Hume’s discussion of space, time, and mathematics at T 1.2 appeared to many earlier commentators as one of the weakest parts of his philosophy. From the point of view of pure mathematics, for example, Hume’s assumptions about the infinite may appear as crude misunderstandings of the continuum and infinite divisibility. I shall argue, on the contrary, that Hume’s views on this topic are deeply connected with his radically empiricist reliance on phenomenologically given sensory images. He insightfully shows that, working within (...) this epistemological model, we cannot attain complete certainty about the continuum but only at most about discrete quantity. Geometry, in contrast to arithmetic, cannot be a fully exact science. A number of more recent commentators have offered sympathetic interpretations of Hume’s discussion aiming to correct the older tendency to dismiss this part of the Treatise as weak and confused. Most of these commentators interpret Hume as anticipating the contemporary idea of a finite or discrete geometry. They view Hume’s conception that space is composed of simple indivisible minima as a forerunner of the conception that space is a discretely (rather than continuously) ordered set. This approach, in my view, is helpful as far as it goes, but there are several important features of Hume’s discussion that are not sufficiently appreciated. I go beyond these recent commentators by emphasizing three of Hume’s most original contributions. First, Hume’s epistemological model invokes the “confounding” of indivisible minima to explain the appearance of spatial continuity. Second, Hume’s sharp contrast between the perfect exactitude of arithmetic and the irremediable inexactitude of geometry reverses the more familiar conception of the early modern tradition in pure mathematics, according to which geometry (the science of continuous quantity) has its own standard of equality that is independent from and more exact than any corresponding standard supplied by algebra and arithmetic (the sciences of discrete quantity). Third, Hume has a developed explanation of how geometry (traditional Euclidean geometry) is nonetheless possible as an axiomatic demonstrative science possessing considerably more exactitude and certainty that the “loose judgements” of the vulgar. (shrink)

Husserl’s writings on sociality have received increasing attention in recent years. Despite this growing interest, Husserl’s reflections on the specific role of communication remain underexplored. In this paper, we aim to fill this gap by reconstructing the various ways in which Husserl draws systematic connections between communication and communalization. As will become clear, Husserl’s analysis converges with much more recent ideas defended by Margaret Gilbert and Naomi Eilan.

Las reformas educativas unesconianas fracasaron. Las pedagogías constructivistas no generaron aprendizajes de mejor calidad al no romper la contradicción sujeto-objeto y no superaron las limitaciones del conductismo positivista. Para asumir el desafío del cambio epistemológico sin caer en el “nada cambia” del constructivismo, es necesario superar las limitaciones de la civilización antropocéntrica: sólo renunciando al antropocentrismo el individuo podrá sentirse humano al mismo tiempo que árbol, estrella, río o luciérnaga, y aprenderá de ellos lo que tengan que decirle. Para escucharlos (...) y sentirlos, abrirá mucho más que sus sentidos y su mente; despertará las potencias finitas e infinitas que duermen en sus genes desde que el ser humano integral originario fue domesticado por la racionalidad educativa y comunicacional del sistema de la no unidad. (shrink)

Posthuman ethics -- Great ephemeral tattooed skin -- Art: inhuman ecstasy -- Animalities: ethics and absolute abolition -- Wonder of Teras -- Mystic queer -- Vitalistic ethics: an end to necrophilosophy -- After life.

This paper argues that Book 3 of Porphyry’s De abstinentia contains an overlooked argument in favor of vegetarianism for the sake of non-human animals themselves. The argument runs as follows: animals are essentially sentient creatures. Sentience (αἴσθησις) allows them to discern what is good for their survival and what is destructive to them, so that they can pursue the former and avoid the latter. As a result, animals (human and non-human) have preferences, desires, and hopes. Having purposeful strivings that can (...) be promoted or frustrated makes them recipients of justice and injustice. This means, for Porphyry, that animals, unlike plants, can be wronged since they are creatures that discern, and purposefully pursue, what is good or bad for them. This reading stands against interpretations that argue that Porphyry advocates vegetarianism only for our benefit, and not for the animals’ own sake. (shrink)

