This analysis of Mexico’s nanotechnology policies utilizes indicators developed by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, which in 2008 conducted a pilot survey comparing the nanotechnology policies of 24 countries. In this paper, we apply the same questionnaire to the Mexican case, adding business information derived from the National Institute of Statistics and Geography survey on nanotechnologies, also an OECD instrument.

En la actualidad, el festival literario Centroamérica Cuenta tiene en su haber seis ediciones realizadas desde 2013. Esta iniciativa internacional, coordinada por el escritor nicaragüense Sergio Ramírez, año con año ha forjado un espacio de intercambio y reflexión para la narrativa centroamericana, proyectando las identidades, literaturas y realidades de la región a diversas zonas del orbe. Desde su inicio, el festival ha contado con la participación de más de 500 escritores del istmo, entre los cuales se encuentran la salvadoreña (...) class='Hi'>Vanessa Núñez y el nicaragüense Alberto Sánchez Argüello, representantes de una nueva generación centroamericana de narradores. En el caso de la escritora Vanesa Núñez (1973, San Salvador), también abogada, docente y editora, incluimos un cuento inédito; “La familia”, de carácter amargo y afilado en su desenlace, como las vidas de muchas personas centroamericanas. Núñez ha publicado los libros: Los locos mueren de viejos (FyG Editores, 2008 y La Pereza, 2015), Dios tenía miedo (FyG Editores, 2011 y Editorial Piedrasanta, 2016), La caja de cuentos (libro objeto) (Alas de Barrilete, 2015), Espejos (Uruk Editores, 2015), Animales Interiores (en coautoría con Frida Larios, 2015), así como varios relatos en diversas antologías y revistas de España, Francia, Alemania, Suiza, Estados Unidos, Colombia, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala y México. Su obra ha sido igualmente traducida al francés, alemán e inglés. En cuanto al narrador Alberto Sánchez Argüello (1976, Managua), también psicólogo, ilustrador y reconocido tuitero (de la aplicación Twitter), quien ha creado varios libros de micro-relatos a partir de tuits entrelazados (Parafernalia Ediciones Digitales), publicamos el micro-cuento “La estatua”. El relato se encuentra en diálogo con el cuento de Núñez, a partir de una visión cruda de los mandatos patriarcales imperantes en nuestras sociedades. Sánchez se ha enfocado en literatura juvenil e infantil, con la publicación de las siguientes obras: La casa del agua (Fondo Editorial Libros para niños, 2003), Mi amigo el dragón (Fondo Editorial Libros para niños, 2014), Los Monstruos bajo la cama (Loqueleo Santillana, 2016), Chico Largo y Charco Verde (Loqueleo Santillana, 2017) e Ítaca (Fondo Editorial Libros para niños, 2017). Su obra se ha publicado en antologías en Nicaragua, México, España, El Salvador, Bolivia, Chile y Perú. Algunos de sus cuentos están traducidos al inglés, portugués, italiano, alemán y vietnamita. (shrink)

