Purpose The purpose of this paper is to present a quantitative and qualitative synthesis of the diverse academic proposals and initiatives for preventing and eliminating hate speech on the internet. Design/methodology/approach The foundation for this study is a systematic review of papers devoted to the analysis of hate speech. It has been conducted using the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) protocol and applied to an initial corpus of 436 academic texts. Having implemented the suitability, screening and (...) inclusion criteria, this corpus was refined to a sample of 74 articles. Findings The main subject categories studied in this corpus of academic research are legal issues and social media. In the majority of the articles, the use of hate speech via social media is associated with five typologies: religion, cyber racism, political slurs, misogyny and attacks on the LGTBI community. The absence of ethical reflection is one of the major shortcomings of IT-focused research and analysis devoted to online hate speech. Practical implications To date various systematic reviews have been presented, and they focus on detecting or describing hate speech. These have used either the search appraisal synthesis analysis framework or the Cochrane network. The PRISMA protocol was applied for this study, and both Scopus and texts in German were included. To date no major, rigorous systematic review has been undertaken of proposals to combat hate speech. Originality/value The link between hate speech and poverty has not been studied in depth within the academic sphere. Tolerance and ethical compassion are not granted the attention they merit when it comes to analysing the phenomenon of hate speech. (shrink)

Palabras de agradecimiento al promotor del Congreso Internacional y a los participantes en él. Asimismo, a la persona que ha trabajado en la labor de transcripción de mis escritos y a otros colaboradores míos. También a quienes han tomado en cuenta mis ideas para elaborar sus tesis doctorales, y a otros colegas cuyos planteamientos filosóficos distan de los míos. Como la filosofía es una actividad interminable, queda abierta la sucesiva investigación en mis propuestas.

Despite numerous and increasing attempts to define what life is, there is no consensus on necessary and sufficient conditions for life. Accordingly, some scholars have questioned the value of definitions of life and encouraged scientists and philosophers alike to discard the project. As an alternative to this pessimistic conclusion, we argue that critically rethinking the nature and uses of definitions can provide new insights into the epistemic roles of definitions of life for different research practices. This paper examines the possible (...) contributions of definitions of life in scientific domains where such definitions are used most (e.g., Synthetic Biology, Origins of Life, Alife, and Astrobiology). Rather than as classificatory tools for demarcation of natural kinds, we highlight the pragmatic utility of what we call operational definitions that serve as theoretical and epistemic tools in scientific practice. In particular, we examine contexts where definitions integrate criteria for life into theoretical models that involve or enable observable operations. We show how these definitions of life play important roles in influencing research agendas and evaluating results, and we argue that to discard the project of defining life is neither sufficiently motivated, nor possible without dismissing important theoretical and practical research. (shrink)

En este artículo, mostramos ciertos supuestos no explicitados en la noción de individuo humano en la que se basan los enfoques teóricos de la neuroeconomía y la economía conductual para desarrollar sus programas de investigación e intervención. También abordamos los compromisos epistemológicos, ideológicos y políticos desde los cuales conciben, estudian e intervienen en la conducta humana. En lugar de un individuo producto de un proceso de socialización, lo que se presenta es un cerebro aislado con numerosas funciones cognitivas atribuidas, cuya (...) conducta puede ser alterada debido a “accidentes” en su evolución como órgano rector del comportamiento. Este enfoque permite la construcción de propuestas de políticas públicas basadas en el llamado “paternalismo libertario”. Se destaca un potencial mecanismo de control cuyo objetivo es configurar los distintos espacios de la vida cotidiana de los individuos de manera que sus conductas agregadas se alineen lo más posible con los entes racionales ideales del modelo económico neoclásico. (shrink)

Organization figures centrally in the understanding of biological systems advanced by both new mechanists and proponents of the autonomy framework. The new mechanists focus on how components of mechanisms are organized to produce a phenomenon and emphasize productive continuity between these components. The autonomy framework focuses on how the components of a biological system are organized in such a way that they contribute to the maintenance of the organisms that produce them. In this paper we analyze and compare these two (...) accounts of organization and argue that understanding biological organisms as cohesively integrated systems benefits from insights from both. To bring together the two accounts, we focus on the notions of control and regulation as bridge concepts. We start from a characterization of biological mechanisms in terms of constraints and focus on a specific type of mechanism, control mechanisms, that operate on other mechanisms on the basis of measurements of variables in the system and its environment. Control mechanisms are characterized by their own set of constraints that enable them to sense conditions, convey signals, and effect changes on constraints in the controlled mechanism. They thereby allow living organisms to adapt to internal and external variations and to coordinate their parts in such a manner as to maintain viability. Because living organisms contain a vast number of control mechanisms, a central challenge is to understand how they are themselves organized. With the support of examples from both unicellular and multicellular systems we argue that control mechanisms are organized heterarchically, and we discuss how this type of control architecture can, without invoking top-down and centralized forms of organizations, succeed in coordinating internal activities of organisms. (shrink)

