utilitarian-based pragmatist, or with attempts to extract from Peirce a theory of social justice for 21st century societies. A critical exploration of Peirce’s philosophy of science, particularly his idea of scientific inquiry as “the study of useless things”, (...) serves to illuminate the un-pragmatic and anti-utilitarian dimension of Peirce’s thought, as well as to reveal his true ethical relevance for the 21st century. (shrink)

Editorial de la revista Franciscanum 163, el significado de la gestión de una revista académica y presentación de diez artículos.

It is sought to return to the Leibnizian’s concept of contingency to thwart the postkantian’s and posthegelian’s philosophy of it. This search records two relatively different ways: Leibniz, as a typical thinker of his time, and Leibniz as a precursor of our own contemporary way of thinking. As regards this, the comparison that is made with Sartre and Rorty gains special importance.

El propósito de este estudio es analizar las estrategias discursivas utilizadas por la escritora argentina Luisa Valenzuela para denunciar el abuso y las violaciones a los derechos humanos perpetrados por las tiranías del cono sur americano entre 1970 y 1980. Mediante el análisis de Cambio de armas y Cola de Lagartija dentro del marco teórico de la dialogización del discurso, propuesto por Mikhail Bakhtin, se discute el uso de la polifonía y el silencio como estrategias para denunciar la dictadura como (...) fenómeno social y político en Argentina entre 1966 y 1982. The purpose of this study is to analyze the strategies used by, the Argentinian writer, Luisa Valenzuela to denounce the abuse and human rights violations by dictatorships in the Southern Cone. Through the analysis of Cambio de armas and Cola de lagartija, from a Bakhtinean dialogical discourse perspective, we discuss the use of polyphony and silence as discursive strategies used by Valenzuela to condemn Argentinian dictatorship and to portray the social and political impact of Argentinian dictatorship between 1966 and 1982. (shrink)