One’s philosophical points of view, which form the bases for assumptions that we bring to management theory and practice matter, and matter deeply, to management thinking and corporate behavior. In this paper I outline three related threads of philosophical conversations and explain how they are important in management theory and practice: the “linguistic turn” in philosophy, deriving from the later writings of Ludwig Wittgenstein, a social constructionist perspective: a set of theories at least implicitly derived from the linguistic turn in (...) philosophy, and the notion of the impartial spectator. I then use these three theories to analyze the idea of the corporation, corporate cultures and corporate mission statements, stakeholder theories and their differences, and the limitations of the popular notion of “corporate social responsibility.” I conclude that how one frames these management ideas makes a difference, a difference in theory and in practice. (shrink)

With the demise of Marxism and socialism, the United States is becoming a model not merely for free enterprise, but also for employment practices worldwide. I believe that free enterprise is the least worst economic system, given the alternatives, a position I shall assume, but not defend, here. However, I shall argue, a successful free enterprise political economy does not entail mimicking US employment practices. I find even today in 1998, as I shall outline in more detail, these practices, when (...) consistently carried out, by and large erode trust in the workplace, they are, on balance unfair to workers and managers, and, if Jeffrey Pfeffer is correct, they do not maximize long-term corporate earnings or growth. Getting clear on US employment practices and their weaknesses may help to shape other models for employment that neither contravene free enterprise nor are degrading to workers. (shrink)

A paediatric clinical trial conducted in a developing country is likely to encounter conditions or illnesses in participants unrelated to the study. Since local healthcare resources may be inadequate to meet these needs, research clinicians may face the dilemma of deciding when to provide ancillary care and to what extent. The authors propose a model for identifying ancillary care obligations that draws on assessments of urgency, the capacity of the local healthcare infrastructure and the capacity of the research infrastructure. The (...) model lends itself to a decision tree that can be adapted to the local context and resources so as to provide procedural guidance. This approach can help in planning and establishing organisational policies that govern the provision of ancillary care. (shrink)

Traditionally the modern theory of ideas has been discussed primarily in reference to its alleged introduction of a veil of mental items between the mind and the world, which leads, through the empiricists, to radical skepticism about the existence of an external world. Here I propose to emphasize an entirely different aspect of the Cartesian theory of ideas which, in my view, is more fundamental in opening the empiricist path that leads to Hume’s radical skepticism. I argue that what I (...) call the “phenomenological presentation” model of ultimate justification is rooted in a fundamental ambiguity between sensible and intellectual apprehension insinuated by Descartes’s view of “clear and distinct” ideas together with his emphasis on the priority of intuition over logical inference. Sensible apprehension relies on immediate acquaintance with items phenomenologically and ostensively present before the mind as given particulars. The phenomenological presentation model takes its clues from sensible apprehension, although the items present before the mind might themselves be either ideas of the understanding, images of the imagination, sensory impressions, or material external objects. Intellectual apprehension, by contrast, as I illustrate with Leibniz’s model of our knowledge of concepts and truths of reason, consists in the discursive, non-ostensive grasping of the generality of abstract concepts and of formal structures . For Leibniz, all intellectual apprehension is unambiguously “logical discursive apprehension” as opposed to “direct ostensive apprehension.” Thus, Leibniz unmistakably disambiguates Descartes’s model in favor of a precise intellectual model. The empiricists, by contrast, correspondingly disambiguate Descartes’s conception in favor of an entirely sensible model. (shrink)

Las propuestas de cambio paradigmático provenientes de la postmodernidad atisban una realidad diferente a la concebida por la filosofía euro-antropocéntrica, pero carecen de los fundamentos ontológicos que harían posible un mundo sin asimetrías. Así, no dejan de ser funcionales al sistema que, para preservarse, flexibiliza su rígida epistemología positivista pretendiendo unir sujeto y objeto, al tiempo que sigue viendo la realidad “allá afuera” y reivindica antropocéntricamente la dicotomía entre la naturaleza y la cultura. Para hacer posible otro mundo desprovisto de (...) antagonismos y jerarquías, la ontología de la unidad afirma que el ser humano contiene la realidad, en su propia forma y esencia, diferente-semejante, sin antropocentrismos, a la de cualquier otro ser. Ergo, el “cosmocimiento”es el proceso de aprehenderse a uno mismo como un todo -puesto que uno mismo es la realidad o totalidad-, utilizando no sólo la razón, sino todas las potencias del ser humano integral, que es humano, natural, cósmico y total. (shrink)

