Femtosecond laser microfabrication has emerged in the last decade as a powerful technique for direct inscription of low loss optical waveguides in practically any transparent dielectric substrate, showing outstanding versatility. Prototyping of new devices is made rapid, cheap and easy: optical circuits are written directly buried in the substrate, using the laser beam as an optical pen, without any need of costly masks as required by conventional photolithography. Many proof-of-principle demonstrations of integrated optics can be obtained, including splitters, directional couplers, (...) and Mach–Zehnder interferometers. Actually, the road towards applications has just been opened, and the unique capabilities of femtosecond laser micromachining will enable achievements inconceivable with other technologies. In this work, the femtosecond laser fabrication technique is discussed, together with its application to the realization of integrated photonic quantum circuits. (shrink)

El Krausismo ha sido considerado como uno de los movimientos más significativo e influyente en la historia del pensamiento español contemporáneo. Originado aparentemente en la elección arbitraria de Sanz del Río, en pocos años adquiere un importante desarrollo en los círculos intelectuales, adquiriendo una notable influencia entre el profesorado de Universidad y de Enseñanza Secundaria. Mariano Arés y Sanz fue el principal representante del movimiento en Salamanca en su dimensión más metafísica. Este artículo, tras reconstruir las líneas generales de su (...) curso de metafísica ofrece sus principales ideas acerca del conocimiento, pieza básica de su pensamiento metafísico. (shrink)

This paper argues that some of the misunderstandings surrounding the meaning and function of the concept of human dignity in bioethics arise from a lack of distinction between two different roles that this notion plays: one as an overarching policy principle, and the other as a moral standard of patient care. While the former is a very general concept which fulfils a foundational and a guiding role of the normative framework governing biomedical issues, the latter reflects a much more concrete (...) and context-specific understanding of the patient as a “person”. The importance of dignity as a policy principle will be described by appealing to the distinction between principles and rules as developed by some legal philosophers. The value of dignity as a standard of patient care will be illustrated with the help of concrete examples and by drawing on the taxonomies of dignity proposed by Jonathan Mann and other scholars. The overall scope of the article is to highlight this double and complementary role of human dignity in bioethics. (shrink)

We propose the mereological theory of odors, according to which odors are proper parts of concrete objects. We distinguish between object solid core and gaseous periphery; the odor is the periphery and plays a role in olfactory perception similar to the role played by surfaces in visual and tactile perception. Some epistemological and metaphysical consequences of the theory are explored, in particular the fact that objects are larger than they visually appear, and that smell turns out to be more accurate (...) than both vision and touch. In the context of dealing with infectious diseases transmitted by airborne particles, a reconceptualization of odors could be leveraged for inducing better mental representations and protective measures. (shrink)

SPANISH: En el presente trabajo nos hemos propuesto la factura de una interpretación en torno a la idea de la filosofía, entendida como liberación del pensamiento, a partir justamente de la obra de José Gaos. Consideramos que esta posibilidad es viable en virtud de que en la obra de nuestro autor pueden localizarse por lo menos dos alusiones a este sentido de emancipación de la misma filosofía. La primera de éstas tiene que ver con el derrumbe del espíritu de sistema (...) como la forma y camino exclusivo del pensamiento filosófico. Asimismo, la segunda alusión de esta emancipación se ve satisfecha cuando mediante la hipostación de la conciencia histórica, el autor dibuja el horizonte para la liberación de la existencia individual y el pensamiento, so pretexto de una filosofía inmanentista. ENGLISH: The purpose of this paper is drawing an interpretation around the idea of philosophy understood as thought’s liberation, just based on the work of José Gaos. We think that this is possible because in our author’s work at least two mentions to this sense of emancipation of the philosophy can be found. The first one has to do with the collapse of the spirit of system as the only form and unique way of philosophical thinking. Likewise, the second mention to this emancipation is fulfilled when, through hypostatization of historical consciousness, the author sketches the horizon for the liberation of the individual existence and thinking, under the pretext of an immanentist philosophy. (shrink)

