The development of children must be an integral part of their educational environment, focusing on strengthening their learning and social skills. The research is framed in the design of didactic material, under the perspective of product design. As a discipline of study, it focuses on the needs andparticularities of the rural educational environment and attempts to support the integral development that Ecuadorian education has been pursued. In this context, with a qualitative approach, the characteristics of the environment are collected, as (...) well as the perspectives of basic general education teachers, inrelation to the integral education and the existing materials in formal education. In a comparative analysis, we analyzed data obtained with similar training projects, which show the importance of working on social skills in children. The results determine parameters and requirements to develop didactic products that complement education, based on concepts of design, pedagogy, and didactics as knowledge-building tools. Keywords: Product Design, Teaching Material, Comprehensive Training, Social Skills. (shrink)

Reading through the Corpus Aristotelicum we come across a group of expressions meant to indicate predicative relations, which lead us to think that Aristotle connected predication to a part-whole relation. He frequently calls the ‘εἴδη’, “species”, ‘μέρη’, “parts”, of their genera. More generally, the universal is said to contain that of which it is true. In a parallel way, what is contained by something is also what is under something else. Again, it is quite common for him to consider the (...) species as partaking of their genera. Although the relation of partaking is normally used to qualify the way in which species are related to their genera, sometimes also the relation between particulars and species or even genera is expressed in terms of partaking. (shrink)

El tratado metodológico de Spinoza, llamado Tratado de la reforma del entendimiento, introduce al lector con la declaración de un objetivo puramente ético, la obtención de la felicidad. La cual, identificada con la virtud, es también el objetivo último de la filosofía. Es evidente, a partir de dicha introducción, que existe una relación entre el método y la ética, pero su naturaleza no es del todo clara. Así pues, cabe preguntarse: ¿se trata de una relación que puede presentar algún tipo (...) de interés en la comprensión de la teoría ética de Spinoza, o es meramente una relación accidental? Dicho de otro modo, ¿los procedimientos metodológicos tienen una función constitutiva en la búsqueda de la virtud o se trata solo de una relación mediata y carente de interés filosófico? En el presente trabajo nos proponemos indagar cuál es la naturaleza de esta relación, partiendo de la hipótesis de que reviste un interés filosófico que es necesario clarificar. Con este fin abordaremos otras cuestiones en torno a la relación entre la virtud y el conocimiento, en especial en torno al modo en que dicha relación aparece planteada en la Ética de Spinoza. (shrink)

Criticisms à la Laudan can block the “no miracles” argument for the (approximate) truth of whole theories. Realists have thus retrenched, arguing that at least the individual claims deployed in the derivation of novel predictions should be considered (approximately) true. But for Lyons (2002) there are historical counterexamples even to this weaker “deployment” realism: he lists a number of novel predictions supposedly derived from (radically) false claims. But if so, those successes would seem unexplainable, even by Lyons’ “modest surrealism” or (...) other surrogates to realism. In fact, I argue, some of those predictions were an easy guess, or independently probable in the light of available evidence; hence, they are no counterexamples to deployment realism, for the no miracles argument wouldn’t apply to them. In other instances, pace Lyon, the prediction was actually false, and could be reinterpreted as true only by interpreting as true also the claim from which it was derived; or again, a false claim was employed in the derivation of a true prediction, but inessentially, the essential role being played by a weaker true claim. But as soon as the paradoxical air of such historical cases is explained away in any of these manners, they cease to represent counterexamples to deployment realism. If, as I suggest, all of them can be dealt with by these strategies, a theoretical claim can still be assumed to be true if it is crucial in deriving an improbable novel prediction. (shrink)

I argue that the understanding's spontaneity is only manifest in its purely logical use.

A mathematical theory is proposed and exemplified, which covers an extended class of black boxes. Every kind of stimulus and response is pictured by a channel connecting the box with its environment. The input-output relation is given by a postulate schema according to which the response is, in general, a nonlinear functional of the input. Several examples are worked out: the perfectly transmitting box, the damping box, and the amplifying box. The theory is shown to be (a) an extension of (...) the S-matrix theory and the accompanying channel picture as developed in microphysics; (b) abstract and applicable to any problem involving the transactions of a system (physical, biological, social, etc.) with its milieu; (c) superficial, because unconcerned with either the structure of the box or the nature of the stimuli and responses. The motive for building the theory was to show the capabilities and limitations of the phenomenological approach. (shrink)

