La necesidad de Normas Jurídicas más humanistas, se va abriendo paso amén de políticas poco humanistas, cada vez más crecientes. Corresponde a la Filosofía del Derecho, dar respuesta a las interrogantes del hombre ante las injusticias. Ninguna Ley, por justa que pueda parecer, si no tiene al hombre, su humanidad, integridad y dignidad, como centro de protección, no debe ser legitimada por el poder estatal, porque, la principal función del Estado, es y debe ser, la protección del hombre mismo.

Este artículo trata, en un primer momento, de presentar los puntos fundamentales de la propuesta de Deleuze y Guattari en torno a la literatura menor, para pasar, en un segundo momento, a mostrar cómo, en Tirano Banderas, Del Valle-Inclán crea una literatura menor que permite al lector experimentar distintas maneras de enunciación que rompen formas tradicionales de creación literaria y expresan intensidades y rupturas en el mecanismo maquínico de ejercicio del poder en América Latina. De esta manera, Tirano Banderas, como (...) obra de arte, vuelve sensible preceptos y afectos autónomos en el marco de una metamorfización de la forma en la que se presentan los personajes, los contenidos y los acontecimientos. (shrink)

This book argues that words and thoughts are typically about whatever they are about necessarily rather than contingently. The argument proceeds by articulating a requisite modal background and then bringing this background to bear on cognitive matters, notably the intentionality of cognitive episodes and states. The modal picture that emerges from the first two chapters is a strongly particularist one whereby possibilities reduce to possibilities for particular things (or pluralities thereof) where the latter are determined by the natures of the (...) particular things (or pluralities) involved. The next three chapters are devoted to the aboutness of referring terms in language and thought. The approach espoused is, again, strongly particularist in allotting explanatory priority to cognitive episodes and states regarding particular things (aka de re attitudes). (shrink)

A basic problem of daily life is determining who owns what. One way that people may solve this problem is by relying on a ‘first possession’ heuristic, according to which the first person who possesses an object is its owner, even if others subsequently possess the object. We investigated preschoolers’ use of this heuristic in five experiments. In Experiments 1 and 2, 3- and 4-year-olds inferred that an object was owned by the character who possessed it first, even though another (...) character subsequently possessed it. Two-year-olds also showed this bias, but only when the object was placed between the characters when children were asked about ownership. Experiment 3 ruled out the possibility that children’s bias to select the first possessor results from a tendency to select the character first associated with the object. Experiment 4 showed that 3- and 4-year-olds have difficulty disregarding the first possession heuristic, even when provided with evidence that the character who first possessed an object is not its owner. But Experiment 5 found that children can disregard the heuristic in at least some situations. These five experiments suggest that the first possession heuristic guides children’s ownership inferences. The findings provide the first evidence that preschoolers can infer who owns what, when not explicitly told, and when not reasoning about objects with which they are personally acquainted. (shrink)

RésuméCet article expose et analyse la notion de référentielà laquelle Gonseth avail consacré son dernier livre. II distingue un référentiel personnel qui comporte deux aspects et un référentiel de groupe qui lui aussi présente diverses modalités . Entre les référentiels personnels et les référentiels de groupe s'établit une symbiose existentielle favorisant les interactions. Cette notion de référentiel peut être utilisée avec profit pour décrire et interpréter les relations que ľhomme entretient avec ses semblables, avec les collectivités dont il fait partie (...) et avec le milieu naturel dans lequel il se trouve engagé.SummaryThis article presents and analyses the notion of reference frame, to which Gonseth devoted his last book. A personal reference frame involving two aspects is distinguished from a group reference frame which also takes various forms . Personal and group reference frames are in an existential symbiosis fostering interactions. This notion of reference frame may be used to advantage in describing and interpreting the relations between man and his fellow man, his organizations, and his natural environment. (shrink)

Prominent thinkers such as Jurgen Habermas and Michael Sandel are warning that biomedical enhancements will undermine fundamental political values. Yet whether biomedical enhancements will undermine such values depends on how biomedical enhancements will function, how they will be administered and to whom. Since only few enhancements are obtainable, it is difficult to tell whether these predictions are sound. Nevertheless, such warnings are extremely valuable. As a society we must, at the very least, be aware of developments that could have harmful (...) consequences. Indeed, if important values were to be jeopardized, we should take appropriate measures to protect them. This paper focuses on four central values: solidarity, personal responsibility, equality and autonomy. It delineates the conditions under which biomedical enhancements would undermine these values. It also details the circumstances under which these values would be unaffected by enhancements as well as those under which they would be promoted. Specifying these conditions is valuable; it would enable society to prepare appropriate ethical guidelines and policy responses in advance. (shrink)