This paper argues the case for a renewed interest in Schutz's work by extending his theory of the conscious subject to the feminist concern with the issue of domination. We present a theoretical analysis of the subjective and intersubjective experiences of individuals relating to each other as dominant and subordinate; as our theoretical point of departure we use Schutz's concepts of the we-relation, the assumption of reciprocity of perspectives, typification, working, taken-for-grantedness, and relevance. Schutz's sociology of the conscious subject is (...) striking in its lack of any extended consideration of power, perhaps one reason why support for his work has diminished since the mid-1970s. Our overlayering of feminist sociological theory's interest in domination with Schutz's concerns about subjectivity and intersubjectivity produces an elaboration and a critique of Schutz and expands feminist understanding of relationships of domination. (shrink)

In The Future of the Image (2007) Jacques Rancière states that the end of images is behind us. He argues for an aesthetics of the image that acknowledges the continuing power of images as educating documentations of traces of history, as directly affecting interruptions, and as open-to-combining signs of the visible and the sayable ad infinitum. But does Rancière's claim also concern the future of cinema? His cinematic references, in a Deleuzian sense, are mostly to modern time-images. Is the future (...) of film indeed a form of the time-image, or has the ‘heart’ of cinema moved beyond this image-type? This paper proposes to look at a third category of cinematographic images, based in the third synthesis of time as developed by Deleuze in Difference and Repetition. This filmic image, that could be called the neuro-image, is connected to the impure regime of images typical for the database logic of the digital age. By comparing Alain Resnais's Hiroshima Mon Amour (1959) to the television seriesFlashForward (2009), I will analyse the temporal operations of the image of the time-image to these images of a new regime of images, the image of and from the future.1. (shrink)

This paper will review the strategies and learning trajectories followed to tap the opportunities opened by the successive waves of biotechnologies: early imitators followed by late imitators in the first generation of biosimilars (erythropoietin, insulins, interferons), and then sequential entry and skipping stages during the second generation (monoclonal antibodies).

Desde una hermenéutica ontológica política se hacen visibles y audibles prácticas singulares a partir del punto de vista de los estudios latinoamericanos, los cuales apelan por una perspectiva de afirmación como propone Arturo Escobar respecto a una mirada sobre la diversidad y singularidad de accio..

Zachariah's description of a wonderful fornicating life for Sam and Dean captures some truth but it also misses the importance women play in shaping the Winchesters' moral decisions. In general, important women in the lives of Sam and Dean fall into three broad categories: mothers, lovers, and monsters. Sam and Dean are all too familiar with this philosophy of utilitarianism. Many times they have sacrificed relationships with women for the sake of their mission. Throughout Supernatural the objectification of the Winchesters (...) is contrasted with a happy domestic life. Sam and Dean are mistaken in thinking that their only value resides in the roles they play in the larger battles of good and evil; if they looked deeper they would see that they both would prefer a loving relationship with a woman. (shrink)

In one way or another, the other plays an important role in educational settings. Over the last few decades, the recourse to philosophical phenomenology has proved to be helpful for the discussion of this topic. Coming from this thematic direction, this article focuses on the other in its constitutive function for the construction of identity. Both within the phenomenologist Bernhard Waldenfels’ theory of responsivity as well as in the pedagogue Wilfried Lippitz’ theory of alterity, the other is a structural part (...) of the self. It will be shown that within these theories the possible dangers of an encounter with the other cannot be addressed in an adequate way. However, this is especially important in educational contexts. Therefore, with regard to the philosophies of Jean‐Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir, I would like to present two additional phenomenological approaches from which the pedagogical discussion can benefit. Both Sartre and Beauvoir put great focus on possible obstacles regarding the en‐ counter with the other. Whereas Sartre identifies negativity as an essential part of human existence, Beauvoir enriches these thoughts with an ethical component. Against the background of these philosophies, the other comes into view as a possible source of both objectification and empowerment. Lastly, the article shows that an implementation of these considerations in teacher training can lead to a deeper understanding of the constitution of identity and the inherent possibilities of any interaction with the other. (shrink)

Languages emerge in response to the negotiation of shared meaning in social groups, where transparency of grammar is necessitated by demands of communication with relative strangers needing to consult on a wide range of topics (Ragir 2002). This communal exchange is automated and stabilized through activity-dependent fine-tuning of information-specific neural connections during postnatal growth and social development.