In this work I reconstruct the physical and mental descriptions of perception in Aristotle. I propose to consider the thesis that αἴσθησις is a μεσότης (DA II 11) as a description of the physiological aspect of perception, meaning that perceiving is a physical act by which the sensory apparatus homeostatically counterbalances, and thence measures, the incoming affection produced by external perceptible objects. The proposal is based on a revision of the semantics of the word mesotês in Plato, Aristotle and later (...) Greek mathematicians (mostly Nicomachus of Gerasa). I show how this interpretation fits the text, and how it solves problems that afflict the rival interpretations. I further develop a ‘non-dephysiologizing’ spiritualist reading of the additional description of perception as reception of forms without the matter (DA II 12). I show that Aristotle uses the expression ‘forms without matter’ to describe actually abstracted items in one’s mind rather than the way in which the form are received. In opposition to forms-in-matter, such items are causally powerless and metaphysically sterile: an F-without-matter somewhat determines the subject it is in (one’s mind content F) without qualifying or identifying it as an F-subject. Thus, we have a second ‘mental’ description of perception. Further parts of the thesis are devoted to settle interpretive questions raised by controversial statements about perception found in De Anima II 5 and III 2, and to discuss the question of how the mental and physiological descriptions of perception Aristotle offers are related. My conclusion is that Aristotle’s views combines a form of quasi-dualist vitalism about powers (the faculty of perception, and more generally the soul, are not just irreducible to matter, but also primitive and non-supervenient) which is nonetheless compatible with hylomorphism, and a form of epiphenomenalism (and thence the ‘bottom-up’ determination typical of modern supervenience) with regard to perceptual events (i.e., the activity of perceiving). (shrink)

Psychological failure to legislate norms from a state of normative nil is the core sceptical case that German philosophy had left unsolved, and that after Kant was handed over to each new generation of philosophers, until it exploded with great force in debates that spanned the 1910s. This article seeks to provide a context for Carl Schmitt's statement that `nobody could ever describe a single person's intentions as a norm', and to link this kind of normative scepticism with Schmitt's later (...) notion of `exception'. In the face of several attempts to dismiss Schmitt's theory in light of his personal and professional allegiance to the Nazis, this article appeals to the possibility of consilium pravorum, the idea that one can learn from someone whose ideas or actions are despicable. Schmitt distinguishes himself (especially in his early works before 1922) for both his normative scepticism and his willingness to interrogate premises that contemporary political philosophy seems to have left unexamined. (shrink)

Post-colonial ist theory was produced by authors born in India, and who were living in the United States. After they produced their writings, a new line of thought appeared, which explored Latin America from the same perspective. The pretext is based on Derrida´s works, in which the purpose is to s..

The book addresses the question of the alleged Heracliteanism of the Sceptic philosopher Aenesidemus of Cnossus.

Contemporary scholarship concerning science diplomacy is increasingly taking a historical approach. In our introduction to this special issue, we argue that this approach promises insight into science diplomacy because of the tools historians of science bring to their work. In particular, we observe that not only are historians of science currently poised to chart the diplomatic aspects involved in the transnational circulation of technoscientific knowledge, materials, and expertise. They are ready to bring critical global analysis to an important phenomenon that (...) has too often been treated as a benign diplomacy device deployed by the Global North without equal reference to the Global South. Through cases discussed in the articles of the special issue, however, we see that historically, in the Global South as well as the Global North, science diplomacy has often functioned to mediate the circulation of technoscientific knowledge and materials, and its historical study helps to better illuminate the resulting knowledge-power nexus. (shrink)

Cet ouvrage tente de poser les bases philosophiques de la sociologie au moyen de l'interprétation des écrits de certains des penseurs les plus importants de notre tradition philosophique. Le noyau de cette étude porte sur les formes du vivre ensemble que les règles de la socialité dégagées dans l'analyse de ces écrits permettent de repérer : règles de lutte (Machiavel), de coopération compétitive (Hobbes), stratégique (Leibniz), égalitaire (Rousseau), enfin règles morales (Kant). À la suite d'un examen des conditions de la (...) socialité que sont le langage et l'économie, l'ouvrage propose une philosophie de la socialité fondée sur le pluralisme des règles de l'interaction. (shrink)

