This article analyzes Toole’s novel from a causal perspective, focusing on the cause-effect dynamics that make the plot advance, from the initial event at D.H. Holmes until the outcome in the Night of Joy. A combination of qualitative and quantitative methodologies has been applied to identify a series of 47 causal events that summarize all actions with an impact on plot development. Our research shows that the causal study of the novel is a useful approach that can reinforce or modify (...) qualitative assessments of previous studies. The relevance of “Night of Joy” plot within the whole narrative and its key role in the rest of the subplots are verified in numerical terms. Besides, we have expanded and quantified the causal chains operating in the novel; and we have made sure, as well, that every subplot is essential in order to reach the final outcome (with the only exception of Dr. Talc’s story). Finally, we have formulated an alternative outline of secondary plots than the ones supported by preceding research by using numeric metrics, demonstrating that “Paradise Vendors” and “Dorian Greene”, previously considered secondary storylines, exert a high impact on Confederacy’s finale, and are, perhaps, not so secondary plots after all. (shrink)

La utilización de la denominación “Escuela de Salamanca” en referencia a los aspectos económicos es confusa y problemática, porque no hay argumentos convincentes para sostener que fuera una auténtica escuela de pensamiento económico (tal como la definen Schumpeter y Stigler). Sin embargo, desde Larraz y Grice-Hutchinson, los historiadores del pensamiento económico han utilizado habitualmente dicha denominación por su poder como “marca comercial” para la divulgación, y también para hacer referencia de forma breve y sencilla a las notables aportaciones analíticas de (...) un conjunto de doctores escolásticos españoles. De hecho, las monografías de los historiadores se han concentrado sobre todo en analizar las contribuciones de estos escolásticos (teoría monetaria, derechos de propiedad, etc.), más que en discutir los criterios que podrían definirles como una escuela en asuntos económicos. (shrink)

There are numerous studies that, from different perspectives, have dealt with the debate held in the Spanish Empire during the 16th century on the slavery of the American Indians, starring –among others– by Francisco de Vitoria and his disciples from the School of Salamanca, and also –outside the academic sphere– by Fray Bartolomé de las Casas and Juan Ginés de Sepúlveda. The purpose of this work is to study whether this debate made its mark in Spanish society. For this, it (...) is analyzed three theatrical pieces from the Golden Age signed by playwrights of the stature of Tirso de Molina, Lope de Vega and Pedro Calderón de Barca, who –given their enormous popularity– had the capacity to reach the wide audience that congregated in the corrals of comedies. Were these three writers influenced by the controversy over the Indians carried out, among other authors, by Vitoria, Las Casas and Sepúlveda? Did they fully grasp in their works the subtle debate that Vitoria, Las Casas and Sepúlveda maintained when they interpreted Aristotelian arguments on slavery and the consequences that derived from them in terms of the possibility of enslaving or not the Indians? (shrink)

This article studies the observations which John Stuart Mill collected about Spain in his writings. The aim is to analyze how one of the most important thinkers of the time valued some political Spanish events, certain aspects of socioeconomic reality, or determined features which he considered to constitute the Spanish «national character». Throughout his entire intellectual trajectory, Mill seems to have been aware of the complex and eventful life of Spanish politics. Moreover, Mill visited Spain in 1860 and captured the (...) image of a country in a process of economic transformation, similar to the image portrayed by historians today and far from the romantic stereotypes that were so common to travel books of the 19th century. (shrink)

ObjectiveThis study aimed to analyze the influence and measurement of the relationship and interaction between the elderly lifestyles after the appearance of the SARS-CoV-2 variant and the factors analyzed comprised life satisfaction levels, social relationships, and daily-life activities.MethodsThe study population was ≥ 65 in Castile-La Mancha. The research design was quantitative and arose from primary data collected via an ad hoc survey carried out through the Computer Assisted Telephone Interview system by randomly stratified sampling. The sample size was made up (...) of 1,065 cases, and the participants were selected through a random sampling stratified by gender quotas, age, province, and habitat size.ResultsThe results obtained revealed two main lifestyles, from which a notable behavioral change in personal relationships led to infer toward alternative lifestyles.ConclusionNotwithstanding the variation in lifestyles of the elderly after the pandemic, certain relationships remained unaltered. Thus, from the analyzed variables, relatives and friends relationships were scarcely influenced by the supervened incident. (shrink)