El derecho a migrar, como el derecho a la salud del migrante, se encuentran reconocidos en la Ley de Migraciones Nro. 25871/2003 de Argentina. Dicha ley constituye un avance legislativo en derechos humanos; resultado de un largo proceso constituyente, deliberativo, que dio lugar a un modelo inclusivo de migración sin precedentes internacionales en su momento. Sin embargo, recientemente asistimos a un giro en políticas migratorias (DNU 70/2017). Como consecuencia, se produce un retroceso en derechos sociales y políticos. En lo que (...) hace al derecho a la salud, la instauración de políticas neoconservadoras (Cobertura Universal de la Salud –CUS-) impulsó leyes provinciales (Ley 6119/2019) destinadas a exigir seguros pagos de salud para migrantes, contrarios a nuestra constitución. El objetivo del presente trabajo es analizar las raíces de éstos cambios en las normativas citadas sobre migraciones y salud; aplicando un marco de justicia social que nos permita comprender, críticamente, cómo la bifurcación de políticas distributivas y de reconocimiento en las mismas legislaciones habilitó el desarrollo de políticas neoconservadoras impuestas a través de decretos autoritarios; cuyas consecuencias trascienden la esfera de los migrantes, haciendo peligrar al mismo sistema de salud argentino como bien público. (shrink)

The aim of this paper will focus on the ethical analysis of the general problem of international responsibility in the protection of public goods in pandemics, taking as a paradigmatic case the access to the COVID vaccine. Our hypothesis revolves around showing the international responsibility for damage in the access and distribution of the aforementioned vaccine, evidencing how this "covert privatization of public goods" rests on an unjustified patent system that generates the continuity of the pandemic and the speculative trade (...) of prices. This system extends to the network of public goods essential to the health of our populations. The methodology chosen consists of a critical study of patent law and the ethics and political analysis of international liability for damages applied to the pandemic situation. The paper is divided into four sections. First, the origin of the COVID vaccine will be analyzed, establishing its character as a public good. Secondly, it will investigate the conflict between patents and the human right to health from the TRIPS Agreement, questioning the patent system. Thirdly, the philosophical arguments raised by Pogge against TRIPS will be examined, using them for the analysis of the abuse of dominant power of developed countries at the distribution level. Fourthly, as an alternative proposal, some theoretical guidelines will be outlined, inspired by a redefined concept of "social connection", but applied to affected groups and countries with violated rights. It will be proposed to strengthen collective and participatory actions for the protection of public goods and the development of open science, technological and sanitary sovereignty, from the integral care of health and under a human rights framework with a gender perspective. This topic deserves to be deepened in future research. (shrink)

Vivimos un espacio-tiempo transformacional: el Pachakutik de los andinos. Indígenas e intelectuales occidentales exigen un cambio paradigmático para hacer viable la sobrevivencia de la especie humana. La descolonización se presenta como un proceso de deconstrucción de la alienación y subordinación del ser humano, y de simultánea construcción de un individuo autónomo y activo para edificar “otro mundo posible”. Aquí analizamos el riesgo recolonizador inserto en las propias visiones descolonizadoras, pues reproducen las dicotomías etnocéntricas entre colonizador y colonizado, o entre indio (...) y occidental, potenciando los códigos que nos recolonizan diariamente. Afirmamos que la descolonización debe sustentarse en un nuevo paradigma filosófico –cuyas bases proponemos en este documento–, que responda a una cosmovisión alternativa y provea un lenguaje nuevo, ya que cualquier pensamiento que se formule en los mismos códigos discursivos que colonizan diariamente a la humanidad, será funcional al modelo de ser humano y de vida que ha impuesto la misma colonización. (shrink)

