In the present study, we have demonstrated hysteresis phenomena in the excitability of single, enzymatically dissociated guinea pig ventricular myocytes. Membrane potentials were recorded with patch pipettes in the whole-cell current clamp configuration. Repetitive stimulation with depolarizing current pulses of constant cycle length and duration but varying strength led to predictable excitation (1:l) and non-excitation (1:0) patterns depending on current strength. In addition, transition between patterns depended on the direction of current intensity change and stable hysteresis loops were obtained in (...) stimulus:response pattern vs. current intensity plots in 14 cells. Increase of pulse duration and decrease of stimulation rate contributed to a reduction in hysteresis loop areas. Changes in amplitude and shape of the subthreshold responses during the transitions from one stable pattern to the other, suggested that activity led to an increase in membrane resistance, particularly in the voltage domain between resting potential, and threshold. Therefore, we modelled the dynamic behaviour of the single cells as a function of diastolic membrane resistance, using previously published analytical solutions. Numerical iteration of the analytical model equations closely reproduced the experimental hysteresis loops in both qualitative and quantitative ways. In particular, the effect of stimulation frequency on the model was similar to the experimental findings. The overall study suggests that the excitability pattern of guinea pig ventricular myocytes accounts for hysteresis and bistabilities when current intensity is allowed to fluctuate around threshold levels. (shrink)

Dentro del epistolario de Francisco Romero, que permanece inédito, se analizan las cartas que intercambió con el filósofo personalista Edgar S. Brightman (1884-1953), como así también se alude a otros representantes dentro del movimiento en EEUU. Este escrito se apoya en la hipótesis del interés compartido por esta corriente de ideas dentro de los años que van desde la II Guerra Mundial hasta los inicios de la llamada Guerra Fría. Se alude también al propósito de ambos corresponsales por acercar la (...) filosofía estadounidense y la desarrollada en América Latina. Las cartas en el repositorio se extienden entre 1939 y 1952. Se incluye como anexo la nota necrológica sobre Brightman redactada por José Vasconcelos con el fin de mostrar que su filosofía interesaba también en otros países latinoamericanos. Within the unpublished epistolary collection of Francisco Romero, this work analyses the letters that were exchanged with the personalist philosopher Edgar S. Brightman (1884-1953), and it also refers to others representative philosophers inside the American Personalist movement. The hypothesis is that both maintain a mutual interest for these ideas during World War II until the beginnings of the so called Cold War. It also refers to the purpose of both correspondents to come closer American and Latin American philosophy. The letters in the collection were written between 1939 and 1952. This paper includes as appendix the obituary authored by José Vasconcelos about Brightman to show that his philosophy was of interest in other Latin American countries. (shrink)

SPANISH: Se analiza la revista Nosotros (1907-1943) en la década de 1930. Dentro de su variedad de temas, el eje de la investigación rastrea las contribuciones de autores nacionales que cuestionaron la propia identidad argentina. Dentro del período se estudian las opiniones que, como respuestas, aparecieron ante los artículos de Ortega y Gasset referidos "al hombre a la defensiva" y a "la pampa, promesas"; la discusión sobre el rol de los intelectuales; los interrogantes sobre una supuesta "nueva generación"; las tipologías (...) de un imaginario "ser argentino"; el vínculo entre arte y política, como la función del deporte. Igualmente el artículo recoge las reflexiones suscitadas por las diferentes encuestas lanzadas por la Revista; el suicidio de Lugones, y aquellos aspectos que nos acercan a miradas en busca de un sí mismos, donde los protagonistas se debatían en la encrucijada intelectual y política, tal como aparecieron en esta emblemática publicación. ENGLISH: This article analyses the Journal Nosotros (1907-1943) during the 1930's. The main focus of the research is to identify the contributions by national authors that questioned the Argentinean identity. In particular, this study explores the opinions that were published in response to articles from Ortega y Gasset about "el hombre a la defensiva" and "la pampa, promesas"; discussions on the role of intellectuals; inquiries about a supposed "new generation"; the typologies of an imaginary "Argentinean being"; the links between art and politics; and the role of sports. The article also discusses the ideas raised by different surveys launched by the Journal; the suicide of Lugones, and views on the search of the self, in which the protagonists debated the intellectual and political crossroads that were presented by Nosotros. (shrink)