O governo das diferenças e a potência da vida surda na escola Resumo: É urgente afirmar a surdez como acontecimento ontológico, produtor de diferenças, as quais se materializam no corpo dos sujeitos surdos. O artigo objetiva produzir uma análise filosófica da surdez-acontecimento, fazendo um paralelo entre a ação das políticas educacionais e a micro relação do cotidiano escolar, pelo movimento de resistência das pessoas surdas às políticas igualitárias. O conceito de governamentalidade, desenvolvido por Michel Foucault, é fundamental para essa reflexão, (...) apontando dois movimentos nas práticas inclusivas: o primeiro, agenciado na pauta da diversidade, com foco em práticas igualitárias e o segundo movimento, produzido na lógica da diferença. Propõe-se anunciar a surdez não apenas pela diferença, linguístico-cultural, mas como efeito de uma diferença ontológica espalhada no corpo social por fluxos ramificados, em movimentos intensivos, minando internamente os sujeitos e por eles, as variadas instituições. É a prática rasteira da contra-ação desse “ser” surdo às ações normalizadoras que interessa aqui ressaltar. Palavras-chave: Educação de surdos. Políticas inclusivas. Diferenças. Apoio e financimento da pesquisa: FAPESP e à CAPES Government of differences and the power of deaf life in school: It is urgent to affirm deafness as an ontological event, producer of differences, which materialize in the body of deaf subjects. The article aims to produce a philosophical analysis of deafness-event, making a parallel between the action of educational policies and the micro relationship of school daily, by the movement of resistance of deaf people to egalitarian policies. The concept of governmentality, developed by Michel Foucault, is fundamental to this reflection, pointing out two movements in inclusive practices: the first, guided by the diversity agenda, focusing on egalitarian practices and the second movement, produced in the logic of difference. It is proposed to announce deafness not only by linguistic-cultural difference, but as the effect of an ontological difference spread in the social body by branched flows, intensive movements, internally undermining the subjects and by them the various institutions. It is the low practice of counteracting this deaf “being” to normalizing actions that is of interest here. Keywords: Deaf education. Inclusive policies. Differences. Gobierno de diferencias y el poder de la vida de los sordos en la escuela Resumen: Es urgente afirmar la sordera como un evento ontológico, productor de diferencias, que se materializa en el cuerpo de los sordos. El artículo tiene como objetivo producir un análisis filosófico del evento de sordera, haciendo un paralelo entre la acción de las políticas educativas y la micro relación de la escuela diaria, por el movimiento de resistencia de las personas sordas a las políticas igualitarias. El concepto de gubernamentalidad, desarrollado por Michel Foucault, es fundamental para esta reflexión, señalando dos movimientos en prácticas inclusivas: el primero, guiado por la agenda de la diversidad, centrado en prácticas igualitarias y el segundo movimiento, producido en la lógica de la diferencia. Se propone anunciar la sordera no solo por la diferencia lingüístico-cultural, sino como el efecto de una diferencia ontológica propagada en el cuerpo social por flujos ramificados, movimientos intensivos, que debilitan internamente a los sujetos y por ellos a las diversas instituciones. Lo que interesa aquí es la baja práctica de contrarrestar este "ser" sordo para normalizar las acciones. Palabras clave: Educación para sordos. Políticas inclusivas. Diferencias. Data de registro: 11/12/2019 Data de aceite: 21/10/2020. (shrink)

If the traditional problem of demandingness is that a theory demands too much of all agents, for example by asking them to maximize utility in every decision, then we should ask whether there is a related problem of “differential demandingness”, when a theory places vastly different demands on different agents. I argue that even according to common-sense morality, the demands faced by particular agents depend on a variety of contingent factors. These include the general circumstances, the compliance of others, the (...) available resources, the agent’s relevant relationships, the agent’s psychological constitution, and the agent’s knowledge. Some agents, for instance, find themselves in a “sacrifice hazard”: a situation where morality calls for a huge unforeseen sacrifice. I argue that if moral demands are differential, it is harder than one might think to assess a theory’s general level of demandingness in the abstract. (shrink)

This paper adds to the critical work on the relationship between Hans Jonas and Emmanuel Levinas by arguing that the experience of the face of the other can be made compatible with Jonas’s understanding of metabolism thus allowing for an extension of who counts as an other to include all organic life forms. Although this extension will allow for a broadening of ethical patients on one side, we will see that a corresponding broadening of ethical agents on the other side (...) will prove to be more difficult owing to the exceptionality of the human being that they both maintain and believe is expressed through the experience of responsibility. (shrink)

Objectives: Recent legislative changes within the United Kingdom have stimulated professional debate about access to patient data within research. However, there is currently little awareness of public views about such research. The authors sought to explore attitudes of the public, and their lay representatives, towards the use of primary care medical record data for research when patient consent was not being sought.Methods: 49 members of the public and four non-medical members of local community health councils in South Wales, UK gave (...) their views on the value and acceptability of three current research scenarios, each describing access to data without patient consent.Results: Among focus group participants, awareness of research in primary care was low, and the appropriateness of general practitioners as researchers was questioned. There was general support for research but also concerns expressed about data collection without consent. These included lack of respect and patient control over the process. Unauthorised access to data by external agencies was a common fear. Current data collection practices, including population based disease registers elicited much anxiety. The key informants were equally critical of the scenarios and generally less accepting.Conclusions: This exploratory study has highlighted a number of areas of public concern when medical records are accessed for research without patient consent. Public acceptability regarding the use of medical records in research cannot simply be assumed. Further work is required to determine how widespread such views are and to inform those advising on confidentiality issues. (shrink)