Prominent thinkers such as Jurgen Habermas and Michael Sandel are warning that biomedical enhancements will undermine fundamental political values. Yet whether biomedical enhancements will undermine such values depends on how biomedical enhancements will function, how they will be administered and to whom. Since only few enhancements are obtainable, it is difficult to tell whether these predictions are sound. Nevertheless, such warnings are extremely valuable. As a society we must, at the very least, be aware of developments that could have harmful (...) consequences. Indeed, if important values were to be jeopardized, we should take appropriate measures to protect them. This paper focuses on four central values: solidarity, personal responsibility, equality and autonomy. It delineates the conditions under which biomedical enhancements would undermine these values. It also details the circumstances under which these values would be unaffected by enhancements as well as those under which they would be promoted. Specifying these conditions is valuable; it would enable society to prepare appropriate ethical guidelines and policy responses in advance. (shrink)

Young children’s failures in reasoning about beliefs and desires, and especially about false beliefs, have been much studied. However, there are few accounts of successful belief-desire reasoning in older children or adults. An exception to this is a model in which belief attribution is treated as a process wherein an inhibitory system selects the most likely content for the belief to be attributed from amongst several competing contents [Leslie, A. M., & Polizzi, P. (1998). Developmental Science, 1, 247–254]. We tested (...) this model with an ‘avoidance false belief task’ in which subjects predict the behavior of a character, who wants to avoid an object but who is mistaken about which of three locations it is in. The task has two equally correct answers—in seeking to avoid the location where she mistakenly believes the object to be, the character might equally go to the location where the object actually is, or to the remaining empty location. However, the model predicts that subjects will prefer one of these answers, selecting the object’s actual location over the empty location. This bias was confirmed in a series of five experiments with children aged between 4 and 8 years of age. A sixth experiment ruled out two rival explanations for children’s biased responding. Two further experiments found the opposite bias in adults. These findings support one selection model as an account of belief-desire reasoning in children, and suggest that a different model is needed for adults. The process of selecting contents for mental state attributions shows a developmental shift between 8 years of age and adulthood. (shrink)

The Asiatick Society of Bengal, founded by Sir William Jones in Calcutta in 1784, blazed the trails and mapped them for subsequent travellers in the discipline now called the comparative study of civilizations. This paper analyzes Jones' Presidential addresses to show how the founding of the Asiatick Society reflected and at the same time influenced a new conception of human history, whose cultural and political manifestations had to encompass much more than the Greco-Roman and Judaeo- Christian world. This essay brings (...) Jones' works to our attention and should make us more aware of the importance of his work for the comparative study of civilizations and cultures. (shrink)

This essay briefly explores the phenomenon of nepantla in three representative cross-cultural encounters, in both initial and later phases: Spain-Latin America, England-India, and the West-Japan. Nepantla is a mode of in-betweenness rooted in the historical encounter between cultures and leading to mediation of various kinds. For Latin America, the essay focuses on Columbus, the Cortés-Moctezuma encounter, the Aztec-Franciscan dialogues of 1524, Gabriel García Márquez, and Mario Vargas Llosa. For India, the essay comments on the East India Company, English education in (...) India, Lord Macaulay, Dean Mahomet, Rabindranath Tagore, Salman Rushdie, V.S. Naipaul, and a number of other writers from the early, mid and late twentieth century. For Japan, the essay considers, first, Japanese reactions to missionary activities in the sixteenth century, then the opening up of Japan in the nineteenth century, the Meiji Restoration and its literature, and in particular authors like Fukuzawa, Sōseki, Endō, Kawabata, and Ōe. The essay argues, finally, that nepantla is a useful and dynamic approach to intercultural encounters that complements approaches indicated by terms like colonialism, imperialism, contact zones, hybridity or métissage, liminality, de-colonization, or post-coloniality. (shrink)

