A general mathematical framework, based on countable partitions of Natural Numbers [1], is presented, that allows to provide a Semantics to propositional languages. It has the particularity of allowing both the valuations and the interpretation Sets for the connectives to discriminate complexity of the formulas. This allows different adequacy criteria to be used to assess formulas associated with the same connective, but that differ in their complexity. The presented method can be adapted potentially infinite number of connectives and truth values, (...) therefore, it can be considered a general framework to provide semantics to several of the known logic systems (eg, LC, L3 LP, FDE). The presented semantics allow to converge to different standard semantics if the separation complexity procedure is annulled. Therefore, it can be understood as a framework that allows greater precision (in complexity terms) with respect to formula satisfaction. Naturally, because of how it is built, it can be incorporated into non-deterministic semantics. The presented procedure also allows generating valuations that grant a different truth value to each formula of propositional language. As a positive side effect, our method allows a constructive proof of the equipotence between N and N^n for all Natural n. (shrink)

The literature on mathematical explanation contains numerous examples of explanatory, and not so explanatory proofs. In this paper we report results of an empirical study aimed at investigating mathematicians’ notion of explanatoriness, and its relationship to accounts of mathematical explanation. Using a Comparative Judgement approach, we asked 38 mathematicians to assess the explanatory value of several proofs of the same proposition. We found an extremely high level of agreement among mathematicians, and some inconsistencies between their assessments and claims in the (...) literature regarding the explanatoriness of certain types of proofs. (shrink)

Researchers often claim that self-control is a skill. It is also often stated that self-control exertions are intentional actions. However, no account has yet been proposed of the skillful agency that makes self-control exertion possible, so our understanding of self-control remains incomplete. Here I propose the skill model of self-control, which accounts for skillful agency by tackling the guidance problem: how can agents transform their abstract and coarse-grained intentions into the highly context-sensitive, fine-grained control processes required to select, revise and (...) correct strategies during self-control exertion? The skill model borrows conceptual tools from ‘hierarchical models’ recently developed in the context of motor skills, and asserts that self-control crucially involves the ability to manage the implementation and monitoring of regulatory strategies as the self-control exercise unfolds. Skilled agents are able do this by means of flexible practical reasoning: a fast, context-sensitive type of deliberation that incorporates non-propositional representations into the formation and revision of the mixed-format intentions that structure self-control exertion. The literatures on implementation intentions and motivation framing offer corroborating evidence for the theory. As a surprising result, the skill of self-control that allows agents to overcome the contrary motivations they experience is self-effacing: instead of continuously honing this skill, expert agents replace it with a different one, which minimizes or prevents contrary motivations from arising in the first place. Thus, the more expert you are at self-control, the less likely you are to use it. (shrink)

In this work, we discuss the failure of the principle of truth functionality in the quantum formalism. By exploiting this failure, we import the formalism of N-matrix theory and non-deterministic semantics to the foundations of quantum mechanics. This is done by describing quantum states as particular valuations associated with infinite non-deterministic truth tables. This allows us to introduce a natural interpretation of quantum states in terms of a non-deterministic semantics. We also provide a similar construction for arbitrary probabilistic theories based (...) in orthomodular lattices, allowing to study post-quantum models using logical techniques. (shrink)

In recent years, Julien Deonna and Fabrice Teroni have proposed to understand emotions as embodied evaluative attitudes we take towards objects that figure in nonevaluative representational states. Although their account nicely explains some of the key features that emotions are widely taken to have, it runs into a version of what I call the problem of integration. In the case of the attitudinal view, the integration problem takes the form of explaining how, from the point of view of the subject, (...) the bodily responses that make up the attitude part of the emotion and the representational states that provide the particular object of the emotion come to form an intentionally structured unitary experience, that is, one in which the bodily responses are intentionally directed towards the object. I argue that what explains this integration is the way in which the experience of bodily responses and the experience of the representational states interact. This, I propose, produces what I call an experience of convergence. I also suggest that understanding emotional experience in this way not only solves the problem of the integration but also provides a more solid ground for the claim that emotionsquaembodied attitudes are evaluative. (shrink)