This paper defends a contextualist approach to epistemic injustice according to which instances of such injustice should be looked at as temporally extended phenomena (having developmental and historical trajectories) and socially extended phenomena (being rooted in patterns of social relations). Within this contextualist framework, credibility excesses appear as a form of undeserved epistemic privilege that is crucially relevant for matters of testimonial justice. While drawing on Miranda Fricker's proportional view of epistemic justice, I take issue with its lack of attention (...) to the role that credibility excesses play in testimonial injustices. I depart from Fricker's view of the relation between credibility excesses and credibility deficits, and I offer an alternative account of the contributions that undeserved epistemic privileges make to epistemic injustices. Then, through the detailed analysis of To kill a mockingbird, I elucidate the crucial role played by the social imaginary in creating and sustaining epistemic injustices, developing an analysis of the kind of social blindness produced by an oppressive social imaginary that establishes unjust patterns of credibility excesses and deficits. (shrink)

En la búsqueda de una ética para nuestro tiempo, el autor acude a la obra de Adorno para examinar la relación dialéctica entre praxis y teoría, y afirma que el nuevo concepto de praxis que emerge de esta relación podría guiarnos en la construcción de una ética más crítica que la mayoría de morales, constituidas únicamente por un sistema de normas. El autor defiende la concepción adorniana sobre el lugar del sujeto en la sociedad, que pretende despertar en este sujeto (...) la conciencia de sus capacidades, pero también de sus límites y sobre todo de su falta de libertad; lo que permite a Adorno conceder validez al intento de vida justa del sujeto moderno sólo en su problematicidad y fragilidad. (shrink)

It is now 25 years since Gareth Evans introduced the distinction between conceptual and nonconceptual content in The Varieties of Reference. This is a fitting time to take stock of what has become a complex and extended debate both within philosophy and at the interface between philosophy and psychology. Unfortunately, the debate has become increasingly murky as it has become increasingly ramified. Much of the contemporary discussion does not do full justice to the powerful theoretical tool originally proposed by Evans (...) and subsequently refined by theorists in the late 1980’s and early 1990’s – most effectively, I think, by Christopher Peacocke (particularly in his 1992). Even worse, significant parts of the discussion are somewhat confused. This paper makes a start on clarifying what I think ought to be the central issues in debates about nonconceptual content. I begin in §1 by pointing out how narrowly focused contemporary discussion is relative to Evans’s original discussion. We are not making as much use as we should of nonconceptual content as a tool for understanding subpersonal information processing and the complexities of its status relative to perception and thought at the personal level. In §2 I turn to what is the central focus of contemporary discussion, namely, the content of perception and identify a “master argument” for nonconceptualism based on the relation between conceptual capacities and capacities for perceptual discrimination. The aim of §3 is to clarify the relation between the claim that perception has nonconceptual content and some superficially similar claims discussed by philosophers of perception. Finally, in §4 I explain why the attention recently focused on what is sometimes called the state version of the nonconceptualist thesis seems to me to be misdirected. (shrink)

This paper uses the conceptual apparatus of Wittgenstein’s later philosophy to tackle a foundational issue in the philosophical literature on group identity, namely, the problem of difference. This problem suggests that any appeal to a collective identity is oppressive because it imposes a shared identity on the members of a group and suppresses the internal differences of the group. I develop a Wittgensteinian view of identity that dissolves this problem by showing the conceptual confusions on which it rests. My Wittgensteinian (...) view of identity tries to establish two main theses: first, that identity is bound up with difference and presupposes heterogeneity; and second, that the solidarity of identity groups, far from being obstructed by differences, actually requires diversity. Drawing from gender and sexuality studies, I use the mechanism of disidentification to show how there can be shared identities and identity-based solidarity without the erasure of differences. Key Words: community • difference • ethnicity • familial view • gender • identity • race • sexuality • solidarity • Wittgenstein. (shrink)

The subject matter of this paper is the view that it is correct, in an absolute sense, to believe a proposition just in case the proposition is true. I take issue with arguments in support of this view put forward by Nishi Shah and David Velleman.