Emmanuel Levinas’s work seemingly places a great emphasis on language leading some commentators towards a Kantian reading of him where moral consideration would be based on the moral patient’s capacity for reason with language functioning as a proxy for this. Although this reading is possible, a closer look at Levinas’s descriptions of language reveal that its defining characteristic is not reason but the capacity to express beyond any thematized contents we would give to the Other. This expressivity (which Levinas calls (...) face) would confront me with their singularity, infinity, and interiority tying me to them in a relation of responsibility. And the “content” of such an expression is a vulnerability and exposure tied to their mortality which continually entreats me though I cannot take it away. It is by means of this bare expression of an exposure to death as the core of language that it will become possible for non-human mortal beings to have what Levinas calls language. This possibility, although not explicitly addressed by Levinas, is at least left open by his account of Bobby the dog as well as his agnosticism over a snake’s face. (shrink)

Fernando García de la Vega fue uno de los profesionales que pusieron en marcha la televisión de nuestro país. Aquellos profesionales eran auténticos pioneros, que inventaban formatos, imaginaban contenidos a la vez que aprendían a utilizar la novedosa tecnología televisiva, y experimentaban con el nuevo lenguaje audiovisual. García de la Vega empezó haciendo todo tipo de programas, especializándose en concursos y musicales. Es uno de los primeros y grandes maestros de la televisión española. El presente trabajo se detiene en algunos (...) de los más emblemáticos programas que creó, guionizó, dirigió y realizó. (shrink)

This paper suggests that research and theory regarding the development of global codes of conduct would be informed by political theory. Charles Taylor’s (1992) essay Politics of Recognition acknowledges that successful relationships among nations results from mutual respect and esteem among different cultures for each other. The same may be the case for the successful development of universal code of ethics for Multinational Enterprises.

Fundamento: La investigación científica y la divulgación de los resultados obtenidos es uno de los puntales del desarrollo científico del país. Objetivo: Considerar la productividad científica de los especialistas de Higiene y Epidemiología de su Centro Provincial en Camagüey, a partir del número de publicaciones en los últimos cinco años. Método: Se diseñó un estudio transversal desde abril de 2008 hasta abril de 2013, a través de un cuestionario estructurado, de carácter anónimo y con el consentimiento informado de los mismos, (...) donde se recogieron las variables tiempo de graduado, publicaciones en los últimos cinco años, categoría docente e investigativa, conocimientos de técnicas estadísticas, motivación, participación en eventos científicos, dificultades para publicar y dominio del idioma inglés para consultar las bases de datos EBSCO y PUBMED. Resultados: Se mostró una escasa productividad científica independientemente del tiempo de graduado; el número de categorías investigativas por especialista es muy pobre y si bien la mayoría de los mismos reconoce que la especialidad le confiere los conocimientos y motivación necesarias durante su formación, al final expresan tener dificultades para publicar y en el manejo del idioma inglés para estos fines. Conclusiones: La formación del especialista de Higiene y Epidemiología no da salida, al menos de la manera deseada, a uno de sus perfiles básicos como es la investigación. Basis: Scientific research and promotion of the obtained results is one of the objectives of the scientific development of the country, mainly when a specialty is involved, in which this task is included in different versions of the study plans. Objectives: to consider starting from the number of publications in the last five years, the scientific productivity of the specialists of Hygiene and Epidemiology of the Provincial Center of Hygiene, Epidemiology and Microbiology of Camagüey. Method: To carry out this task a cross sectional study was designed by authors through a small, anonymous structured questionary and with the informed consent of all of them, in which the following variables were analyzed: graduation date, publications in the last five years, teaching or scientific category, knowledge of statistical techniques, motivation, participation in scientific events, difficulties for publishing and knowledge of the English language to consult de databases EBSCO and PUBMED. Results: Poor scientific performance is observed, apart from graduation experience, the number of scientific categories by specialists is very low and even though most of them accept that the specialty promotes knowledge and necessary motivations during their postgraduate studies, finally they confirm there are difficulties for publishing and to manage English language for this purpose. Conclusions: The teaching curriculum of Hygiene and Epidemiology specialist does not promote research, one of its basic fields. (shrink)