En el presente trabajo, analizamos el cuento El Inmortal de Borges prestándole principal atención a las situaciones donde se entrelazan, o se tratan sin diferenciar demasiado, cuestiones vinculadas con la animalidad y la divinidad. Sostenemos que esta especie de confusión o falta de precisión al tratar cuestiones que se alejan tanto de la identidad personal y del Yo, como la inmortalidad, no es un elemento casual ni sin fundamento, sino que puede ser analizado filosóficamente adentrándonos la otredad animal. El Inmortal (...) nos manifiesta que la filosofía podría no haber sido lo suficientemente precisa al tratar la otredad, permitiendo que animalidad y divinidad, o más bien ciertas propiedades características de cada una, puedan amalgamarse dentro de los lindes de este concepto. Que el cuento de Borges haga convivir de forma tan característica la inacción con la inmortalidad hace de esta obra un objeto de reflexión obligatorio para todos los interesados en el concepto de otredad. (shrink)

Does self-control require willpower? The question cuts to the heart of a debate about whether self-control is identical with some psychological process internal to the agents or not. Noticeably absent from these debates is systematic evidence about the folk-psychological category of self-control. Here, we present the results of two behavioral studies (N = 296) that indicate the structure of everyday use of the concept. In Study 1, participants rated the degree to which different strategies to respond to motivational conflict exemplify (...) self-control. Participants distinguished between intra-psychic and externally-scaffolded strategies and judged that the former exemplified self-control more than the latter. In Study 2, participants provided various solutions to manage motivational conflict and rated their proposals on effectiveness. Participants produced substantially more intra-psychic strategies, rated them as more effective, and advised them at a higher rate than externally-scaffolded strategies. Taken together, these results suggest that while people recognize a plurality of strategies as genuine instances of self-control, purely internal exercises of self-control are considered more prototypical than their externally-scaffolded counterparts. This implies a hierarchical structure for the folk psychological category of self-control. The concept encompasses a variety of regulatory strategies and organizes these strategies along a hierarchical continuum, with purely intra-psychic strategies at the center and scaffolded strategies in the periphery. (shrink)

By elaborating on the results presented in Lógica cuántica, Nmatrices y adecuación I, here we discuss the notions of adequacy and truth functionality in quantum logic from the point of view of a non-deterministic semantics based on Nmatrices. We present a proof of the impossibility of providing a functional semantics for the quantum lattice. An advantage of our proof is that it is independent of the number of truth values involved, generalizing previous works. Due to the impossibility of defining adequate (...) interpreting sets for the conjunction and disjunction (as was shown in our previous work), it follows that a homomorphism between the lattice of quantum projections and a Boolean algebra of n-elements cannot exist. (shrink)

From our everyday commuting to the gold medalist’s world-class performance, skillful actions are characterized by fine-grained, online agentive control. What is the proper explanation of such control? There are two traditional candidates: intellectualism explains skillful agentive control by reference to the agent’s propositional mental states; anti-intellectualism holds that propositional mental states or reflective processes are unnecessary since skillful action is fully accounted for by automatic coping processes. I examine the evidence for three psychological phenomena recently held to support anti-intellectualism and (...) argue that it supports neither traditional candidate, but an intermediate attention-control account, according to which the top-down, intention-directed control of attention is a necessary component of skillful action. Only this account recognizes both the role of automatic control in skilled action and the need for higher-order cognition to thread automatic processes together into a unified, skillful performance. This applies to bodily skillful action in general, from the world-class performance of experts to mundane, habitual action. The attention-control account stresses that, for intentions to play their role as top-down modulators of attention, agents must sustain the intention’s activation; hence, the need for reflecting throughout performance. (shrink)

Some partitions of Natural Number set are built through recursive processesgenerating in this manner countable examples of countable and disjoint sets whose unionis a set also countable. This process is constructive, so the Axiom of choice is not used.We provide a PC program that generates one of these special partitions and shows howto generate infinite of them. This line of reasoning can have multiple applications in Settheory and Model theory. We proved that the number of ways to make these partitionsof (...) natural numbers is not countable, there are more of these partitions (named doublycountable) than natural numbers. For each natural number greater than 1, we show aneffective procedure that generates these partitions -/- . (shrink)