In the framework of population dynamics, we start from the logistic equation describing the evolution of one species with limited food supply. A split device allows us to consider the population as two sub-populations x and y evolving analogously. The dynamical system has a one-parameter family of equilibria which is structurally unstable. Then small perturbations of the system (describing functional or ethological differentiations between the sub-species) lead in general to a new system involving a fast and a slow dynamics with (...) a finite number of equilibria. In simple situations where the differentiation is clearly either an advantage or an inconvenience for one of the subspecies, the stable equilibrium amounts to extinction of the disadvantaged subspecies (elementary Darwinism). Oppositely more complex differentiations (involving both advantages and inconveniences) often lead to stable equilibria with well-defined non zero proportions of the sub-populations (preservation of the biodiversity). Other examples are concerned with symbiosis-like differentiations, leading to preservation, whereas the opposite case (mutual nuisances) has an unstable equilibrium and lead to extinction of one or the other subspecies according to the initial conditions. The case of a scission into three subspecies is more rich in consequences. In certain cases, predator-prey relations lead to auto-organization phenomena with stable diversity-preserving diversity. Cases of instability are also possible, leading to orbits tending towards a poly-cycle.This implies some kind of pseudo-extinction: this amounts to “pseudo-periodic-like” orbits with “pseudo-periods” larger and larger, tending to infinity; each pseudo-period contains parts where one of the sub-populations practically vanish. Other non-linear perturbations lead to stable orbits. (shrink)

La normativa fiscal comunitaria, y muy especialmente el IVA, está orientada al logro del principio de neutralidad respecto del tráfico empresarial, pero por la propia competencia fiscal entre el Estado y las Comunidades Autónomas e, incluso, la forma de retribución de las Oficinas Liquidadoras se está llegando a interpretaciones discutibles, con argumentos formalistas en exceso, con el fin de encontrar nuevos hechos imponibles que, además, de incumplir el régimen de incompatibilidad de los tributos de la imposición indirecta están afectando a (...) la competitividad de nuestras empresas, encareciendo los bienes y servicios y muy especialmente el tráfico inmobiliario y el mercado del suelo, y que han afectado a la competitividad de nuestra economía de una manera estructural. (shrink)

BackgroundUmbilical cord banks are a central component, as umbilical cord tissue providers, in both medical treatment and scientific research with stem cells. But, whereas the creation of umbilical cord banks is seen as successful practice, it is perceived as a risky style of play by others. This article examines and discusses the ethical, medical and legal considerations that arise from the operation of umbilical cord banks in Mexico.DiscussionA number of experts have stated that the use of umbilical cord goes beyond (...) the mere utilization of human tissues for the purpose of treatment. This tissue is also used in research studies: genetic studies, studies to evaluate the effectiveness of new antibiotics, studies to identify new proteins, etc. Meanwhile, others claim that the law and other norms for the functioning of cord banks are not consistent and are poorly defined. Some of these critics point out that the confidentiality of donor information is handled differently in different places. The fact that private cord banks offer their services as "biological insurance" in order to obtain informed consent by promising the parents that the tissue that will be stored insures the health of their child in the future raises the issue of whether the consent is freely given or given under coercion. Another consideration that must be made in relation to privately owned cord banks has to do with the ownership of the stored umbilical cord.SummaryConflicts between moral principles and economic interests (non-moral principles) cause dilemmas in the clinical practice of umbilical cord blood storage and use especially in privately owned banks. This article presents a reflection and some of the guidelines that must be followed by umbilical cord banks in order to deal with these conflicts. This reflection is based on the fundamental notions of ethics and public health and seeks to be a contribution towards the improvement of umbilical cord banks' performance. (shrink)

The ability to interact in a natural language profoundly changes devices’ interfaces and potential applications of speaking technologies. Concurrently, this phenomenon challenges our mainstream theories of knowledge, such as how to analyze linguistic outputs of devices under existing anthropocentric theoretical assumptions. In section 1, I present the topic of machines that speak, connecting between Descartes and Generative AI. In section 2, I argue that accepted testimonial theories of knowledge and justification commonly reject the possibility that a speaking technological artifact can (...) give testimony. In section 3, I identify three assumptions underlying the view that rejects conversational AIs – AI-based technologies that converse, as testifiers: conversational AIs (1) lack intentions, (2) cannot be normatively assessed, and (3) cannot constitute an object in trust relations, while humans can. In section 4, I propose the concept ‘AI-testimony’ for analyzing outputs of conversational AIs, suggesting three conditions for technologies to deliver AI-testimony: (1) content is propositional, (2) generated and delivered with no other human directly involved, (3) the output is perceived as phenomenologically similar to that of a human. I conclude that this concept overcomes the limitations of the anthropocentric concept of testimony, opening future directions of research without associating conversational AIs with human-like agency. (shrink)

We address the biological dynamics problem of the persistence of several species in conditions of non-existence of an equilibrium, including an example of stabilization by predation and the very controversial “competitive exclusion”. We give normal forms for various examples of such persistence and comments on the involved topology, which implies the presence of exceptional heteroclinic connections binding equilibria on the boundary.