Adaptive optics are techniques used for processing the spatial resolution of astronomical images taken from large ground-based telescopes. In this work, computational results are presented for a modified curvature sensor, the tomographic pupil image wavefront sensor, which measures the turbulence of the atmosphere, expressed in terms of an expansion over Zernike polynomials. Convolutional neural networks are presented as an alternative to the TPI-WFS reconstruction. This technique is a machine learning model of the family of artificial neural networks, which are widely (...) known for its performance as modeling and prediction technique in complex systems. Results obtained from the reconstruction of the networks are compared with the TPI-WFS reconstruction by estimating errors and optical measurements. The reconstructed wavefronts from both techniques are compared for wavefronts of 153 Zernike modes. For this case, a detailed comparison and grid search to find the most suitable neural network is performed, searching between multi-layer perceptron, CNN and recurrent networks topologies. In general, the best network was a CNN trained for TPI-WFS reconstruction, achieving better performance than the reconstruction software from TPI-WFS in most of the turbulent profiles, but the most significant improvements were found for higher turbulent profiles that have the lowest r0 values. (shrink)

One of the objectives in the field of artificial intelligence for some decades has been the development of artificial agents capable of coexisting in harmony with people and other systems. The computing research community has made efforts to design artificial agents capable of doing tasks the way people do, tasks requiring cognitive mechanisms such as planning, decision-making, and learning. The application domains of such software agents are evident nowadays. Humans are experiencing the inclusion of artificial agents in their environment as (...) unmanned vehicles, intelligent houses, and humanoid robots capable of caring for people. In this context, research in the field of machine ethics has become more than a hot topic. Machine ethics focuses on developing ethical mechanisms for artificial agents to be capable of engaging in moral behavior. However, there are still crucial challenges in the development of truly Artificial Moral Agents. This paper aims to show the current status of Artificial Moral Agents by analyzing models proposed over the past two decades. As a result of this review, a taxonomy to classify Artificial Moral Agents according to the strategies and criteria used to deal with ethical problems is proposed. The presented review aims to illustrate (1) the complexity of designing and developing ethical mechanisms for this type of agent, and (2) that there is a long way to go (from a technological perspective) before this type of artificial agent can replace human judgment in difficult, surprising or ambiguous moral situations. (shrink)

Currently, students in basic secondary school in Colombia have a low performance in reading comprehension at the inferential level. This pedagogical proposal aimed to strengthen the level of inferential reading of students who attend elementary school, through the application of a didactic sequence from the cognitive-discursive perspective. Theoretically, the concepts proposed by Cisneros, Olave and Rojas regarding four types of inferences were assumed. Likewise, the theoretical orientations of Van Dijk (1978), Solé (1992) and Martínez (2002) were taken into account to (...) support the cognitive-discursive perspective adopted in the study. Methodologically, the qualitative approach was used with the action research method, and techniques such as observation, questionnaire, field diary and didactic sequence were used. In relation to the results, it is evident that the participants in the closing questionnaire increased significantly compared to the four types of inference evaluated, thus demonstrating greater interpretation when facing the texts. (shrink)

