In this paper we explore the organizational conditions underlying the emergence of organisms at the multicellular level. More specifically, we shall propose a general theoretical scheme according to which a multicellular organism is an ensemble of cells that effectively regulates its own development through collective mechanisms of control of cell differentiation and cell division processes. This theoretical result derives from the detailed study of the ontogenetic development of three multicellular systems and, in particular, of their corresponding cell-to-cell signaling networks. The (...) case study supports our claim that a specific type of functional integration among the cells of a multicellular ensemble , is required for it to qualify as a proper organism. Finally, we argue why a multicellular system exhibiting this type of functionally differentiated and integrated developmental organization becomes a self-determining collective entity and, therefore, should be considered as a second-order autonomous system. (shrink)

The paper critically examines Bobbio's famous disctinction between legal positivism as a method, a theory and an ideology. The author first highlights certain problems of the distinction itself and then focuses on Bobbio's self-determined position within it. Delving on Bobbio's analysis of the concepts of basic norm and rule of recognition, he demonstrates how Bobbio's later rejection of these two concepts implies acceptance of positivistic legal theory and ideology – despite the fact that he explicitly rejected them in the first (...) place. The reason for this Bobbio's slip is found in his absorbtion in the positivist legal culture which is permeated with the internal point of view on the law. The author suggests rejecting Bobbio's tripartite disctinction of legal positivism and proposes instead to view this as a set of seldom indvisible standpoints forming a specific legal culture. (shrink)

In this paper, I will reflect on the place of language within Michel Henry’s phenomenology. I will claim that Michel Henry’s position provokes an architectonic problem in his conception of phenomenology and I will discuss how he tried to solve it. At the end of the essay, I will try to clarify what I believe to be the ultimate root of that problem involving language.

Vulnerability, understood as a negative aspect of criminalization under immune considerations, constitutes itself as a creative and transformative force that makes it possible to think about a life in common sustained through care and affirmative protection of life. The development of this idea requires three specific stages: in the first, it is described the current democracy as a government technique whose management depends on vulnerable populations; in the second, it is reviewed criminalization as a specific form of immune control; and (...) finally, it is recognized vulnerability as the basis of a new way of democratic life, departing from the attention of certain social groups that have been criminalized due to their precariousness. (shrink)

El presente artículo aborda el análisis que realiza Marx de la categoría de trabajo abstracto, mostrando las contradicciones que contiene y las dificultades que ello implica para la correcta comprensión de la teoría del valor. Especialmente problemáticas a este respecto resultan las interpretaciones que asumen una fundamentación naturalista del trabajo abstracto, pues impiden entender los procesos de mediación que hacen posible la reproducción social en el capitalismo. Frente a esta forma de interpretación, pondremos de manifiesto que solo reconstruyendo la teoría (...) del valor de Marx a partir de una fundamentación social del trabajo abstracto es posible comprender el modo en que tiene lugar la socialización del trabajo en la sociedad capitalista. (shrink)

Este artículo reconstruye los primeros años de la obra de Antoni Domènech hasta la primera formulación de dos ideas clave en su obra madura: republicanismo plebeyo y fraternidad. Esto se hará en tres niveles. El primer nivel repasa la toma de posiciones de la transición a la derrota en el referéndum de la OTAN. El segundo nivel analiza la solución ética propuesta por Domèmech al problema de las necesidades y el ecologismo. El tercer nivel, a partir de las evidencias anteriores, (...) presenta la primera formulación de su reconstrucción republicana del marxismo y de la fraternidad. (shrink)

War is father of all, and king of all. He renders some gods, others men;he makes some slaves, others free.—HeraclitusLanguages in the Crossfire is an impressive and well-documented book written by...

ABSTRACT Recently, the hypothesis that purely evaluative disputes are metalinguistic negotiations has gained traction. I resist a strong version of that hypothesis, and argue that some of those disputes are not metalinguistic negotiations. To defend that claim, I argue that metalinguistic negotiations have three linguistic properties that some purely evaluative disputes lack. First, in a metalinguistic negotiation it is felicitous to embed the dispute-initial statement under the subjective attitude verb consider; second, a speaker can reply to that initial statement by (...) using a metalinguistic comparative; and, third, such negotiations address metalinguistic questions under discussion. Some purely evaluative disputes lack these properties, which suggests that they are not metalinguistic negotiations. (shrink)

The ethic of care has often been opposed to the ethic of justice as offering a different and even a contradictory approach to moral problems. This article argues that, from the perspective of the discourse ethic, both approaches are complementary in a very fundamental sense, since each one applies to one of two stages of moral reasoning that are as different as they are interconnected. It argues, in particular, that while justice is concerned with the justification and elaboration of norms, (...) care is concerned with finding a solution for specific moral situations. The article then places considerations of care at the centre of ideal discourse and subordinates the importance of rational understanding and moral justification to intuitive communication. (shrink)