This reflection considers recent United Nations’ normative developments in international human rights law and their potential to assess, with a gender perspective, retrogressive economic policies being promoted by International Financial Institutions in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. Orthodox and androcentric economic policies, such as structural adjustment, austerity, privatisation and deregulation of labour and financial markets, normally have devastating effects on women’s rights. Yet, the financial responses with which IFIs are trying to help states manage the effects of the pandemic (...) seem to continue promoting those androcentric economic policies. This piece concludes that ex ante human rights and gender impact assessments of multilateral loans’ conditionalities should be conducted and that women’s participation in this process as well as access to adequate quantitative and qualitative data to understand the differentiated effects of those economic policies on gender equality, are crucial. These reflections were born out of the authors’ own family and country challenges. (shrink)

RESUMEN Con frecuencia el amor y la racionalidad se ven como capacidades que fácilmente entran en conflicto, cuando no se consideran por principio opuestas. En este artículo desarrollo algunos puntos esbozados por Harry Frankfurt con el fin de proponer que la relación entre amor y racionalidad no es de simple oposición. Tras ofrecer una caracterización del amor como disposición híbrida de seguimiento múltiple, defenderé que el amor es racional en el siguiente sentido: el amor no es justificable, pero a pesar (...) de ello es una fuente de razones básicas y a veces irresistibles que en buena medida informan el campo de nuestra racionalidad. Esto no significa que el amor sea una base irracional o arracional, o que sea completamente blindado a la razón, sino que en circunstancias específicas tiene sentido someter el amor a escrutinio racional. ABSTRACT Love and rationality are often considered as capacities which easily come into conflict, or are even opposed to one another. In the paper I elaborate some points suggested by Harry Frankfurt in order to propose that the relation between love and rationality is not one of opposition. After offering a characterization of love as a hybrid multi-track disposition, I will argue that love is rational in the following sense: although love is not justifiable, it is nevertheless a source of basic and sometimes irresistible reasons which to a large extent shape the field of our rationality. This does not mean that love is an irrational or arrational foundation, or that it is impervious to reason; it only means that in certain circumstances it makes sense to subject love to rational scrutiny. (shrink)

In 1899, the first cases of plague were recognised in Paraguay and a few months later in Buenos Aires as part of the third plague pandemic. In the first decades of the twentieth century, plague slowly advanced towards the Argentinian hinterland. In this paper we focus on the production of scientific knowledge about plague in Argentina, where a core of bacteriologists emerged early on. We show how they not only played a central role in the complex process of plague recognition (...) and intervention, but also influenced the scientific development of bacteriology in Argentina and potentially in South America. We argue that bacteriology became a key tool in articulating the promises of modern science with political and economic interests, allowing the Argentinian government to extend its territorial control over Buenos Aires and the hinterland. This can be seen in two different configurations of the plague as an epistemic and political object in Argentina. In the first period, from 1899 to 1910, plague was a problem linked to the ports. In this section of the article, we show how plague became an important issue in the development of bacteriology in Argentina, how this research contributed to new intervention measures and, in some cases, developed innovative ideas about serotherapeutic treatments and the characteristics of the disease. In the second period, from the mid-1910s until the 1940s, research in Argentina provided new evidence of the ‘rural’ nature of plague, a process in deep dialogue with research on plague among peri-domestic and wild rodents carried out in other parts of the Americas, Europe and Africa. This article thus aims to contribute to a history of bacteriology that highlights the role of non-European centres, like Argentina, in the production and circulation of bacteriological knowledge. (shrink)

Desde el punto de vista de los derechos humanos, el desplazamiento forzado no signif ica la violación puntual de un derecho, sino la vulneración múltiple, masiva y continua de muchos derechos fundamentales; fenómeno que ataca la titularidad de los derechos de la persona desplazada. Este ataque, en la mayoría de los casos, es provocado por el desplazador, y en algunas ocasiones por el Estado, siendo este, quien tiene la obligación primordial de prestar al desplazado la atención necesaria y de proporcionarle (...) una protección integral que frene la violación tanto de los derechos humanos, como del derecho humanitario, teniendo en cuenta siempre las diferentes aportaciones y elaboraciones que sobre el caso, proporcionan las organizaciones internacionales que trabajan al respecto. (shrink)