Este artículo revisa la concepción de la Independencia de Antonio Caso, Alfonso Reyes, José Vasconcelos, Samuel Ramos, Juan Hernández Luna, Leopoldo Zea, Emilio Uranga y Luis Villoro. La pregunta por las “raíces ideológicas” de la Independencia guio en buena medida esta discusión intergeneracional. Miguel Hidalgo era considerado, de manera casi unánime, un héroe, ya fuese uno de la latinidad (para Caso o Reyes) o un héroe existencialista (para Villoro). El artículo adopta el presupuesto metodológico del historicismo: una (...) idea no es sino la forma de reacción de un ser humano concreto frente a sus circunstancias. (shrink)

ven a cursory look at the extensive literature on mindreading in nonhuman animals reveals considerable variation both in what mindreading abilities are taken to be, and in what is taken as evidence for them. Claims that seem to contradict each other are often not inconsistent with each other when examined more closely. And sometimes theorists who seem to be on the same side are actually talking at cross-purposes. The first aim of this paper is to tackle some important framework questions (...) about how exactly the mindreading hypothesis is to be stated. It emerges in sections 1 and 2 that there are three importantly different versions of the mindreading hypothesis that need to be distinguished. The first (which I call minimal mindreading) occurs when a creature’s behavior covaries with the psychological states of other participants in social exchanges. The presence of minimal mindreading is not in itself evidence for the presence of what I term substantive mindreading. Substantive mindreading involves attributions of mental states. There are different levels of substantive mindreading, varying according to the category of mental state attributions that they involve. Section 2 explores different types of substantive mindreading, according to the extent to which they involve explicitly representing the agent’s backgtround psychological profile. This gives us a principled way of distinguishing propositional attitude mindreading from perceptual mindreading. -/- It is clear that much of the reasoning behind attributions of mindreading abilities to nonlinguistic creatures is analogical in nature. We see in section 3 that much of the discussion in this area proceeds on the basis of a double analogy between animal cognition and human cognition. Researchers assume both that animals solve many problems of social coordination that are analogous to problem solved by humans and that since humans solve those problems using mindreading strategies, so too do non-human animals. How we apply the second analogy, of course, depends upon our interpretation of the particular mindreading strategies that humans employ – in particular, it depends upon the centrality of propositional attitude psychology (or folk psychology) in human social understanding and social coordination. There are good reasons for thinking that the role of propositional attitude psychology in human social life is very much over-stated. This has repercussions for how we think about substantive mindreading in nonhuman animals. It very much weakens the analogical case for identifying propositional attitude mindreading in nonlinguistic creatures. -/- Suspicion of claims of propositional attitude mindreading in non-human animals turns out to be well-founded. In section 4 I present a revised version of an argument I have given elsewhere (Bermúdez 2003) to show that the most sophisticated form of substantive mindreading (the type of mindreading that exploits the concepts of propositional attitude psychology) is only available to language-using creatures. (shrink)

ABSTRACTThis article addresses the identity of the legitimate actors of international law-making from the perspective of democratic theory. It argues that both states or state-based international organisations, and civil society actors should be considered complementary legitimate actors of international law-making. Unlike previous accounts, our proposed model of representation, the Multiple Representation Model, is based on an expanded, democratic understanding of the principle of state participation: it is specifically designed to palliate the democratic deficits of more common versions of the Principle (...) of State Consent. Second, it endorses a qualified version of the Principle of Civil Society Participation, one that is much more restrictive and more critical of the democratic defects of civil society actors than most of its current supporters. Finally, it reveals how the democratic strengths and deficits of both models are best approached as mirroring one another and need to be combined in a complex ac... (shrink)

Tendo em atenção o carácter específico do Estado Novo e a sua tentativa de afastamento teórico e ideológico dos Estados totalitários, nomeadamente do nazismo, poder-se-ia pensar que durante a vigência do sistema de Hitler (1933-1945) não seria importante a presença da cultura alemã, de tipo nazi ou próxima dele, em Portugal. Todavia, a pouco e pouco, à medida que vão sendo feitos estudos em várias áreas, vai-se verificando essa presença. Este é mais um estudo dessa “ligação perigosa”, no domínio da (...) literatura e da cultura em geral. (shrink)

The objective was to analyze the influence of the social context on bullying. A mixed investigation was proposed: the social context was analyzed, were applied questionnaires and interviews; were analyzed descriptively, normality tests and non-parametric tests; different manifestations of bullying are presented; their frequency varies between both high schools.