I take up a question raised by David Kaplan at the very end of his 1990 paper "Words": Is it possible for a name that in fact names a given individual to have named a different individual? I argue for a negative answer to Kaplan's question via the essentialist claims that, first, it is of the nature of a referring token of a name to be produced by a particular referential intention, and, second, that it is of the nature of (...) a referential intention to specify the particular thing it specifies. (shrink)

Non-classical negations may fail to be contradictory-forming operators in more than one way, and they often fail also to respect fundamental meta-logical properties such as the replacement property. Such drawbacks are witnessed by intricate semantics and proof systems, whose philosophical interpretations and computational properties are found wanting. In this paper we investigate congruential non-classical negations that live inside very natural systems of normal modal logics over complete distributive lattices; these logics are further enriched by adjustment connectives that may be used (...) for handling reasoning under uncertainty caused by inconsistency or undeterminedness. Using such straightforward semantics, we study the classes of frames characterized by seriality, reflexivity, functionality, symmetry, transitivity, and some combinations thereof, and discuss what they reveal about sub-classical properties of negation. To the logics thereby characterized we apply a general mechanism that allows one to endow them with analytic ordinary sequent systems, most of which are even cut-free. We also investigate the exact circumstances that allow for classical negation to be explicitly defined inside our logics. (shrink)

Perceptions are externally-directed—they present us with a mind-independent reality, and thus contribute to our abilities to think about this reality, and to know what is objectively the case. But perceptions are also internally-dependent—their phenomenologies depend on the neuro-computational properties of the subject. A good theory of perception must account for both these facts. But naive realism has been criticized for failing to accommodate internal-dependence. This paper evaluates and responds to this criticism. It first argues that a certain version of naive (...) realism, often called “selectionism”, does indeed struggle with internal-dependence. It then develops an alternate version of naive realism which does not. This alternate version, inspired by an idea of Martin’s, accommodates the internal-dependence of perceptions by recognizing the role that the subject’s neuro-computational properties play in shaping perceptual phenomenology. At the same time, it retains the distinctive naive realist account of the external-directedness of perceptions. (shrink)

This essay briefly explores the phenomenon of nepantla in three representative cross-cultural encounters, in both initial and later phases: Spain-Latin America, England-India, and the West-Japan. N...

Standing is a peculiar norm, allowing for deflecting that is rejecting offhand and without deliberation interventions such as directives. Directives are speech acts that aim to give directive-reasons, which are reason to do as the directive directs because of the directive. Standing norms, therefore, provide for deflecting directives regardless of validity or the normative weight of the rejected directive. The logic of the normativity of standing is, therefore, not the logic of invalidating directives or of competing with directive-reasons but of (...) ‘exclusionary permission’. That is, standing norms provide for permission to exclude from practical deliberation directive-reasons if given without the requisite standing, regardless of their normative weight. As such, standing is a type of second-order norm. Numerous everyday practices involve the deflection of directives, such as pervasive practices of deflecting hypocritical and officious directives. Of various possible models, the one that best captures the normative structure of these practices of deflection is the standing model. Accordingly, the normativity of standing is pervasive in our everyday practices. Establishing that standing, although a neglected philosophical idea, is a significant and independent normative concept. (shrink)

También el dolor se dice de múltiples modos, se presenta de maneras muy diversas, adopta aspectos heterogéneos. Tantos que parece imposible su reducción a un único tipo básico o su dependencia genérica respecto de una forma fundamental que el pensamiento pudiera aprehender con ayuda de un solo concepto abarcador. Pero, por otra parte, en esta multiplicidad, en su dispersión prolífica, los muchos tipos de dolores tampoco llegan a fracturar una poderosa unidad de sentido, una inmediata afinidad interna entre ellos, que (...) reaviva el interés del pensamiento por habérselas con el dolor. (shrink)