Social systems are always exposed to critical processes in which their organization, or part of it, is questioned by the society that demands solutions through different critical saliences. The traditional approach to such social crises has mainly focused on their anticipation and management, implying that the focus is on trying to deal with crises once they occur, rather than delving in their essential characteristics that seemingly depend on the adaptive nature of the system and the increase in its internal complexity. (...) To address this issue, we propose a dual approach that utilizes both qualitative and quantitative methods in order to delve into the relationship between the complexity of the social system, its adaptation, and critical episodes. Our analysis shows how an explosive economic growth affects a social system, increasing its complexity. This complexity produces different demands from the system itself. These demands manifest signatures of complexity such as a heterogeneous and rich social structure, which emerges during moments when the society acts strongly. (shrink)

Tradicionalmente, la relación entre el yo y la experiencia se ha entendido a través de la conciencia, que no solo experimenta sino que también “crea” la experiencia, reflejando una noción arraigada desde Aristóteles. Para la filosofía moderna, la conciencia tiene la capacidad de categorizar y comprender lo percibido. Desde la perspectiva de Levinas, la conciencia y la comprensión se ven como actividad y poder simultáneamente. Sin embargo, surge la pregunta: ¿Es la experiencia de un objeto finito comparable a la experiencia (...) de lo infinito o absoluto? La experiencia religiosa expone al yo a un acontecimiento que no puede ser comprendido por la actividad sintetizadora de la conciencia, según Levinas. Para abordar esta cuestión, utilizaremos conceptos que van más allá de la filosofía clásica, como la trascendencia, la intencionalidad invertida (bouleversé), lo infinito y Dios. Nuestro objetivo es demostrar que la percepción y la representación subjetiva de lo absoluto difiere fundamentalmente de la de cualquier otro fenómeno. Exploraremos con Levinas el uso de un lenguaje no ontológico que pueda expresar lo invisible e “incognoscible” de la experiencia religiosa, sin abandonar el discurso ontológico. En síntesis, busco dilucidar cómo la experiencia del absoluto desafía las categorías tradicionales de la conciencia y la comprensión, y cómo un enfoque filosófico alternativo puede arrojar luz sobre esta compleja dinámica. (shrink)

Para Deleuze, la ética es un saber experimental: se trata de componer relaciones, probar si una nueva conexión aumenta la potencia del cuerpo o la depotencia. Este artículo persigue un objetivo central: mostrar los elementos necesarios para la construcción de una ética inmanente y relacional que no esté fundada en el modelo del juicio moral, sino como una praxis experimental a partir de la interpretación que Deleuze hace de la ética de Spinoza y la filosofía de Nietzsche.

This article seeks to raise the problems of the notion of difference according to Heidegger and Deleuze, for, to our knowledge, they are two of the mayor contemporary thinkers who have influenced our time by addressing this issue. What is “new” about the ways Heidegger and Deleuze think the notion of difference? What convergences appear between their proposals? What disagreements occur between their philosophies? The article is an attempt to provide critical answers to these questions.

El presente artículo realiza una revisión de uno los procesos administrativos más invisibles para la población del Ecuador y para el sector de la salud, que es la auditoría de recuperación de costos de las atenciones médicas, que se da luego de las atenciones de salud mediante cobertura de seguros públicos, ya sea en unidades de salud públicas o privadas bajo cobertura pública. Para ahondar el en proceso descrito es necesario conocer el sistema de salud ecuatoriano, realizar comparativas con otros (...) países y analizar las leyes, normativas y reglamentos establecidos para el pago económico y que permiten la continua gestión entre lo público y lo privado en el sector de la salud, se analiza además los resultados de una conducta omisiva del personal que realiza la auditoría de cuentas médicas y que puede provocar problemas enormes tanto al sector público como financiador y al privado como prestador de salud, que al final lo que deriva en una responsabilidad administrativa. (shrink)

Este artículo se inserta en el marco teórico de las controversias actuales y contemporáneas en torno a la discusión de las categorías heideggerianas. El mismo tiene por objetivo exponer el sentido de las nociones de acontecimiento y diferencia, ya que estas nociones presentan un carácter problemático, pues no pueden ser fundamentadas sino que resultan fundadas sobre el abismo. En las conclusiones, presentamos un marco conceptual apropiado para pensar al acontecimiento y la diferencia a partir de la interpretación de la Zwischen (...) respecto a su estatus tensivo. (shrink)

