This paper presents a formalism that combines useful properties of both logic and probabilities. Like logic, the formalism admits qualitative sentences and provides symbolic machinery for deriving deductively closed beliefs and, like probability, it permits us to express if-then rules with different levels of firmness and to retract beliefs in response to changing observations. Rules are interpreted as order-of-magnitude approximations of conditional probabilities which impose constraints over the rankings of worlds. Inferences are supported by a unique priority ordering on rules (...) which is syntactically derived from the knowledge base. This ordering accounts for rule interactions, respects specificity considerations and facilitates the construction of coherent states of beliefs. Practical algorithms are developed and analyzed for testing consistency, computing rule ordering, and answering queries. Imprecise observations are incorporated using qualitative versions of Jeffrey's rule and Bayesian updating, with the result that coherent belief revision is embodied naturally and tractably. Finally, causal rules are interpreted as imposing Markovian conditions that further constrain world rankings to reflect the modularity of causal organizations. These constraints are shown to facilitate reasoning about causal projections, explanations, actions and change. (shrink)

In this chapter I argue that in the TTP we find overlooked and compelling evidence supporting the reading of Spinoza as a pantheist. The plan is as follows. I begin by laying out, in Section 1, four principal reasons that have been put forward against the reading of Spinoza as a pantheist: (i) the idea that the identification of God and nature lacks textual evidence, (ii) the claim that for Spinoza God is active and nature is passive, (iii) the view (...) that for Spinoza God is independent and nature is dependent, and (iv) the claim that for him whereas God is simple and indivisible, nature is complex and divisible. In Section 2, I contend that in the TTP we find strong evidence that shows that (i) is false and the claim that Spinoza accepts (ii) is incorrect. In Section 3, I turn to reasons (iii) and (iv) against the pantheist interpretation. I argue that when God and nature are understood as two ways of conceiving one and the same thing, as Spinoza posits in the TTP, then reasons (iii) and (iv) are no longer problematic for reading Spinoza as a pantheist. Finally, in Section 4 I show that the identification of God and nature has important advantages of accommodating two claims made by Spinoza: that infinite modes share the propria of substance and that the existence of modes follows necessarily from the existence of God’s attributes. (shrink)

El ensayo explora los principios básicos y los supuestos teóricos del socialismo raizal propuesto por el sociólogo colombiano Orlando Fals Borda. Este socialismo es presentado como una propuesta enraizada en la Investigación Acción Participativa, haciendo énfasis en su origen en las experiencias históricas revolucionarias de los pueblos originarios y diversos sectores populares de América Latina. Igualmente, se resalta su contenido popular, humanista, democrático y epistémico. El ensayo también explora sus acercamientos y sus diferencias con el pensamiento de Marx.

Computational sociology models social phenomena using the concepts of emergence and downward causation. However, the theoretical status of these concepts is ambiguous; they suppose too much ontology and are invoked by two opposed sociological interpretations of social reality: the individualistic and the holistic. This paper aims to clarify those concepts and argue in favour of their heuristic value for social simulation. It does so by proposing a link between the concept of emergence and Luhmann's theory of communication. For Luhmann, society (...) emerges from the bottom-up as communication and he describes the process by which society limits the possible selections of individuals as downward causation. It is argued that this theory is well positioned to overcome some epistemological drawbacks in computational sociology. (shrink)

In this paper, I argue for a novel defence of the view that attributes are numerically distinct for Spinoza, which, contrary to paradigmatic objectivist readings, does not contradict his substance monism nor commit him to the view that the only substance has more than one essence. I show that Spinoza offers three overlooked arguments for attribute unity that are consistent with my interpretation. Next, I turn to the perspectivist interpretations of Spinoza’s theory of attributes, dominant in Spinoza scholarship today, under (...) which each attribute is one way in which the whole essence of the only substance can present itself to the intellect. I contend that my interpretation has two advantages over these readings: it can accommodate Spinoza’s arguments of attribute-essence symmetry and essence-modes proportionality. (shrink)

En la ética y la filosofía política contemporáneas es común apelar a alguna for-ma de consenso hipotético para justificar contenidos normativos. En el presente artículo llamo a esta posición “contractualismo” y defiendo tres tesis al respecto. Primera, es correcta la objeción común al contractualismo de que la estipulación de un consenso hipotético en una situación ideal de deliberación no añade nada a la justificación del contenido normativo en cuestión. Segunda, esta objeción da pie a lo que llamo “el dilema contractualista”: (...) cuando hay una situación de des-acuerdo entre dos agentes sobre si un contenido normativo x es correcto, apelar a un acuerdo hipotético en condiciones ideales de deliberación como medio para justificar x, equivale a caer en petición de principio o a establecer una trivialidad. Tercera, a la luz del “dilema contractualista”, el contractualismo no debe ser en-tendido como un método de justificación normativa. (shrink)