Liberalism is a critically important topic in the contemporary world as liberal values and institutions are in retreat in countries where they seemed relatively secure. Lucidly written and accessible, this book offers an important yet neglected Russian aspect to the history of political liberalism. Vanessa Rampton examines Russian engagement with liberal ideas during Russia's long nineteenth century, focusing on the high point of Russian liberalism from 1900 to 1914. It was then that a self-consciously liberal movement took shape, followed (...) by the founding of the country's first liberal (Constitutional-Democratic or Kadet) party in 1905. For a brief, revelatory period, some Russians - an eclectic group of academics, politicians and public figures - drew on liberal ideas of Western origin to articulate a distinctively Russian liberal philosophy, shape their country's political landscape, and were themselves partly responsible for the tragic experience of 1905. (shrink)

Routley-Meyer Ternary Relational Semantics for Intuitionistic-type Negations examines how to introduce intuitionistic-type negations into RM-semantics. RM-semantics is highly malleable and capable of modeling families of logics which are very different from each other. This semantics was introduced in the early 1970s, and was devised for interpreting relevance logics. In RM-semantics, negation is interpreted by means of the Routley operator, which has been almost exclusively used for modeling De Morgan negations. This book provides research on particular features of intuitionistic-type of negations (...) in RM-semantics, while also defining the basic systems and many of their extensions by using models with or without a set of designated points. (shrink)

Moral distress has been well reviewed in the literature with established deleterious side effects for all healthcare professionals, including nurses, physicians, and others. Yet, little is known about the quality and effectiveness of interventions directed to address moral distress. The aim of this integrative review is to analyze published intervention studies to determine their efficacy and applicability across hospital settings. Of the initial 1373 articles discovered in October 2020, 18 were appraised as relevant, with 1 study added by hand search (...) and 2 after a repeated search was completed in January and then in May of 2021, for a total of 22 reviewed articles. This review revealed data mostly from nurses, with some studies making efforts to include other healthcare professions who have experienced moral distress. Education-based interventions showed the most success, though many reported limited power and few revealed statistically lowered moral distress post intervention. This may point to the difficulty in adequately addressing moral distress in real time without adequate support systems. Ultimately, these studies suggest potential frameworks which, when bolstered by organization-wide support, may aid in moral distress interventions making a measurable impact. (shrink)

The aim of this article is to present a different perspective through which to examine reduction and emergence; namely, the perspective of chemistry’s relation to physics.

In the first half of the twentieth century the attention of American and European researchers was drawn to the area of ‘extreme physiology’, partly because of expeditions to the north and south poles, and to high altitude, but also by global conflicts which were fought for the first time with aircraft, and involved conflict in non-temperate zones, deserts, and at the freezing Eastern front. In an attempt to help white Euro-Americans survive in extreme environments, physiologists, anthropologists, and explorers studied indigenous (...) people’s bodies, cultures, and technologies. This paper will sketch an outline of the science of white survival in three ‘extreme’ environments: the Antarctic and Arctic; high-altitude; and the Australian desert, with a particular focus on the ways in which indigenous populations were studied, or in some cases ignored, by Western biomedical scientists—despite their crucial and systematic contributions to the success of experiments and expeditions. Particularly focusing on altitude, and on blood in both its symbolic and literal sense, the article shows how assumptions about race, indigeneity, civilisation, and evolution shaped the ways White Westerners understood their own bodies as well as those of the people they encountered in cold, high and hot places on the earth. Despite new discoveries in physiology and evolutionary science, old racialised assumptions were maintained, especially those that figured the temperate body as civilised and the tropical body as primitive; and in at least one case it will be shown that these racialised assumptions significantly altered, if not retarded, the science of respiratory physiology. (shrink)

A survey on the knowledge and attitudes towards the Austrian organ donation legislation (an opt-out solution) of selected groups of the Austrian population taking into account factors such as age, gender, level of education, affiliation to healthcare professions and health related studies was conducted.