Effort and the feeling of effort play important roles in many theoretical discussions, from perception to self-control and free will, from the nature of ownership to the nature of desert and achievement. A crucial, overlooked distinction within the philosophical and scientific literatures is the distinction between theories that seek to explain effort and theories that seek to explain the feeling of effort. Lacking a clear distinction between these two phenomena makes the literature hard to navigate. To advance in the unification (...) and development of this area, this article provides an overview of the main theories of the nature of effort and the nature of the feeling of effort, and then discusses how efforts and their feelings are related. Two key takeaways emerge. First, there is widespread agreement that efforts are goal-directed actions. Second, one of the main philosophical issues to be decided is whether feelings of effort should be defined by reference to efforts (effort-first approach), or whether efforts are defined by reference to the feeling of effort (feeling-first approach). (shrink)

El presente artículo, tiene como objetivo mostrar que el giro copernicano centrado en el Ego trascendental ha sido cuestionado y revisado críticamente por el giro lingüístico-hermenéutico contemporáneo al decir de Scannone.[1] Esta doble criticidad es posible a partir de la reinterpretación de las categorías esenciales de la metafísica moderna cuyo puntapié inicial puede situarse en el “otro comienzo” del pensar que produce Heidegger para la filosofía contemporánea. De este modo, la tesis que sostenemos en este artículo es que esta nueva (...) racionalidad crítica se encuentra sintetizada en la noción de Acontecimiento heideggeriana. [1] Scannone, J. C.; “El nuevo pensamiento y el otro comienzo”: en Scannone, J. C. Comp.; Un nuevo pensamiento para otro mundo posible, Editorial de la Universidad Católica de Córdoba, Córdoba, 2010, p.10. (shrink)

En términos de la filosofía socrática, la doxa u opinión representa un principio vago debido a sus alcances limitados en la construcción de un conocimiento bien establecido. Sin embargo, debido a conveniencias como su facilidad de manejo, la opinión se ha extendido como mecanismo epistémico en espacios como las redes sociales, donde su uso se fomenta a través de objetos virtuales como el meme, de tal forma que se vuelve necesaria una evaluación filosófica para las nuevas formas de expresión doxástica (...) por medio del juicio y de la crítica como los procedimientos filosóficos más adecuados para confrontar sus repercusiones. (shrink)

En 2014, notre compagnie de théâtre a commencé l’expérience « La Cocina Pública », un projet qui construit une cuisine à l’intérieur d’un conteneur installé dans la rue. En effaçant la ligne qui sépare le « public » des « artistes », nous percevons que la catastrophe et l’urgence de la situation sociale sont des déclencheurs qui réactivent la vie communautaire. La cuisine est un point de départ pour rencontrer l’histoire des territoires à travers la mémoire de leurs recettes.

¿En qué sentido se relacionan el don, tal como lo entiende Jean-Luc Marion, y el resto, en el sentido que a este da Jacques Derrida? ¿Podemos afirmar que el don, en sus tres reducciones, opera como resto frente a la metafísica de la presencia? Y también, ¿es el resultado de esta operación un acercamiento del don hacia la donación misma? Este artículo quiere responder a estas preguntas a través de una lectura hermenéutica de la reducción que Marion ejecuta sobre el (...) don en Étant donné, cuyo resultado (o uno de ellos) es la posibilidad de entender al don como un “presente sin presencia” que resiste a la metafísica y obra como resto. (shrink)

En este artículo reconstruimos el sentido que asume el problema del orden social en la teoría de los medios de comunicación simbólicamente generalizados de Niklas Luhmann. La hipótesis de lectura que deseamos elaborar es que en esta teorización se evidencia una parcial subordinación del problema sociológico del orden social al de la inquietud por las inciertas condiciones de posibilidad del control y/o la regulación de la acción en contextos de contingencia. Esto es, el problema del poder adquiere una inadvertida preeminencia. (...) En lineamientos generales, consideramos que este desplazamiento se torna reconocible en el marco de las diversas valoraciones que hace Luhmann con respecto a la contingencia de la acción y de sus implicancias para la formulación de una teoría del orden social. La reconstrucción propuesta se torna significativa en tanto muestra una delimitación del problema que se encuentra en tensión con la tradición de reflexión sociológica para la cual el problema conceptual del orden refiere a los modos en que el mismo puede ser concebido o explicado y no a las dificultades ligadas a su formación. (shrink)