The paper deals with a version of the principle that a belief source can be a knowledge source only if the subject knows that it is reliable. I argue that the principle can be saved from the main objections that motivate its widespread rejection: the claim that it leads to skepticism, the claim that it forces us to accept counterintuitive knowledge ascriptions and the claim that it is incompatible with reliabilist accounts of knowledge. I argue that naturalist epistemologists should reject (...) these claims. I introduce my treatment of the principle by considering the analogous situation posed by the closure principle. (shrink)

This survey of metaphysics covers the historical or classical aspects of the subject as well as those currently in the post-Wittgensteinian limelight--principally materialism, platonism, essentialism, and anti-realism. Benardete sees contemporary metaphysical preoccupations as more or less thinly disguised revisitings of those of the past, and explains how metaphysics and mathematical logic are interrelated and how metaphysical studies can illuminate both scinece and the humanities.

Many controversies within philosophy of science have been attempted to be explained in terms of the metaphilosophical prescription/description distinction over the goal of philosophy of science. The aim of this paper is to show that the controversy between Popper and Kuhn about the ir/rationality of Normal Science cannot be fully explained in these terms, not even if we also take the truth/problem-solving distinction over the goal of science into account. It is argued that, to gain full understanding of this controversy, (...) it is necessary to take into account their differences regarding a topic apparently not involved in it, namely the structure of scientific theories. The conclusion is that both Popper and Kuhn were descriptive/prescriptive at the same time in their attempt to make the rules of scientific practice explicit, yet Kuhn did it better because he had a richer and more accurate idea of what scientific theories are. Although this work is mainly a piece of history of philosophy of science, it also aims at shedding some light on epistemological issues. If the conclusion is sound, it also shows how structural aspects of scientific theories may be relevant to the epistemology of science.Keywords: Falsificationism; Normal science; Rationality; Theories; Thomas Kuhn; Karl Popper. (shrink)

A number of authors have noted that the key steps in Fitch’s argument are not intuitionistically valid, and some have proposed this as a reason for an anti-realist to accept intuitionistic logic (e.g. Williamson 1982, 1988). This line of reasoning rests upon two assumptions. The first is that the premises of Fitch’s argument make sense from an anti-realist point of view – and in particular, that an anti-realist can and should maintain the principle that all truths are knowable. The second (...) is that we have some independent reason for thinking that classical logic is not appropriate in this area. This paper explores these two assumptions in the context of Michael Dummett’s version of anti-realism, with particular reference to the argument from indefinite extensibility developed at various points in Dummett’s writings (e.g. Dummett 1991 Ch. 24). -/- Dummett argues that certain concepts, the indefinitely extensible concepts, are such that we cannot form a clear and determinate conception of all the objects that fall under them. The most familiar examples of indefinitely extensible concepts are mathematical. Dummett discusses the concepts ordinal number, real number, and natural number, which are indefinitely extensible because any conception that one might form of their complete extension can be extended to a more inclusive conception (as, for example, in Cantor’s proof of the non-denumerability of the set of real numbers). This paper argues that the concept of a truth is indefinitely extensible. This gives a Dummettian anti-realist an independent motivation for rejecting the classical understanding of the quantifiers in this area. At the same time, however, it places in doubt the admissibility of the knowability principle, which seems to involve quantification over the “totality” of truths. As Dummett is at pains to point out (1991: 316), some sentences that purport to quantify over the extension of an indefinitely extensible concept plainly have a truth-value (we can truly say, for example, that every ordinal number has a successor, even though when we say that we are not quantifying over the set of all ordinals). But is the knowability principle one of these sentences? (shrink)