For a, b > 0, we consider a temporally homogeneous, one-dimensional diffusion process X(t) defined over I = (-b, a), with infinitesimal parameters depending on the sign of X(t). We suppose that, when X(t) reaches the position 0, it is reflected rightward to δ with probability p > 0 and leftward to -δ with probability 1 - p, where δ > 0. Closed analytical expressions are found for the mean exit time from the interval (-b, a), and for the probability (...) of exit through the right end a, in the limit δ → 0+, generalizing the results of Lefebvre, holding for asymmetric Wiener process. Moreover, in alternative to the heavy analytical calculations, a numerical method is presented to estimate approximately the quantities above. Furthermore, on the analogy of skew Brownian motion, the notion of skew diffusion process is introduced. Some examples and numerical results are also reported. (shrink)

En este ensayo analizamos el pensamiento político de Maurice Merleau-Ponty en el contexto de su obra filosófica y de lo que llamamos el �giro político� de la filosofía del siglo XX, que entendemos como el giro desde la Filosofía política a la manera clásica (normativa, prescriptiva, ideológica) hacia una �filosofía de lo político�, entendida más bien como una fenomenología de lo político, es decir, una descripción del �fenómeno político� en su realidad contingente. Además de exponer la manera como Merleau-Ponty desarrolla (...) su visión de �lo político�, tratamos de mostrar las convergencias de sus planteamientos con los de otros pensadores del siglo XX (Schmitt, Rancière, Nancy, Esposito, Castoriadis), apuntando hacia una nueva compresión, no jerárquica ni unidireccional de las relaciones entre filosofía y política. (shrink)

Cómo es posible la historia? -- Giambattista Vico : Una nueva ciencia, la historia (1725) -- Carta de Heidelberg.

I interpret Adorno's bold claim that all philosophy revolves around the ontological argument. On my reading, Adorno thereby expresses that all philosophy revolves around the question whether all of reality can be captured by thought. I then interpret the significance of this thesis for Adorno's *Negative Dialectics*. I argue that Adorno does not give up the ontological argument's claim—capturing reality in thought—but gives it a Marxist spin: whether reality can be captured in thought depends on its historical development, and is (...) therefore also up to humans and their actions. (shrink)

The study began with an introduction to Philosophy of Man. This Philosophical-Christological approach started with sense of self-awareness on this seemingly vain technological modern world. In the history of philosophy, there were three objects of study evolving by themselves, world, man and God in orderly fashion and repeating in interval phases. Self-experience shows three objects: first, existential unity (past), second, experiential unity (present) and third, transcendental unity (future). Western Philosophy banked on Aristotle’s notion of man as rational animal that led (...) to Dualism turned into Monism and finally into Pluralism making it harder to capsulate man’s unity. Thus, the universal question “what is man?” including his end remains unanswered. The problem with Western-Aristotelian Thought was its dependence on rationality as ultimate and highest faculty of man. The Greeks believed in immortality of soul but contradicted reality that human mind has no power over death (mortality). Faith transcends mortal-natural state of man however not in proud and arrogant manner but in utter surrender and subjection (Paschal). Faith turns truth from objective to personal. God’s and man’s identity was both revealed. Man as God’s image becomes definite in the revelation about Christ, the Son of God - the Perfect Man Eph. 4.13. KEYWORDS: Philosophy, Christ, Perfect Man, Philosophical-Christological approach,Christian anthropology, Qualitative Research Design, Philippines. (shrink)

Despite the encyclopedic knowledge accumulated in contemporary biology, it is still frustratingly elusive to find an uncontroversial answer to the (apparently) simple question, “What are living beings?” Since the traditional approach to answering this question has been by means of definitions, it has been pointed out that an alternative might be to change the strategy and, following the example of other sciences, try to find not a definition but a theoretical identity for living beings. However, according to some critics, such (...) a move is neither possible nor advisable since current biology, limited to only earthly samples of life, does not have enough empirical basis and theoretical development to formulate a theoretical identity for living beings. In this paper, contrary to this diagnosis, I make room for and propose a theoretical identity statement for living beings. First, I argue that the limitations to proposing such an identity are not as severe as it is assumed. Second, I suggest answering the question, “What are living beings?” with the theoretical identity statement, ‘Living beings are exoautopoietic bodies.’ I explain this proposal’s theoretical grounds and defend it against potential objections. (shrink)

L’interview retrace la carrière universitaire de l’historien Mario Kessler, né en RDA. Il a étudié l’histoire à Iéna et à Leipzig, a rédigé ses thèses de doctorat et de post-doctorat alors qu’il se trouvait encore en RDA, mais a dû trouver sa voie dans un système universitaire entièrement nouveau en 1990. Il y est parvenu sans changer sa position politique de socialiste critique. Grâce à la formation universitaire de sa famille et à sa connaissance de la littérature occidentale, il (...) disposait déjà avant 1989 d’une avance en matière de connaissances, qu’il a pu mettre à profit, par exemple lors de ses nombreux postes de professeur invité et de ses séjours de recherche aux États-Unis. Il n’a jamais oublié ce qu’il devait à ses professeurs et compagnons universitaires de l’Est et de l’Ouest. (shrink)