Se realizó un estudio de intervencisn educativa, con el objetivo de determinar el nivel de conocimientos acerca del VIH/sida en estudiantes de la ESBU "Marcos Rammrez Rodrmguez" en el permodo comprendido desde el 1ro de marzo al 30 de mayo del 2010. Se estudiaron 150 adolescentes, escogidos de un universo de 347, a travis de un muestreo por conglomerado bietapico. Inicialmente se aplics una encuesta previamente sometida al mitodo de expertos (Delphi) y evaluada de muy adecuada, donde se determins que (...) el 82 % tenman conocimientos generales inadecuados Despuis de la intervencisn educativa -evaluada de muy adecuada por el mitodo de expertos- el 98,7 % de los adolescentes alcanzaron un nivel de conocimientos adecuados. El analisis estadmstico utilizando la prueba de McNemar, evidencis la asociacisn estadmsticamente significativa (p=0.0000) entre el nivel de conocimiento que tenman los estudiantes antes y despuis de la intervencisn, lo que demostrs que el modelo educativo-participativo empleado aumenta el nivel de conocimientos en los adolescentes. A study of educational intervention was carried out in order to determine the level of knowledge about HIV/AIDS in students of Marcos Rammrez Rodrmguez ESBU in the period from March 1th to May 30th 2010. 150 Teenagers, selected from a universe of 347, were studied through a conglomerate two sampling. Initially, a survey previously submitted to method of expert (Delphi) was applied and properly assessed. It was determined that 82 % had inadequate general knowledge. After the educational intervention - assessed fairly by the method of expert - 98, 7% of teenagers achieved an adequate level of knowledge. Statistical analysis using the McNemar test, showed a statistically significant association (p = 0.0000) between the level of knowledge that students had before and after the intervention, which demonstrated that the educational participative model used increases the level of knowledge among adolescents. (shrink)

We propose a mathematical model for a class of predator–prey systems more complex than the usual one, involving a commensalism effect consisting in an influence of the predator on the sustainability of the prey. This effect induces interesting new features, including bi-stability. The question of the possibility of reaching a certain attractor starting from initial conditions with a small population of predators, which presents an interest from the vewpoint of the onset of the predator in evolution, is addressed. We propose (...) two possibilities: the classical one involving adapted conditions in the far past and a new one using biodiversity, specifically the presence of another predator which operates as a starter, being displaced in the sequel. (shrink)

A la croisée des chemins de la vulgarisation, de l'histoire et de la philosophie des sciences, l'auteur explore la nature de la connaissance et de la recherche via un mode d'exposition faisant largement appel à l'analogie. [extrait de la 4è de couv.].

Beginning with the Euthyphro and continuing with reference to the Cratylus, Plato’s Socrates introduces and repeatedly confronts the problem of defining terms that humans—specifically, his fellow Athenians—use every day, without considering what the terms really mean. The aporetic outcome of the Cratylus underscores the abiding problematic of language as an instrument for the dialogue necessary to philosophy. The particular focus of the Euthyphro, on piety/ holiness (hosiotes) and its definitionally desperate connection to divinity, offers a turn from philosophy to theology (...) and carries the discussion from Plato to the text of Ex 3:14 and the problematic of God’s name. In turn this leads to the discussion by Levinas in his essay “God and Philosophy” of the juxtaposition and hierarchy of philosophy and theology—by way of the question of whether human language can ever function as well as we hope or imagine it might or does in conveying what the sort of God in which the Abrahamic faiths believe is, and whether It can ever be effectively expressed or understood. This also leads down a path parallel to that of Socrates by way of Genesis 6 (the problem of evil and thus of divinely-ordained ethics) and all the way to Job and the problem of theodicy (why the innocent suffer in a world made by such a God)—and to the challenge and obligation to ask questions, even—especially—those without answers. (shrink)

The phenomenal particularity thesis says that if a mind-independent particular is consciously perceived in a given perception, that particular is among the constituents of the perception’s phenomenology. Martin, Campbell, Gomes and French and others defend this thesis. Against them are Mehta, Montague, Schellenberg and others, who have produced strong arguments that the phenomenal particularity thesis is false. Unfortunately, neither side has persuaded the other, and it seems that the debate between them is now at an impasse. This paper aims to (...) break through this impasse. It argues that we have reached the impasse because two distinct conceptions of phenomenology—a “narrow” conception and a “broad” conception—are compatible with our what-it-is-like characterizations of phenomenology. It also suggests that each of these two conceptions has its own theoretical value and use. Therefore, the paper recommends a pluralistic position, on which we acknowledge that there are two kinds of phenomenology: narrow phenomenology and broad phenomenology. The phenomenal particularity thesis is true only with respect to the latter. (shrink)

El objetivo del artículo consiste en iluminar el pensamiento aristotélico acerca de la catarsis a través del estudio crítico de los conceptos fundamentales que figuran en la definición de la tragedia de la Poética : mimesis, acción, y temor y compasión; mostrando que el efecto catártico procede de la intelección—condición teórica de posibilidad del valor práctico— por la vía indirecta del arte, de la realidad humana imitada por el poeta.The article’s purpose is the meaning of Aristotle’s thought about the katharsis (...) that tragedy accomplishes, throught a critical study on the mains concepts wich involved the definition of íragedyin the Poetics : imitation, action, and pity and fear; trying to show that the condition of this effect is the intelection, throught the indirect way of Arts, of the human reality imitated by the poet. (shrink)