The purpose of this paper is to expand the theoretical field of discursive injustice by identifying a specific kind of discursive injustice, namely, the kind we are subject to when we are unjustly prevented from exchanging reasons with others. Broadly speaking, discursive injustice is the kind of injustice we suffer when we are unjustly harmed as language users, most notably when we are prevented from using language in ways we are entitled to. The dominant approach to discursive injustice has focused (...) on the corruption of the illocutionary force of a speech act due to the hearer’s improper uptake. I claim that there is a genuinely distinct kind of discursive injustice, which I label as deliberative injustice, that cannot be accounted for by the dominant approach to discursive injustice. In my view, what makes deliberative injustice discursively unjust is that it amounts to denying someone a normative position that she is entitled to as a language user, which I understand in terms of being a source of reasons. Moreover, I explore two ways of trying to illuminate deliberative injustice by appealing to the social level of analysis, namely, by resorting to a structural explanation to explain how it comes about, and by asking what it signifies for the collective life of groups. In this regard, I show that the structural explanation has some explanatory limitations, and that deliberative injustice essentially constitutes a collective failure. (shrink)

En las páginas que siguen trato de acercarme a estos dos grandes pensadores para ver qué es lo que tienen que decirnos acerca del hombre y de su historia. Marx confía en el progreso histórico y cree que finalmente los hombres pasarán del reino de la necesidad al de la libertad. Vico, en cambio, nunca creyó que el progreso fuese una necesidad que tenía que producirse inevitablemente, ni mucho menos que fuese irreversible, pues la barbarie está siempre acechando y toda (...) conquista es siempre precaria.I take this paper to be an approach to these two great thinkers in order to find out what they have to say about man and his history. Marx, unlike Vico, relies heavily in the historical progress and seems to be firmly convinced that men would eventually step into the kingdom of freedom once they have abandoned that of necessity. Vico, on the other hand, never believed that progress was bound inevitably to occur, let alone that it were an unavoidable process, since barbarism is always lying in wait and all conquer appears to be meager. (shrink)

The uncertainty concerning the genre of the Ḥorvat ʿUza ostracon 1 is problematized through the lens of linguistic anthropology. Although a denotative approach to the linguistic forms in this Hebrew ostracon is well attested, less attention has been paid to the indexical meaning of specific stylistic features and their semi- otic register implications. Several linguistic-ideological concepts are drawn upon to examine how the act of inscription and specialized linguistic forms align the discursive genre of the ostracon with prophecy. I seek (...) to determine what salient discourse forms in the ostracon index the employment of habitual utterance styles of prophecy that construct context, genre, and social identity. (shrink)

Este artigo pretende abordar, por um viés filosófico, o problema dos Direitos Humanos enunciados em Declarações dos séculos XVIII e XX. A questão de fundo consiste nos Direitos do Homem a partir do “ideal de humanidade” ou “dignidade humana” considerando duas ideias: 1) o paradoxo da Declaração dos Direitos do Homem e do Cidadão e a noção de que só se sente um “humano” com direitos garantidos alguém que se vê contemplado no bojo jurídico de uma nação. 2) A humanidade (...) como “grande família”, e o mundo como “grande nação”. Para tanto, promovemos neste trabalho um debate entre três pensadores: Diderot, com sua noção de vontade geral do gênero humano; Rousseau, com sua refutação à tese de Diderot, negando que exista uma “sociedade natural ou geral entre os homens”; e Kant, que no seu À Paz Perpétua retoma, a seu modo, a noção de cosmopolitismo negada por Rousseau e aponta para a possibilidade do direito se estender a toda a humanidade. (shrink)

Las dimensiones.--Mi propia teoría.--Mi segunda dimensión.--Nueva concepción del mundo objetivo.--Nueva concepción del mundo espiritual.--Precursores del siglo XX.--La esfericidad de los motivos.--Visión del cosmos humano.--Apuntes sobre la personalidad.--El arte y la ciencia actuales.

Any account of Spinoza's understanding of attribute must be able to satisfy his definition criterion; that is, it must coherently accommodate the elements involved in his definition of attribute as “what the intellect perceives of a substance as constituting its essence” (E1d4). But this is not enough. There are several available readings that satisfy this criterion and are mutually incompatible. To know what Spinoza means we must supplement his definition criterion with a criterion aiming at consistency with other principles in (...) his system. With the definition and consistency criteria in the backdrop, the aim of this paper is to offer a critical overview of the current state of the debate on Spinoza's theory of attributes. (shrink)

Varios autores afines al proyecto del liberalismo político han propuesto diferentes modelos de razón pública para enfrentar la situación de desacuerdo moral permanente en las sociedades liberales. En este trabajo presentamos un modelo que defiende dos argumentos. Primero, argumentamos a favor de una interpretación deflacionista de las razones que son aceptables para los ciudadanos razonables. Segundo, introducimos una nueva terminología que distingue entre lo que llamamos razones dependientes, accesibles y aceptables. Sostenemos que sólo las segundas y las terceras son medios (...) adecuados de discusión dentro de la razón pública, y las terceras son un estándar correcto de justificación de política pública. (shrink)