La edad de los poetas y la filosofía que se organizado sobre ella, han preparado el triunfo de la imagen como única forma de crítica. Sin duda, con ello han logrado el consumo de aquello que puede ser tan denso como el tiempo, la pluralidad que es pluralidad hasta el límite. Puede haber tanta pluralidad como instantes temporales sean computables. Por fin la mimesis del tiempo, la estructura antropológica básica, puede estar en manos del ser humano, lo que es tanto (...) como llegar a tener la capacidad de producirse a sí mismo. Ya podemos ver lo que significa eliminar de sí toda trascendencia. Con ello, desde luego tenemos el pluralismo garantizado, pero sólo de un rango del ser: imágenes. [Fragmento]. (shrink)

Resumen En la crítica del Cantar de los Cantares no hay acuerdo acerca del problema estructural del libro. Las teorías se dividen en aquellas que abogan por un carácter fragmentario contra otras que ven un carácter unitario de los poemas. El estudio intenta revisar esta problemática y proponer que el Cantar de los Cantares es una colección de poemas sueltos que un redactor/recopilador juntó e intentó poner en cierto orden, incorporando el conjuro de 2,7; 3,5; 5,8; 8,4 como estribillo con (...) función articuladora, de tal manera que el conjuro quedó puesto como hito divisorio entre grandes bloques poéticos que se relacionan entre sí por un tema común u otro recurso de mano redaccional, configurando así un ordenamiento estructural de todo el libro.In the criticism of the Song of Songs there is no agreement on the structural problem of the book. Theories are divided into those advocating a fragmentary against others who see a unitary character of poems. The study attempts to revise this problems and propose that the Song of Songs is a loose collection of poems that a compiler gathered and tried to give some order, incorporating the adjuration of 2, 7; 3,5; 5,8; 8,4 as refrain with articulate function, such that the adjuration was set as milestone dividing between large blocks poetic that interrelate by a common theme or other resource or literary technique thus configuring a structural arrangement of the whole book. (shrink)

A chapter surveying Jerry Fodor's contributions to philosophy and cognitive science. In 12 Modern Philosophers, edited by Christopher Belshaw and Gary Kemp.

This paper proposes and analyzes the psychometric properties of the PREVI-A scale. It describes the process of item development, the factorial structure of the scale, reliability, evidence of validity and diagnostic performance with regard to recidivism risk in juvenile offenders. The sample was made up of 212 juvenile offenders held at detention centers run by the Madrid Agency for Reeducation and Reintegration of Juvenile Offenders, a regional government body. Statistical analyses were used to corroborate the theoretical factorial structure of the (...) PREVI-A, which consists of six risk/protection dimensions based on the Risk-Needs-Responsivity Model, and to obtain empirical support for the reliability and validity of PREVI-A as a tool to assess the risk of recidivism by juvenile offenders in Spain. (shrink)

En marzo de 2023, en la Facultad de Humanidades de UAEMéx, se llevó a cabo el primer congreso internacional dedicado específicamente a la Filosofía Mexicana, coincidiendo con los 80 años de la publicación de la Historia escrita por Ramos. En este evento, se mostró el avance enorme y la consolidación nacional e internacional de nuestra filosofía. En la presente obra se da cuenta de parte de los trabajos presentados en este evento académico, dejando al lector un acercamiento al mundo (...) plural y amplio que en la actualidad representa esta línea de investigación. (shrink)

Decision Theory and Rationality offers a challenging new interpretation of a key theoretical tool in the human and social sciences. This accessible book argues, contrary to orthodoxy in politics, economics, and management science, that decision theory cannot provide a theory of rationality.