Spinoza is often described as an ethical perfectionist—one who accepts an account of the good centered on the development of our natural capacities. Perfectionists typically accept a perfectionist theory of value, in which the properties of good and evil are grounded in a normative property of perfection. Yet I argue that Spinoza rejects a perfectionist theory of value because he believes it conflicts with the doctrine of necessitarianism. This leads him to conclude that attributions of perfection in ethical contexts must (...) be regarded as fictions. If Spinoza is indeed an ethical perfectionist, his perfectionism must be grounded in a theory of value that is not itself perfectionist. (shrink)

Living organisms act as integrated wholes to maintain themselves. Individual actions can each be explained by characterizing the mechanisms that perform the activity. But these alone do not explain how various activities are coordinated and performed versatilely. We argue that this depends on a specific type of mechanism, a control mechanism. We develop an account of control by examining several extensively studied control mechanisms operative in the bacterium E. coli. On our analysis, what distinguishes a control mechanism from other mechanisms (...) is that it relies on measuring one or more variables, which results in setting constraints in the control mechanism that determine its action on flexible constraints in other mechanisms. In the most basic arrangement, the measurement process directly determines the action of the control mechanism, but in more complex arrangements signals mediate between measurements and effectors. This opens the possibility of multiple responses to the same measurement and responses based on multiple measurements. It also allows crosstalk, resulting in networks of control mechanisms. Such networks integrate the behaviors of the organism but also present a challenge in tailoring responses to particular measurements. We discuss how integrated activity can still result in differential, versatile, responses. (shrink)

Biological regulation is what allows an organism to handle the effects of a perturbation, modulating its own constitutive dynamics in response to particular changes in internal and external conditions. With the central focus of analysis on the case of minimal living systems, we argue that regulation consists in a specific form of second-order control, exerted over the core regime of production and maintenance of the components that actually put together the organism. The main argument is that regulation requires a distinctive (...) architecture of functional relationships, and specifically the action of a dedicated subsystem whose activity is dynamically decoupled from that of the constitutive regime. We distinguish between two major ways in which control mechanisms contribute to the maintenance of a biological organisation in response to internal and external perturbations: dynamic stability and regulation. Based on this distinction an explicit definition and a set of organisational requirements for regulation are provided, and thoroughly illustrated through the examples of bacterial chemotaxis and the lac-operon. The analysis enables us to mark out the differences between regulation and closely related concepts such as feedback, robustness and homeostasis. (shrink)

Theoretical accounts of development exhibit several internal tensions and face multiple challenges. They span from the problem of the identification of the temporal boundaries of development (beginning and end) to the characterization of the distinctive type of change involved compared to other biological processes. They include questions such as the role to ascribe to the environment or what types of biological systems can undergo development and whether they should include colonies or even ecosystems. In this chapter we discuss these conceptual (...) issues, and we argue that adopting an organizational approach may help solve or clarify them. -/- While development is usually identified with the achievement of an adult form with the capability to reproduce and therefore maintain a lineage, adopting the organizational approach may provide a different strategy, which focuses also on the maintenance of the current organization of the organism. By doing so an organizational approach favors a switch in perspective which consists in analyzing how organisms maintain their viability at each moment of development rather than considering them as going through intermediate stages of a process directed toward a specific goal state. This developmental dimension of biological organization has yet to be given a general and detailed analysis within the organizational theoretical perspective, apart from some preliminary attempts. How a biological organization is maintained through a series of radical organizational changes and what these changes are issues that still require clarification. In this chapter we offer the beginnings of such an analysis of developmental transitions, understood as changes in functionality brought forth by regulatory mechanisms in the context of the continued maintenance of organizational viability at every step. (shrink)

El objetivo de este trabajo es realizar una crítica al concepto hegemónico-dominante de ciencia a través de un análisis de la construcción discursiva del paradigma de la simplificación heredado de la Modernidad. Se problematizan las exclusiones político-epistemológicas de la tradición del pensamien..