Through a new interpretation of Wittgenstein's rule-following discussions, this article defends a negotiating model of normativity according to which normative authority is always subject to contestation. To refute both individualism and collectivism, I supplement Wittgenstein's Private Language Argument with a Social Language Argument, showing that normativity cannot be monopolized either individually or socially (i.e. it cannot be privatized or collectivized). The negotiating view of normativity here developed lays the foundations of a politics of radical contestation which converges with Chantal Mouffe's (...) framework of 'radical democracy', while departing from her agonism in preserving the structuring and constraining role that tacit agreement in action plays in rule-following practices. My account of the 'burdens of eccentricity' elucidates how the normative force of dissidence can be properly recognized and used effectively for social transformations. I argue that there is a 'presumption of normalcy' in favour of the established consensus of action, but that this presumption is defeasible: in normative disagreements, a violation of expected normalcy shifts the burden onto the shoulders of rebellious agents who must show that their dissenting behaviour can be a legitimate extension, revision, or transformation of the practice in question. (shrink)

O artigo parte da enunciação da tese de que ao desejo desmesurado dos grandes pela apropriação/dominação absoluta opõe-se um desejo não menos desmesurado e absoluto do povo de não sê-lo: dois desejos de natureza diferente que não são nem o desejo das mesmas coisas nem desejo de coisas diferentes, mas desejos cujo ato de desejar é diferente. Considerando que cada desejo visa sua efetividade absoluta, cada um tenta impor-se universalmente tornando-se duplamente absoluto: por um lado tende à dominação total (os (...) grandes) ou à liberdade plena (o povo); por outro, tenta se impor ao conjunto do corpo político. Cada desejo somente se sustenta do desejo que lhe é heterogêneo. Cada um persegue uma finalidade própria cuja realização plena será a ruína de toda vida coletiva. Boas instituições e boas leis asseguram a liberdade na medida em que forem capazes de impedir que grandes ou povo consumam seu desejo ou que abandonem seu desejo próprio para assumir o do outro. Contudo, ao inscrever a ordem da lei na desordem dos dissensos, Maquiavel descartou a idéia de uma ordem institucional como solução definitiva da desordem dos dissensos. Conseqüentemente, nenhuma lei ou instituição é capaz de resistir definitivamente ao risco da corrupção. Isso obriga ao retorno periódico às origens: a experiência do momento constitutivo da violência originária que, expondo os homens ao risco, restaura o prestígio e vigor iniciais de Estados e instituições. (shrink)

La polarización de opiniones y posturas durante la pandemia de COVID-19 es inconfundible. Aunque hay muchas áreas de debate, nuestro enfoque principal gira en torno a las controversias de la vacuna COVID-19. El Informe SAGE (OMS 2014) sobre la indecisión ante las vacunas enumeró tres factores críticos, complacencia, conveniencia y confianza, que se repitieron durante la pandemia. De ellos, la confianza emerge como el motor central de la polarización. La desconfianza abarca varias dimensiones: el gobierno, la ciencia, las empresas farmacéuticas, (...) las nuevas vacunas y las fuentes de información vinculadas a los grupos homólogos y los medios sociales. La polarización no se debe a la escasez de información, sino que está profundamente entrelazada con la identidad social. El efecto de cámara de eco exacerba este fenómeno, reforzando las creencias dentro de círculos afines. El documento explora cómo las diferentes facetas de la confianza influyeron significativamente en la indecisión ante las vacunas durante el COVID. Por último, es necesario reevaluar la eficacia de los mandatos de vacunación y el control de las redes sociales: ¿reducen las dudas o empeoran inadvertidamente la polarización al erosionar la confianza? (shrink)

An analysis of the particular kind of determinism that is to be found in the moral election according to Leibniz shows the model of practical reason held in his philosophy. The hermeneutical clue used in the article is to make a parallelism between the model of rationality of God’s election to create the best possible world and that of human moral election.