Theories concerning love in the West tend to be bound by the problematic constraints of patriarchal conceptions of what counts ontologically as “true” or “universal” love. It seems that feminist love studies must choose between shining light on these constraints or bursting through them. In this article I give a feminist analysis of Augustine of Hippo's theory of love through a philosophical, psychological, and theological reading of his complicated relationships with women. I argue that, given the “embodied” nature of his (...) many loves throughout his life, there is room in Augustine's account of love for a gendered reading of love that is unconstrained by patriarchal notions concerning which gender is capable of which kind of love. Augustine's theory of love is one that is not coldly universal but bodied and personal; indeed, although it is founded inside patriarchal historical constructions, it is capable of bursting out of these constraints and suggesting an egalitarian, nongendered view of love. (shrink)

Biomass such as crops and agricultural waste is increasingly used as the primary resource for products like bioplastics and biofuels. Incorporating the needs, knowledge, skills and values of biomass producers in the design of global value chains – the steps involved in creating any finished product from design to delivery – can contribute to sustainability, reliability and fairness. However, how to involve biomass producers, especially if they are resource poor, remains a challenge. To make sure that inclusion in global biobased (...) value chains is both fair and effective, the capabilities of relevant actors need to be taken into account, especially of those producing biomass. Access to resources determines to what extent a specific actor can participate in a global value chain. Therefore, differences in capabilities should be a central consideration when new (biobased) value chains are designed. Using the capability approach as an ethical framework to realize inclusion, we discern three complementary strategies for setting up inclusive value chains. Firstly, designing for local conversion factors second, providing adaptive design for new capabilities, and third, investing in local conversion factors. Applying these strategies can lead to context-sensitive design of biorefineries that allow for true inclusion of local stakeholders. We support these claims with reference to case-studies of sugarcane production in Jamaica, modified tobacco in South Africa and the non-edible parts of corn (stover) in the US. (shrink)

This paper examines the attempt to bring together feminist and ecological concerns in the work of Isaac Balbus and Ynestra King, two thinkers who place the problem of the domination of nature at the center of contemporary liberation struggles. Through a consideration of the abortion issue (which foregrounds the relation between nature and history, and the problem of their "reconciliation") I argue against what I call their abstract pro-nature stance.

Sex determination in most organisms involves a simple binary fate choice between male or female development; the outcome of this decision has profound effects on organismal biology, biochemistry and behaviour. In the nematode C. elegans, there is also a binary choice, either male or hermaphrodite. In C. elegans, distinct genetic pathways control somatic and germline sexual cell fate. Both pathways share a common set of globally acting regulatory genes; however, germline-specific regulatory genes also participate in the decision to make male (...) or female gametes. The determination of sexual fate in the germline of the facultative hermaphrodite poses a special problem, because first sperm then oocytes are produced. It has emerged that additional layers of post-transcriptional regulation have been imposed to modulate the activities of the global sex-determining genes, tra-2 and fem-3; the balance between these activities is crucial in controlling sexual cell fate in the hermaphrodite germline. BioEssays 23:596–604, 2001. © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. (shrink)

El objetivo de este trabajo es evaluar si, en nuestras sociedades plurales, individualistas y asentadas en el lenguaje normativo de los derechos y los principios, existe un lugar valioso y posible para una reactualización de la tradición de las virtudes. Nuestra opinión es positiva, pero de una manera condicionada. Tal reactualización debe dar una respuesta a dos críticas bien fundadas que se han realizado a reactualizaciones previas: su riesgo de obturar la capacidad transformadora de las costumbres y tradiciones y su (...) dependencia original respecto de un ethos jerárquico. Aquí mostraremos que la creación y mantenimiento de una sociedad democrática, que haga de la igualdad relacional un valor fundamental, requiere de un conjunto de virtudes cívicas básicas y que ellas pueden justificarse reforzando el potencial crítico de las virtudes respecto de su contexto de formación. (shrink)