This paper critically revises the organisational account of teleology, which argues that living systems are first and foremost oriented towards a goal: maintaining their own conditions of existence. It points out some limitations of this account, mainly in the capability to account for the richness and complexity of biological systems and their purposeful behaviours. It identifies the reason of these limitations in the theoretical grounding of this account, specifically in the too narrow notion of closure of constraints, focused on self-production. (...) It proposes to ground an organisational account of biological teleology in the capability of living system not just to produce and replace their parts, but to control their own internal dynamics and behaviours in such a way as to maintain themselves. This theoretical framework has two advantages. It better captures the distinctive features of biological organisations and consequently the richness and active nature of their purposeful behaviours. By doing so, it makes it possible to apply this framework beyond minimal theoretical models to real biological cases. (shrink)

El uso de un conocimiento invariante para alcanzar propósitos intervencionistas o de política es comúnmente aceptado por los enfoques manipulabilistas. Sin embargo, dicho uso plantea dos problemáticas filosóficas que serán examinadas en el presente trabajo. El primer problema es ontológico, y refiere a la dificultad de encontrar genuinos factores causales estables en ciencias sociales. En este sentido, se mostrará que los fenómenos sociales no responden a una lógica de factores estables como los mecanismos o las «capacidades», sino que se adecúan (...) más a una lógica de «árboles de posibilidades” o «resultados de final abierto». El otro problema es de índole epistemológico y refiere a que, incluso si se encuentran contribuciones sociales estables, nada garantiza que dicha estabilidad prevalezca en el futuro. Diferentes tesis que avalan esta problemática serán examinadas, tales como la denominada «crítica de Lucas» o la «teoría del cisne negro». (shrink)

Many philosophers have recently challenged the monistic idea that knowledge is the sole aim of our inquiries into questions. Specifically, by giving examples, they argue that we can factually and legitimately inquire into questions to achieve states different from the mere knowledge of the correct and complete answer. Given this, they end up with a pluralistic stance about the aim of our inquiries into questions. In this paper, I will show that the pluralists’ cases do not seriously threaten knowledge monism. (...) First, I will describe how a knowledge monist can slightly revise her position and motivate the following claim: The aim of our inquiries into questions is not the mere knowledge but the occurrent knowledge of the correct and complete answer – a type of knowledge that is operative in our actions and cognition. Second, I will show how the monist can defend this position from the cases the pluralists offer by highlighting how our inquiries come in a variety and are bound to contextual aspects. Finally, by analysing the monist’s strategy further, I will end up with a new theory of inquiry: A theory that is contextualist, pluralist about the variety of inquiries, but monistic about their specific aims. (shrink)

The main models of scientific explanation assume the need for some kind of stable knowledge for assembling a good explanatory argument. While these approaches are useful in the natural sciences, it is doubtful that they are similarly applicable in the socioeconomic realm. In this paper it is expected to show that the logic of socioeconomic processes of being "possibility trees" or "open-ended results" makes regularities the exception rather than the rule. Alternatively, a mode of explanation that focuses on contextual factors (...) and people actions is proposed. Los principales modelos de explicación científica asumen la necesidad de utilizar algún tipo de conocimiento estable para el armado de un buen argumento explicativo. Si bien estos enfoques son muy útiles en las ciencias naturales, es dudoso que sean similarmente aplicables en el reino de lo socioeconómico. En el presente trabajo se prevé mostrar que la lógica de los “árboles de posibilidades” o “resultados de final abierto” propias de los procesos socioeconómicos hace que las regularidades sean más la excepción que la regla. Como alternativa, se propone un modo de explicación que focalice en los factores contextuales y en las acciones de las personas en el momento en que aconteció el fenómeno a explicar. (shrink)

Com recuerdo y fiel homenaje a nuestro genial compatrinta, el ingeniero e inventar santanderino Leonardo Torres Quevedo, THEORIA quiere reeoger hoy en sus páginas dos breves, claros y luminosostextos -el primero sobre máquinas algébricas (1901) y el segundo sobre el alcance de una nueva ciencia: la Automática (1915)- de aquel español itinerante e infatigable que, como muy contadascompatriotas, supo aliar claridad y rlgor lógico en las definiciones de los conceptos básicos y desbordante inventiva creadora en la estricta y audaz (...) aplicación técnica de los mismos.Acompaña a estos textos la inolvidable imagen del primer ajedrecista automático (electromagnetico) concebido y construido por Torres Quevedo, anticipador también en la era electromecanica de los que habían de seguirle en la electrónica e informática y triunfador póstumo, en 1951, en el primer Congreso Cibernético de París, donde fué examinado por el hijo del inventor español y el padre de la Cibernética, Norbert Wiener, tres años después de la aparición en el M.I.T. de la primera edición inglesa de la obra de éste último Cybemetics, or control and communication in the animal and the machine (1948) que iba a inaugurar la era de la Cibernética, anticipada en tantas ideas, muchos decenios antes, por la Automática de nuestro Torres Quevedo. (shrink)