The identity is an arduous and complex topic that includes practically all the aspects of the life of a human being. The identity, mediated narrative, plays a role aimed at the personal direction of ours lives and sociocultural function linked to the quest for recognition of the rights of social groups to which one feels attached . Between economic globalization and pluralization of the life forms, identity is the result of a double disorientation. At the individual level, the insecurity work, (...) the flexibility of human relations, the rise in divorces or international migrations require rethinking, constantly, the circumstances on which our lives are developed. At the collective level, the new transnational agents like ONU or OTAN and local agents like nationalism, ethnic or immigrant groups forced to rethink the space of groups, collectives and communities between the global homogenization and local heterogeneity. (shrink)

La humanidad evolucionó durante milenios para desarrollar unas características biológicas, culturales, cognitivas y simbólicas comunes, que han posibilitado la expansión de nuestra especie por toda la Tierra y el desarrollo cultural y tecnológico de nuestra era. En este artículo exploramos someramente las ideas del ser humano, proyecciones simbólicas de lo que hemos aspirado a ser, y nos concentramos en la idea moderna autopoiética o de autotransformación, que en nuestro tiempo está postulando la necesidad y posibilidad de una transmutación radical de (...) nuestra especie mediante las bio y neuro tecnologías, generando lo que se denomina «antropotecnologías». El transhumanismo o movimiento de automutación radical de la especie humana nos conducirá, probablemente, a un objetivo que alterará la historia de la humanidad y que, por tanto, debe ser revisado y evaluado desde una perspectiva filosófica y ética por sus profundas consecuencias. (shrink)

RESUMENLas nanotecnologías constituyen actualmente elsector másinnovador y desafiante en el desarrollo tecnocientífico-industrial. Dado que nuestrastecnociencias no son capaces de crearsistemas que sean tanto o más consistentes, más estables y autosustentables que los sistemas naturales, son necesarias e indispensables la supervisión y la regulación prudencial y precautoria de sus efectos y consecuencias, esperadas e inesperadas, mediante un debate público con amplia participación democrática. La nanoética es una forma de poner en acción una racionalidad colectiva prudencial que, en vistas del alcance omniabarcador (...) de las nanotecnologías, tiene que ser construida a partir de principios éticos de alcance global y debe tener un carácter prospectivo.PALABRAS CLAVENANOTECNOLOGÍA, REGULACIÓN, RIESGO TECNOLÓGICO, NANOÉTICAABSTRACTNowadays nanotechnologies constitute the most innovative and challenging sector in technoscientific-industrial development. Our technosciences aren’t capable of generating equally or more consistent stable and self-sufficient systems than natural systems. Therefore, supervision together with reasonable and precautionary regulation of their effects and consequences -being these expected or unexpected-, in the form of public debate with ample democratic participation proves to be necessary. Nanoethics is a way of starting a reasonable collective rationality movement which, in view of the all-containing span of nanotechnologies, must be constructed from ethic principles that have a global reach and must as well have a prospective character.KEYWORDSNANOTECHNOLOGY, REGULATION, TECHNOLOGICAL RISK, NANOETHICS. (shrink)

Volume 19, Issue 10, October 2019, Page W5-W8.

In industrial societies workplace is the only battlefield where people can kill another without running the risk of facing the courts (Leynman, 1996). This picture of dehumanization work reveals that organizations stand as the scene of the permissibility and the justification of harassment at the workplace (mobbing), whichincreased gradually and adverse effects are alarming at the moment, without considering the quality of working life because so far few companies have woken to the fact that it can no longer continue explaining (...) the bankruptcy and instability of these causes as shrinking market, loss of investors, misguided government policies, strategies ineffective advertising and sale but the time has come to recognize that the conspiracies, sabotage, in a word, the struggle for power within each organization is a kind of silent and asymptomatic disease that eventually will kill to make their recovery process irreversible and even less hope of success, although some leaders unconscious be limited to talk about this as mere gossip, but envy is more professional than a potential threat is a lethal weapon that destroys companies from their foundations and from emerging as such. "Everyone against one!...¡ That is the question!". (shrink)

Resumen: Este texto se concentra en el valor de las relaciones de cuidado y en la política pública que debe adoptarse en relación con ellas. Defiendo que, en consonancia con lo que argumenta Elizabeth Brake, debido a que las RC son una de las bases sociales del respeto propio, el mismo marco de apoyo que las leyes maritales ofrecen actualmente a las relaciones biamorosas debe ser accesible a otras RC consensuadas entre adultos -como las amistades a largo plazo, las relaciones (...) entre cohabitantes y las poliamorosas-. Sin embargo, a diferencia de lo que sostiene Brake, argumento que debemos evitar usar el término "matrimonio" para referirnos legalmente a cualquier RC. En concreto, mi propuesta es extender los derechos asociados con el matrimonio a otras RC entre adultos y suprimir dicho término por completo en la legislación.: This paper focuses on the value of caring relationships and the public policy that should be adopted regarding them. I defend that, as Elizabeth Brake has argued, considering that such relationships are one of the social bases of self-respect, the same legal protective framework that it is now accessible to bi-amorous relationships under marriage law should be available to other caring relationships between adults -such as long-term friendships, long-term cohabitations and poli-amorous relationships. However, unlike Brake, I hold that we should avoid referring legally by the term 'marriage' to any caring relationship. In short, my proposal is to extend the rights associated to marriage to other caring relationships between adults and to eliminate such term from legislation all together. (shrink)