In our paper “A general characterization of the variable-sharing property by means of logical matrices”, a general class of so-called “Relevant logical matrices”, RMLs, is defined. The aim of this paper is to define a class of simpler Relevant logical matrices RMLs′serving the same purpose that RMLs, to wit: any logic verified by an RML′has the variable-sharing property and related properties predicable of the logic of entailment E and of the logic of relevance R.

Abstract It would be puzzling if the morally best agents were not so good after all. Yet one prominent account of the morally best agents ascribes to them the exact motivational defect that has famously been called a “fetish.” The supposed defect is a desire to do the right thing, where this is read de dicto . If the morally best agents really are driven by this de dicto desire, and if this de dicto desire is really a fetish, then (...) the morally best agents are moral fetishists. This is puzzling. I resolve the puzzle by showing that on a proper understanding of the interaction between de dicto and de re moral motivation, it is not only not fetishistic, but quite possibly desirable, to be motivated by a de dicto desire to do the right thing. My argument relies partly on an appeal to a non-buck-passing account of moral rightness, according to which rightness is itself an additional reason-giving property over and above the right-making properties of an action. If this account of moral rightness is correct, then we would expect the morally best agents to exhibit de dicto moral motivation. However, since their de dicto desire acts in concert with de re desires, there is no reason to consider it a fetish. Content Type Journal Article Pages 1-19 DOI 10.1007/s11098-011-9825-z Authors Vanessa Carbonell, Philosophy Department, University of Cincinnati, P.O. Box 210374, Cincinnati, OH 45221-0374, USA Journal Philosophical Studies Online ISSN 1573-0883 Print ISSN 0031-8116. (shrink)

Nietzsche coins the enigmatic term homo natura to capture his understanding of the human being as a creature of nature and tasks philosophy with the renaturalisation of humanity. Following Foucault's critique of the human sciences, Vanessa Lemm discusses the reception of Nietzsche's naturalism in philosophical anthropology, psychoanalysis and gender studies. She offers an original reading of homo natura that brings back the ancient Greek idea of nature and sexuality as creative chaos and of the philosophical life as outspoken and (...) embodied truth, perhaps best exemplified by the Cynics' embrace of social and cultural transformation. (shrink)

Derrida’s description of the aporia of decision-making is herein used to demonstrate how ethico-political concerns can already be found within the articulation of time and space as they are experienced by mortal beings, broadly understood.

The logic BN4 was defined by R.T. Brady in 1982. It can be considered as the 4-valued logic of the relevant conditional. E4 is a variant of BN4 that can be considered as the 4-valued logic of entailment. The aim of this paper is to define reduced general Routley-Meyer semantics for BN4 and E4. It is proved that BN4 and E4 are strongly sound and complete w.r.t. their respective semantics.

O presente estudo trata-se de uma pesquisa qualitativa com objetivo de analisar as mudanças nas relações familiares provenientes da guarda judicial dos netos, em disputa com seus filhos. Nesse texto, enfatizamse as questões sobre tempo e dinheiro e suas influências sobre essas relações. Para a const..

Despite some progress in instilling ethics into business practice, businesses continue to make decisions that result in incredible harms to people and the environment around the world. Academics, the public, and the media have often singled out business leaders as unethical and responsible for the vast harms that their companies have done. As a result, some have looked to ethical business leadership as one avenue of approach to making businesses act more ethically. This thesis explores two leadership styles. The first (...) is Machiavellian leadership, which has a reputation for being one of the least ethical leadership styles, and the second is transformational leadership, which has a reputation for being one of the most ethical leadership styles. This thesis attempts to align the ethical components of transformational leadership with Machiavellian leadership so that Machiavellian leaders will have reason to behave more ethically. The hope is that some component of transformational leadership theory can inspire Machiavellian leaders to behave more ethically. However, I argue that transformational leadership is not as ethical as it seems, since transformational leadership can result in both ethical and unethical behaviours. Ultimately, I conclude that there is nothing in transformational leadership theory that can inspire Machiavellian leaders to behave more ethically. The frightening implications of this conclusion are discussed. (shrink)