The new mechanists and the autonomy approach both aim to account for how biological phenomena are explained. One identifies appeals to how components of a mechanism are organized so that their activities produce a phenomenon. The other directs attention towards the whole organism and focuses on how it achieves self-maintenance. This paper discusses challenges each confronts and how each could benefit from collaboration with the other: the new mechanistic framework can gain by taking into account what happens outside individual mechanisms, (...) while the autonomy approach can ground itself in biological research into how the actual components constituting an autonomous system interact and contribute in different ways to realize and maintain the system. To press the case that these two traditions should be constructively integrated we describe how three recent developments in the autonomy tradition together provide a bridge between the two traditions: (1) a framework of work and constraints, (2) a conception of function grounded in the organization of an autonomous system, and (3) a focus on control. (shrink)

En los últimos tiempos, destacadas figuras del horizonte filosófico y teológico español se han declarado partidarias de lo que ha dado en llamarse ética civil. El propósito de este trabajo es exponer las razones por las que no puedo compartir la postura de mis distinguidos colegas. El estudio de algunos de sus textos -que serán citados abundantemente en lo que sigue- me ha empujado a la conclusión de que bajo el nombre de ética civil circulan confundidas dos propuestas morales diferentes, (...) a las que llamare concepción estática y concepción dinámica de la ética civil, respectivamente. Y no se trata, según creo, de dos teorías complementarias (de suerte que pudieran combinarse en una unidad teórica superior), sino de dos teorías incompatibles. Por si esta ambigüedad fuera poco, hay razones para pensar que ambas son inaceptables. (shrink)

Resumen La tesis principal del artículo es que la estrategia estándar de modelización económica basada en la construcción de sistemas cerrados y de agentes optimizadores es ineficaz para el tratamiento de la incertidumbre. Puesto que bajo incertidumbre los agentes económicos desconocen cuál es el resultado final de un curso de acción, las decisiones de estos no deberían ser representadas por el cálculo de optimización bajo restricciones. La construcción de sistemas axiomáticos deductivos que conducen a la derivación de un único resultado (...) también será puesta en tela de juicio, y se propondrá su reemplazo por una lógica de investigación basada en simulaciones.The purpose of this essay is to show that the standard approach of economic modelling is ineffective for the issue of uncertainty. Since under uncertainty economic agents do not know the final outcome of a course of action, their decisions should not be represented by the process of constrained optimization. The construction of axiomatic systems that lead to the derivation of a single result is also put into question; its replacement by a simulation-based approach is proposed. (shrink)

RESUMEN: En el presente trabajo se hará una crítica al enfoque de máquinas nomológicas desarrollado por Nancy Cartwright para el caso de las ciencias sociales. Se argumentará que los fenómenos sociales no responden a una lógica de "capacidades", sino de "árboles de posibilidades" o "resultados de final abierto". La estabilidad o invarianza, si bien es posible en el reino de lo social, parece ser más la excepción que la regla. Esto tiene consecuencias importantes para los propósitos de intervención y control. (...) De acuerdo con las corrientes manipulabilistas tradicionales la invarianza es una herramienta fundamental para cumplir cualquier propósito intervencionista, ya que permite prever con un buen grado de confianza el resultado de una manipulación. Sin embargo, en este trabajo se intentará mostrar que, a pesar de que no sea del todo plausible obtener un conocimiento invariante en el reino de lo social, las intervenciones pueden ser igualmente eficaces. Para ello, será fundamental reemplazar la noción "ex-ante" de intervención por una que involucre continuidad o sistematicidad. También será clave tener en cuenta aquellas cláusulas o condiciones especificadas dentro de los modelos, ya que estos últimos cumplen el rol de ser anteproyectos para la generación de resultados. ABSTRACT: In the present paper, a critique of Nancy Cartwright's nomological machines approach in the social sciences will be made. It is argued that social phenomena do not correspond to the logic of "capacities", but to the logic of "possibility trees" or "open-ended results". Stability or invariance, although possible in the social realm, seem to be more the exception than the rule. This has important implications for the purposes of intervention and control. According to traditional manipulabilistic accounts, invariance is essential for achieving any interventionist purpose, because it allows predicting the result of a manipulation with a high degree of confidence. However, in this paper it will be shown that even though the obtaining of invariant knowledge is not entirely plausible in the social realm, interventions may be effective. To do this, it will be necessary to replace the "ex-ante" notion of intervention with another notion that involves continuity. It will also be crucial to take into account the clauses or conditions specified in models, since such models play the role of being blueprints for generating results. (shrink)