Mathematical game theory – developed starting from the publication of The Theory of Games and Economic Behavior , by John von Neumann and Oskar Morgenstern – aims to outline an ideal model of behaviour of rational agents involved in some interaction with other rational agents. For this reason, game theory has immediately attracted the attention of philosophers dealing with practical rationality and, since the fifties, has been applied to the analysis of several issues concerning ethics and philosophy of politics. Here (...) we will focus on one of the most interesting applications of game theory to ethical-political inquiry, i.e., with the game theoretic analysis of some problems related to the evolution of moral norms. Firstly, we will provide a short outline of the development of game theory, which has lead to the formulation of a plurality of different game theories. It will be shown that such theories can be classified in two main groups: rationalistic game theories –in two different versions: classical and epistemic – and evolutionary game theories. Moreover, some basic elements of classical game theory will be introduced and the key ideas of epistemic and evolutionary game theories will be illustrated. Afterwards, the main approaches developed within the ethical-political applications of game theory will be shortly described. Finally, some results obtained in the last twenty years by the researchers who have analysed the evolution of moral norms by the conceptual tools of evolutionary and epistemic game theories, will be examined. (shrink)

From a hermeneutical position, the article examines why tension is created between «method» on one hand and circularity on the other. The latter, being unity as well, is the foundation of natural hermeneutics of which it has been said that to be human is to interpret. With this purpose in view, the author has sought to restore to essential Greek terms their archaic meaning which centuries of vernacular usage have rendered blurry, finding that, in accordance with the Greek symbolon, man's (...) conscience of «I am Here and Now» is symbolic unity, viz. a strained unity in search of The Superior Unity that makes him Methodos, Circle, His Own Future, and Metaphysics. (shrink)

This paper is both systematic and historical in nature. From a historical viewpoint, I aim to show that to establish Wittgenstein’s claim that “an ‘inner process’ stands in need of outward criteria” there is an enthymeme in Wittgenstein’s private language argument overlooked in the literature, namely Wittgenstein’s suggestion that both perceptual and bodily experiences are _transparent_ in the relevant sense that one cannot point to a mental state and wonder “What is that?” From a systematic viewpoint, I aim to show (...) that Wittgenstein’s PLA teaches us that the prevailing picture of the nature of phenomenal concepts is upside down: we can only introspectively know what is going on inside our heads, after we learn of what is going on outside. In this regard, I aim to defend two associate claims against the prevailing view of PCs on the basis of PLA. First, by means of transparency, I aim to show that there is no _de re_ awareness of our private sensation that could determine the meaning of sensation-words; for example, I am never aware _of _the phenomenal blueness of my experience of something blue. The second associated claim is that introspective self-knowledge of our private sensation is always _de dicto_. We can only know introspectively that phenomenal blueness is the phenomenal character of the experience we are undergoing after we have learned _that _ blue is the color that usually causes in us that kind of experience. Likewise, we can only introspectively know that pain is the phenomenal character of the experience we are undergoing after we have learned that pain is what usually causes some typical pain behavior. (shrink)

El primer apartado del trabajo considera cómo el pensar es privado de su carácter primario cuando la lógica originaria y el lenguaje de las señas son sustituidos por la lógica del enunciado y el lenguaje de los signos. En segundo lugar, se muestra que la elucidación de las señas del Ser conduce a un examen del peligro que enfrenta el pensar en presencia de la filosofía. El tercer apartado se ocupa del ulterior peligro que surge cuando se intenta derivar el (...) pensar a partir del poetizar. El pensador aguarda señas porque ya no cuenta con sistemas de pensamiento, y en este proceso ha de estar dispuesto para la verdad del ser. Mientras que el poeta instituye de una manera originaria el Ser en una comunidad, el pensador concibe y ensambla, y de ese modo abre por primera vez lo que ha sido desvelado por el poeta. Finalmente, se ofrece un análisis de la relación de la lógica originaria con la hermenéutica y la fenomenología. (shrink)