I wish to discuss in this paper some of the problems involved in determining whether subjects on particular occasions are justified in coming to believe a proposition. I will argue that in attributing actual justification to a particular subject–subjective justification–we have to take into account factual-psychological questions and that these are the source of fundamental difficulties. These factual-psychological questions concern the beliefs someone uses in the process of acquiring another belief and the actual connections she makes among her beliefs.But why (...) should epistemologists be interested in making attributions of actual justification to particular subjects? After all, if the central goal of epistemology is to guide us in choosing rational strategies for supporting our beliefs, or to assess whether theories are well grounded or acceptable, epistemologists should be concerned with the justification a theory or proposition might have independently of anyone actually coming to believe it. This may be so, but it has to be shown that it is so. Moreover, the consideration of the factual-psychological questions involved in attributions of subjective justification seems to be necessary in some recent hybrid forms of naturalized epistemology. I call them ‘hybrid’ because, unlike Quine’s naturalized epistemology, they include in the epistemological task more than naturalistic explanations of how we acquire our language and beliefs. Besides taking into consideration the actual processes of our coming to believe or accept sentences, they also make use of epistemic notions like justification, warrant, relevant or right connection among beliefs, and so forth. (shrink)

Preadolescence is an important period for the consolidation of certain arithmetic facts, and the development of problem-solving strategies. Obese subjects seem to have poorer academic performance in math than their normal-weight peers, suggesting a negative effect of obesity on math skills in critical developmental periods. To test this hypothesis, event-related potentials were collected during a delayed-verification math task using simple addition and subtraction problems in obese [above 95th body mass index percentile] and non-obese preteens with different levels of math skill; (...) thirty-one with low math skills and thirty-one with high math skills. No significant differences between weight groups were observed in task accuracy regardless of their mathematical skill level. For ERPs, electrophysiological differences were found only in the subtraction condition; participants with obesity showed an electrophysiologic pattern associated with a reduced ability to allocate attention resources regardless of their math skill level, these differences were characterized by longer P300 latency than their normal-weight peers. Moreover, the participants with obesity with high math skills displayed hypoactivity in left superior parietal lobule compared with their normal-weight peers. Additionally, obese preteens with low math skills displayed smaller arithmetic N400 amplitude than non-obese participants, reflecting difficulties in retrieving visual, semantic, and lexical information about numbers. We conclude that participants with obesity are less able than their normal-weight peers to deploy their attention regardless of their behavioral performance, which seems to have a greater effect on obese participants with low math skills because they also show problems in the retrieval of solutions from working memory, resulting in a delay in the development of mathematical skills. (shrink)

Este estudo investigou práticas educativas de pais e educadores sociais e estratégias de coping adotadas por crianças abrigadas. Participaram da pesquisa 20 crianças, entre sete e 11 anos. Elas responderam a duas entrevistas, que objetivavam identificar práticas educativas e problemas nos ambientes ..

An alternative to objectifying approaches to understanding Post-traumatic Stress Disorder grounded in hermeneutic phenomenology is presented. Nurses who provided care for soldiers injured in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, and sixty-seven wounded male servicemen in the rehabilitation phase of their recovery were interviewed. PTSD is the one major psychiatric diagnosis where social causation is established, yet PTSD is predominantly viewed in terms of the usual neuro-physiological causal models with traumatic social events viewed as pathogens with dose related effects. Biologic models (...) of causation are applied reductively to both predisposing personal vulnerabilities and strengths that prevent PTSD, such as resiliency. However, framing PTSD as an objective disease state separates it from narrative historical details of the trauma. Personal stories and cultural meanings of the traumatic events are seen as epiphenomenal, unrelated to the understanding of, and ultimately, the therapeutic treatment of PTSD. Most wounded service members described classic symptoms of PTSD: flashbacks, insomnia, anxiety etc. All experienced disturbance in their sense of time and place. Rather than see the occurrence of these symptoms as decontextualized mechanistic reverberations of war, we consider how these symptoms meaningfully reflect actual war experiences and sense of displacement experienced by service members. (shrink)

This paper aims to articulate the way in which Maurice Merleau-Ponty and Jan Patočka revisit the figure of Socrates as a way of overcoming what they view as the “crisis of philosophy”, discussing both their points of convergence and divergence. To this end, the paper unfolds in three sections. The first section will address the general sense of historical crisis in which the said crisis of philosophy arises. The second section turns around Merleau-Ponty’s proposal of a return to Socrates as (...) a way out of this crisis, a solution based on the understanding that philosophy is actually fulfilled in a living relationship with men, and far from its reduction into a comprehensive system of thought. The third section will revolve around the Patočkian characterization of Socrates as a model of “spiritual man” and such characterization will be worked out through the existential dialectic that constitutes the “movement of life”. (shrink)