Suplemento a / Some Additions to: Jose M. Sevilla, "Bibliografía viquiana en español", Cuadernos sobre Vico, 1, 1991, pp. 179-196 ; ID., "Añadido a la bibliografía viquiana en español", Cuadernos sobre Vico, 3, 1993, pp. 199-205 ; ID., "Nuevo añadido a la Bibliografía Viquiana en español", Cuadernos sobre Vico, 5/6, 1995-1996, pp. 419-422 ; ID., "Tercer añadido a la Bibliografía Viquiana en español", Cuadernos sobre Vico, 7/8, 1997, pp. 451-455 . 307 nuevas entradas / 307 new entries nn. 500 (...) - 807. (shrink)

The kinematic aspects of the rocket-borne clock experiment by Vessot and Levine are analyzed with the revised Robertson's test theory of special relativity (Found. Phys. 14, 625 (1984)). Besides the expected time-dilation, it is found that the intermediate steps of this experiment yield in principle Michelson-Morley type information (a relation between longitudinal and transverse length contractions) in the third order of the velocities involved, but no relativity-of-simultaneity related effects.The flat space-time test theory induces a family of “spherically symmetric” line elements (...) that become the Schwarzschild line element in the relativistic case and also in theabinito rest frame of the theory. These line elements represent the same space-time manifold, but pertain in a one-to-one correspondence to the different flat space-time coordinate transformations of the test theory. The conserved energy is related to the family of local energies in the tangent plane. No deviations from the orthodoxy appear at the pertinent levels of approximation. Hence the unexplained residuals of the Vessot-Levine experiment are not due in obvious ways to kinematic and gravitational frequency shifts caused by deviations of the “real” coordinate transformations from the Lorentz transformations. (shrink)

Uno de los factores a tener en consideración para el logro de la misión y la visión universitaria pasa por la congruencia entre la gobernabilidad como proceso y la cultura laboral como cualidad propia de los profesionales o empleados que hacen vida en el entorno académicoadministrativo. Sobre esta base, el presente trabajo intenta explicar a través de una teoría fundamentada, los obstáculos de la gobernabilidad relacionados con las costumbres y tradiciones propias de la interacción laboral, desde el punto de vista (...) del supervisor. Se abordaron seis informantes, entre directivos y ex-directivos de la Universidad de Oriente, Núcleo Bolívar a través de entrevistas semiestructuradas. El análisis cualitativo de la información lograda proporcionó dos tipos de actitudes problema; personales y grupales, que afectan la gobernabilidad desde sus niveles jerárquicos primarios hasta los niveles superiores de gestión. Tales actitudes se diferencian de manera importante, influenciadas por sus contextos sociales de singularidad y pluralidad que prevalecen en ellas. (shrink)

Classificado pelo pensamento político contemporâneo como novidade singular na história da humanidade e considerado como exemplo emblemático da erosão do político, o fenômeno totalitário provocou polêmicas em relação aos termos utilizados no processo da sua compreensão. Por exemplo, quando se afirmou que o seu objetivo supremo era “transformar a natureza humana”, essa expressão causou ruído desconfortável aos ouvidos daqueles que, sintonizados à tradição metafísica, sempre definiram a natureza humana como uma essência imutável. Este artigo discute e aponta o significado e (...) o alcance dessa expressão no pensamento político contemporâneo, desmistificando-a da sua origem metafísica. (shrink)

A proposta deste artigo é refletir sobre os termos “ente e essência” como aparecem no texto de Tomás de Aquino e explicar o sentido da afirmação “o ente e a essência são o que é concebido primeiro pelo intelecto”.