El artículo indaga si es posible caracterizar como expresión del irredentismo el ethos palestino de Retorno a territories donde fueron expulsados en la guerra con Israel en 1948-49. Después de una reseña histórica sobre los campos de refugiados palestinos, y el rol de la UNRWA, se compara cuál fue el destino de refugiados de otras naciones irredentistas tras guerras de descolonización y poscoloniales. Finalmente, se reflexiona sobre el dilema identitario y político acerca del Irredentismo palestino sin estado o la alternativa (...) de un “sionismo palestino” en su propio estado-nacional. Palabras clave : irredentismo, descolonizacion, conflicto Israel-Palestina, nacionalismo The article assesses if it is possible to characterize the Palestinian ethos as an expression of irredentism of an extra-territorial nation, whose young generations long to return to territories from where their families were expelled in the 1948-49 war. After making a historical account of the Palestinian refugee camps and the role of UNRWA, the article compares the fate of refugees from other irredentist nations expelled by decolonization and postcolonial wars. Finally, identity and political dilemmas are raised about stateless Palestinian Irredentism or the alternative of a “Palestinian Zionism” in its own nation-state. Kaywords: irredentism, decolonization, Israel-Palestine conflict, nationalism. (shrink)

Tomando como ponto de partida a discussão sobre a coerção em Kant e Schelling, tenho a intenção de explicar como eles provam a possibilidade da liberdade em conexão com a coerção. Comparando ambas teorias da liberdade e da coerção,. duas formas diferentes de conceber o Direito e a Moralidade serão identificadas.De acordo com Kant, as leis jurídicas são leis morais ou leis da liberdade, de · tal forma que há uma mediação entre Direito e Moralidade. Schelling se opõe radicalmente ao (...) pensamento de Kant. O Direito tem seus próprios princípios de conhecimento e ele não depende de imperativos morais. Por um lado, esta oposição caracteriza uma controvérsia dentro do próprio Idealismo alemão, entre Hegel, que concorda com a tese kantiana, e Fichte, que segue a concepção schellinguiana. Por outro lado, esta discussão não está limitada à filosofia kantiana ou ao Idealismo alemão. Lançando mão do legado kantiano, Habermas crítica a interpretação weberiana do poder legítimo nas sociedades ocidentais modernas. De acordo com Weber, o poder nestas sociedades está baseado na racionalidade interna e formal do Direito. Ao contrário, Habermas tem a intenção de mostrar que a ideia do estado democrático deve sua legitimidade à ligação entre Direito e Moral. (shrink)

Endocrinologists apply the idea of feedback loops to explain how hormones regulate certain bodily functions such as glucose metabolism. In particular, feedback loops focus on the maintenance of the plasma concentrations of glucose within a narrow range. Here, we put forward a different, organicist perspective on the endocrine regulation of glycaemia, by relying on the pivotal concept of closure of constraints. From this perspective, biological systems are understood as organized ones, which means that they are constituted of a set of (...) mutually dependent functional structures acting as constraints, whose maintenance depends on their reciprocal interactions. Closure refers specifically to the mutual dependence among functional constraints in an organism. We show that, when compared to feedback loops, organizational closure can generate much richer descriptions of the processes and constraints at play in the metabolism and regulation of glycaemia, by making explicit the different hierarchical orders involved. We expect that the proposed theoretical framework will open the way to the construction of original mathematical models, which would provide a better understanding of endocrine regulation from an organicist perspective. (shrink)

From its origins, cybernetics has based its desire on the concept of transverse nature, today transdisciplinary. Within its history, the breaking point is unquestionably Stafford Beer and the VMS applied in Salvador Allende's government. Chile's historical conditions and context undoubtedly allowed a series of conceptual emergencies that were not necessarily developed after the 1973 coup d'état. Beer's design, as he claims, could serve both a socialist vision and a fascist command. This tells us that the tool depends on the hand (...) of the administrator. On the other hand, good but insufficient attempts have been made in the field of biologies, such as the theory of autopoiesis and epistemological positions concerning the observer, which have not been able to add value to the VMS. The errors in the design of the VMS can be summarized as follows: confusion of interactions with relationships, confusing co-autonomy with self-organization, confusion of centrism and centralities necessarily as central and establish isomorphisms in a mathematical system aiming at conceptual homologation. As is the case with Information and Entropy. This work shows that the VMS must obligatorily migrate to a Relational Viable system, whose bases are the relations of cooperation and reciprocity based on heterarchical structures for limited or scarce material energy resources. This is the basis of the socialist design which forces the economy to reduce the production of Non-Required Variety. (shrink)