"The book presents in accessible fashion recent important work on the self and self-consciousness and also moves the issues forward with interesting new ideas. It provides a notably crisp and clear treatment of some extremely intriguing topics." -- Jane Heal, Department of Philosophy, University of Cambridge In this book, José Luis Bermú dez addesses two fundamental problems in the philosophy and psychology of self-consciousness: (1) Can we provide a noncircular account of fully fledged self-conscious thought and language in (...) terms of more fundamental capacities? (2) Can we explain how fully fledged self-conscious thought and language can arise in the normal course of human development? Bermú dez argues that a paradox (the paradox of self-consciousness) arises from the apparent strict interdependence between self-conscious thought and linguistic self-reference. The paradox renders circular all theories that define self-consciousness in terms of linguistic mastery of the first-person pronoun. It seems to follow from the paradox of self-consciousness that no such account or explanation can be given. Drawing on recent work in empirical psychology and philosophy, the author argues that any explanation of fully fledged self-consciousness that answers these two questions requires attention to primitive forms of self-consciousness that are prelinguistic and preconceptual. Such primitive forms of self-consciousness are to be found in somatic proprioception, the structure of exteroceptive perception, and prelinguistic forms of social interaction. The author uses these primitive forms of self-consciousness to dissolve the paradox ofself-consciousness and to show how the two questions can be given an affirmative answer. (shrink)

Thinking Without Words provides a challenging new theory of the nature of non-linguistic thought. Jose Luis Bermudez offers a conceptual framework for treating human infants and non-human animals as genuine thinkers. The book is written with an interdisciplinary readership in mind and will appeal to philosophers, psychologists, and students of animal behavior.

Necessity can be ascribed not only to propositions, but also to feelings. In the Critique of Judgment (KdU), Immanuel Kant argues that a feeling of beauty is the necessary satisfaction instantiated by the ‘free play’ of the cognitive faculties, which provides the grounds for a judgment of taste (KdU 5:196, 217-19). In contradistinction to the theoretical necessity of the Critique of Pure Reason and the moral necessity of the Critique of Practical Reason, the necessity assigned to a judgment of taste (...) is exemplary necessity (KdU 5:237). Necessity can also be assigned by employing the de re/de dicto distinction, namely, by ascribing entailments of what must necessarily hold to either a thing (de re) or to a proposition (de dicto). Although Kant does not use the distinction in any of the three Critiques, this omission has not prevented Kant scholars from applying the distinction in their analyses of the first two Critiques. In this paper, I examine the role that modality plays in Kant’s third Critique and I attempt to bring the de re/de dicto distinction to bear on Kant’s famous aesthetic theory. Ultimately, I perform a retrospective classification of the modality of taste by arguing that because a judgment of taste is not a statement about an objective fact, a judgment of ‘x is beautiful’ can only be read as de dicto necessary. (shrink)

La filosofía cartesiana tuvo sus orígenes en el espíritu de la época del siglo XVII y en el entorno y contexto del Collège La Flèche, durante la escolaridad de René Descartes en las aulas de mencionado recinto. Dirigida por los sacerdotes de la Compañía de Jesús, esta institución impartía educación a la luz de la Ratio Studiorum. El pensador francés abandona las enseñanzas del claustro al desencantarse del sistema y del contenido de los conocimientos transmitidos por la mayoría de sus (...) maestros y se da a la tarea de buscar un método que le brindara los elementos suficientes para construir un sistema de pensamiento, el cual asimismo respondiera a las nociones e ideas que pretendía construir. El padre Denis Mesland y Descartes entablan una relación intelectual-epistolar y debaten las ideas filosóficas propuestas por el pensador. Mesland se ve obligado a viajar al Nuevo Continente a cumplir nuevas misiones impuestas por sus superiores. Este artículo tiene como finalidad ofrecer algunas luces que permitan dar respuesta, en alguna medida, a la pregunta: ¿Mesland, en realidad, enseñó filosofía cartesiana en el Colegio Máximo jesuita de la provincia de Santafé en el siglo XVII? (shrink)