El escrito a continuación muestra un problema de la investigación científico-jurídica respecto de los métodos, metodologías y epistemologías. Para esto, me propongo analizar las epistemologías feministas, en contraste con la epistemología jurídica hegemónica. En un primer momento, describo el desarrollo de las epistemologías y metodologías de la modernidad, específicamente el positivismo tradicional, y el cambio al positivismo lógico. En un segundo momento, señalo la denuncia que los estudios de género han realizado a las epistemologías hegemónicas. Después, refiero las contrapropuestas epistemológicas (...) y metodológicas que el feminismo hace a partir de 1970 aproximadamente. En un cuarto momento, indico el estado conceptual del positivismo jurídico; y finiquito con problematizar el positivismo jurídico desde las contrapropuestas epistémicas y metodológicas del feminismo. (shrink)

Trata-se de uma análise das afinidades da filosofia de Schopenhauer (1788-1860) no pensamento de Emil Cioran (1911-1995). Autor influente na Romênia desde o século XIX, Schopenhauer é considerado uma das principais referências de Cioran. As fichas de leituras, cartas, expressões e os temas abordados por Cioran constituem uma gama de argumentos para aproximação do filósofo romeno ao filósofo do pessimismo.

El artículo indaga en los canales de influencia de los centros de estudio privados o think tanks en el proceso de formación de agenda política en Chile. Un esquema de clasificación para las organizaciones existentes en el país es propuesto, caracterizando los rasgos de centros académicos, centros de apoyo, centros partidarios y centros de gestión. Se busca describir el desenvolvimiento de las distintas organizaciones y determinar el rol de la gestión de saber experto en la definición de asuntos para la (...) agenda política. (shrink)

The article examines the relationship between tragedy and Greek democracy starting from the category of «stasis». Focused on this notion, the text proposes two exercises that articulate and demonstrate the relationship between tragedy and democracy. First, it focuses on the question about the «stasis» and how this relationship will be conceptualized in the investigation by examining five dimensions contained in that category: the eristic conception of language; the notion of «agon» as a political principle of conflict; the notion of «ergon» (...) as a conception of political action; the ethical substance that inspires it; and the event of excessiveness contained in the notion of «hybris». Second, the text examines and identifies, in a preliminary way, a relationship of tension and distinction between the Greek concepts of «stasis» and «polemos», both present and constitutive in the configuration of tragedy and Greek democracy. Through these two exercises the text postulates the possibility of a genealogical thinking about the tragic character of democracy. (shrink)

El debate reciente iniciado por Hubert Dreyfus y John McDowell ha llamado la atención sobre la relación entre racionalidad y acción no reflexiva. En este artículo propongo una forma de especificar el desacuerdo entre quienes llamaré intelectualistas y antiintelectualistas. A la luz de esta propuesta arguyo que el principal argumento antiintelectualista sólo tiene éxito si se acepta al menos uno de tres presupuestos implícitos que están lejos de ser autoevidentes y cuya verdad es puesta en duda por fenómenos familiares. Termino (...) con consideraciones que sugieren que el intelectualista ha quedado en una mejor posición argumentativa. (shrink)

Based on a critical theoretical tradition of democracy, the article rehearses an interpretation of the Chilean revolt of October 2019. It is argued that this episode indicates the exhaustion of the myth in which democracy obtains its legitimacy and perpetuation as a promise of the realisation of its founding values. To this end, it examines the overall historical context in which the Chilean democratic transition is taking place, thus discovering its close link to the order designed by the Chilean dictatorship. (...) A series of symbolisms articulate the global market order with the social model favoured by the dictatorship, but implemented with a democratic appearance. Finally, the elements that allow us to understand the signs of the collapse of the ‘democratic mythologem’ in the October revolt are reviewed and questions are asked about the political challenges that are posed. (shrink)

Interpretation of Aristotle’s theory of action in the last few decades has tended toward an intellectualist position, according to which reason is in charge of setting the goals of action. This position has recently been criticized by the revival of anti-intellectualism (particularly from J. Moss’ work), according to which character, and not reason, sets the goals of action. In this essay I argue that neither view can sufficiently account for the complexities of Aristotle’s theory, and propose an intermediate account, which (...) I call indirect intellectualism, that preserves the merits of both traditional interpretations and is able to dispel the problems that trouble each. There is very strong textual evidence for the claim that goal-setting is the task not of reason but of character (and in this anti-intellectualists are right); but reason is able to set goals indirectly by carefully shaping the processes of habituation that constitute a person’s character (and in this intellectualists are right). I argue for this position through a study of the division of labour between character and reason, and through a reconstruction of Aristotle’s conception of habituation. (shrink)