Objectives—To assess the relationship between the approval of trials by a research ethics committee and the fact that informed consent from participants was obtained, with the quality of study design and methods.Design—Systematic review using a standardised checklist.Main measures—Methodological and ethical issues of all trials published between 1993 and 1995 in the New England Journal of Medicine, the Lancet, the Journal of the American Medical Association and the British Medical Journal were studied. In addition, clinical trials conducted in Spain and published (...) by at least one Spanish author during the same period in any other journal were also included.Results—We studied the published articles of 767 trials and found the following indicators of lower methodological quality to be independent predictors for failure to disclose REC approval or ICP: absence of concealment of allocation, lack of justification for unblinded trials, not using a treatment for the patients in the control group, absent information on statistical methods, not including sample size estimation, not establishing the rules to stop the trial, and omitting the presentation of a baseline comparison of groupsConclusion—Trials of higher methodological and scientific quality were more likely to provide information about their ethical aspects. (shrink)

Etrange époque... Jamais l'humanité n'a produit autant de richesses ; pourtant de nouvelles formes de misère côtoient l'opulence des maîtres du monde. L'argent-roi, les inégalités accrues, les désastres écologiques, les peuples exclus des décisions, le tout couvert par l'invocation incantatoire des droits de l'homme... Penseur visionnaire, Marx décrit la mondialisation capitaliste telle que nous la vivons. Une mondialisation qui "épuise la terre et le travailleur" et noie l'humain "dans les eaux glacées du calcul égoïste". La religion y devient "supplément d'âme (...) d'un monde sans âme", voire source de fanatisme identitaire. A rebours des compensations illusoires et des nationalismes haineux, Marx en appelle à la solidarité de tous les peuples. A exploitation mondialisée, résistance mondialisée. Il crée la première Internationale, levier de conquêtes sociales. Marx ouvre ainsi la voie de l'émancipation universelle. Redécouvrons-le, affranchi de sa caricature stalinienne, qui fut une sinistre trahison de son idéal de justice. Il se révèle d'une singulière actualité. (shrink)

This chapter proceeds in two ways. First, I argue that Fanon’s structural witnessing of racism yields important insights about the nature of violence that challenges the settler colonial concept of violence as the extra-legal use of force. Second, I argue that his analysis of violence is insufficient for combating colonial racism and violence because, using the terms of his own analysis, it leaves intact logics and mechanisms that allow racism to structurally renew itself in perpetuity: violence against women. Without a (...) critical feminism that tracks the alterities of structural violence against women, and women of color in particular, Fanonianism is just another lifeline of colonialism. I thus caution against uncritical uses of Fanon’s structural account of violence for any emancipatory social theory that fails to acknowledge the attendant alterities, asymmetries, and axes of coordinated subordination involved in racialized violence against women. (shrink)

I argue against the view that metalinguistic usage is a form of conversational implicature. That view, suggested by Thomasson (Anal Philos 57(4):1-28, 2016) and Belleri (Philos Stud 174(9):2211–2226, 2017), has been most recently fleshed out by Mankowitz (Synthese 199:5603–5622, 2021). I provide two types of criticism to the implicature view. From an empirical point of view, metalinguistic usage differs in key respects from standard cases of conversational implicature. From a conceptual standpoint, I argue that the calculation algorithm provided by the (...) implicature view makes undesirable predictions. Although my main objective is negative, I end the paper by sketching an alternative neo-Stalnakerian view of metalinguistic usage, that can be gathered from work by Barker (Linguist Philos 25(1):1–36, 2002; Inquiry 56(2–3):240–257, 2013) and others. (shrink)

En este trabajo el autor defiende la necesidad de completar la distinción entre permisos fuertes y débiles con otras dos distinciones: una de ellas relativa también al sistema jurídico –la distinción entre permisos protegidos y permisos no protegidos– y la otra relativa al proceso de aplicación del derecho: la distinción entre permisos prima facie y permisos concluyentes. El trabajo concluye con un cuadro en el que, sobre la base de estas tres distinciones, se recogen ocho combinaciones posibles a distinguir en (...) materia de permisos. (shrink)

En 1670, el autor español Juan Caramuel publicó en Italia el segundo tomo de una magna obra, Mathesis biceps (publicada en latín), sobre el saber matemático de su época. En el mismo se incluía un capítulo (un "sintagma" según el propio Caramuel), titulado Kybeia ("juegos de dados" en griego), donde el autor introduce su idea del origen del juego y resuelve algunos problemas relacionados con los mismos, convirtiéndose en una de las obras tempranas sobre cálculo de probablidades. En este texto (...) se da un repaso a los antecedentes al trabajo de Caramuel relacionados con el cálculo de probabilidades, se analiza punto por punto la aportación de este autor al nuevo cálculo en su Kybeia, y se añade la traducción al castellano del mismo. (shrink)