In this paper, we propose to investigate one common adult representation of childhood that will serve both to reflect on and to problematize current and varied representations. As such, our object of study will always be a representation and not a substantialist definition. We propose to analyze the adult concept “child” from a critical perspective by reviewing it through a historical lens—that is, as it is expressed in the political and educational world of 19th century Chile, which, in turn, we (...) can glimpse in the historical writings of Domingo Faustino Sarmiento. To carry out this journey, we propose three guiding thematic axes: 1) how all school apparatuses embody, configure and assume a certain identifiable representation of “child’ and childhood; 2) an analysis of the characteristics and objectives of the 19th century Chilean school apparatus, particularly in its function as a government device, or dispositif; 3) just how that dispositif becomes visible to inquiry in the historical record, particularly in what it can reveal to us about the image or images of childhood held by adults. To be understood by adults as a boy or a girl in Chile during that period is communicated in the historical record through a myriad of diverse sources, each requiring consideration in its context. Magazines, syllabaries, school textbooks and children's stories configure different perspectives on and attitudes toward childhood, which in turn are associated with the social origin of these documents and the purposes they embody. The images, ideas and signs of interaction that appear in these school documents act cumulatively to reveal a cultural image of “child” and aid us in understanding the political and socio-cultural significance attributed to that period in the human life-cycle. And while we cannot claim to have identified how all adults of 19th century Chile understood and represented childhood, such documents do offer insights into the beliefs and assumptions of the political and ruling classes. (shrink)

In this article, we report a study in which 109 research-active mathematicians were asked to judge the validity of a purported proof in undergraduate calculus. Significant results from our study were as follows: (a) there was substantial disagreement among mathematicians regarding whether the argument was a valid proof, (b) applied mathematicians were more likely than pure mathematicians to judge the argument valid, (c) participants who judged the argument invalid were more confident in their judgments than those who judged it valid, (...) and (d) participants who judged the argument valid usually did not change their judgment when presented with a reason raised by other mathematicians for why the proof should be judged invalid. These findings suggest that, contrary to some claims in the literature, there is not a single standard of validity among contemporary mathematicians. (shrink)

A 68-year-old patient who suffered from gastric cancer diagnosed 8 months earlier presented with multiple peritoneal and hepatic metastasis, despite several rounds of chemo- and radiotherapy. After admission to hospital, his general condition quickly became severely compromised. He was nearly emaciated, despite being on partial parenteral feeding. Four years earlier, due to a cardiac arrhythmia that was refractory to medication, the patient had a cardiac pacemaker implanted, regulated to go off at frequencies of below 70 beats per minute. Given the (...) patient's terminal situation, the team started developing some doubts about the pacemaker's effects during his dying process. The patient had mentioned his intention to donate his pacemaker after his death, but had not asked for its deactivation. The specialists were not sure about the effect of the pacemaker in unnecessarily prolonging the patient's final hour. Nevertheless, they opposed deactivation, which they considered ethically uncertain. The family, who had been initially for the deactivation, decided against it. The patient's condition was progressively deteriorating, as he was falling into a state of sopor and, later, into a coma. (shrink)

El artículo ofrece una reconstrucción de la concepción de la acción que, anclada en una concepción más amplia de la imputación, Hegel nos presenta en el capítulo “La moralidad” de su Filosofía del Derecho, y que arranca de la clarificación preliminar de qué significa que “crimen” designe algo que tiene el estatus de una acción. A partir de un conjunto de premisas obtenidas de algunas recientes reinterpretaciones analíticamente orientadas de su obra, desarrolladas por Brandom y Quante, se examina la distinción (...) que Hegel hace entre los conceptos de hecho y acción, para entonces esclarecer qué cabe entender por el “derecho del saber” y cómo este se conecta con el “derecho de la intención”. Ello hace posible explicitar la particular forma de “compatibilismo” que cabe extraer de la filosofía de Hegel para enfrentar el problema de la suerte moral. (shrink)