Fundamento: El currículo de estudios, principalmente de posgrado, no puede considerarse como un plan al que hay que ajustarse de manera estricta, sino que debe ser más flexible, que dé salida a los objetivos propuestos según las situaciones del entorno. Objetivo: mostrar algunos resultados de la vinculación del residente de Higiene y Epidemiología a actividades epidemiológicas emergentes en la actualidad. Método: se realizó un estudio descriptivo transversal en el Centro Provincial de Higiene, Epidemiología y Microbiología de Camagüey durante junio de (...) 2014. Se entrevistó a un universo de 32 profesionales. Las variables utilizadas fueron: utilidad de la vinculación extracurricular a programas y tareas de control epidemiológico, desarrollo práctico de los aspectos teóricos, vencimiento con calidad del diseño curricular de la residencia y si se consideró necesario o no interrumpir el plan de estudios ante eventos epidemiológicos de emergencia. Resultados: La mayoría de los especialistas consideró que la vinculación a actividades específicas le permitió vencer con calidad el plan de estudios, mientras que el mayor porcentaje de los residentes no lo estimó así. Ningún residente entrevistado estuvo de acuerdo con la interrupción del plan de estudios ante situaciones emergentes. Conclusiones: la vinculación del residente a actividades prácticas emergentes puede servir de incentivo para la graduación de un especialista con mayor competencia profesional, sin abandonar el diseño curricular establecido. Fundament: The study curriculum, especially of post grade, cannot be considered as a plan to which one has to be adjusted in a strict way, but to be more flexible, offering a way out to the proposed objectives according to the situations of the environment. Objective: to offer some results of the linking of the medical resident of Hygiene and Epidemiology to emergent epidemiological activities at the present time. Method: A cross-sectional descriptive study at the Provincial Center of Hygiene, Epidemiology and Microbiology during June 2014 was carried out. A universe of 32 professionals was interviewed. The variables used were: usefulness of the extracurricular linking to programs and tasks of epidemiological control, practical development of theoretical aspects, quality achievement of the curricular design of the medical residency, and if it was necessary or not to interrupt the study plan in emergent epidemiological events. Results: Most of the specialists considered the linking to emergent epidemiological activities allowed to finish with quality its study plan, while that the biggest percentage of the residents did not estimate it in the same way. None of the interviewed resident agreed with the interruption of the study plan in front of emergent situations. Conclusions: the linking of the medical resident to practical emergent activities can serve as incentive for the graduation of the specialists with better professional competence without abandoning the established curricular design. (shrink)

Political legitimacy and causal responsibilities are not the trumps they may appear to be in considering the justifiability of foreign intervention. Indeed, the major determinants that should guide the international laws and their enactors regarding justifiable foreign intervention are: the negative duty not to partake in an unjust system that oppresses the people of another country, moral uncertainty, and the realities of the agents in question. These jointly work to constrain the redesign of international law to a narrower scope than (...) in an ideal game-theoretic scenario. (shrink)

ABSTRACTA conditional is natural if it fulfils the three following conditions. It coincides with the classical conditional when restricted to the classical values T and F; it satisfies the Modus Ponens; and it is assigned a designated value whenever the value assigned to its antecedent is less than or equal to the value assigned to its consequent. The aim of this paper is to provide a ‘bivalent’ Belnap-Dunn semantics for all natural implicative expansions of Kleene's strong 3-valued matrix with two (...) designated elements. (shrink)

The moral community is a social community, and as such it is vulnerable to social problems and pathologies. In this essay I identify a particular way in which participation in the moral community can be constrained by social factors. I argue that features of the social world—including power imbalances, oppression, intergroup conflict, communication barriers, and stereotyping—can make it nearly impossible for some members of the moral community to hold others responsible for wrongdoing. Specifically, social circumstances prevent some marginalized people from (...) engaging in what Stephen Darwall calls “felicitous moral address” (Darwall 2006). We should think of some members of the moral community as having “second-class moral citizenship” in ways that parallel second-class political citizenship. The injustice of second-class moral citizenship can be understood by drawing an analogy with Miranda Fricker’s notion of “epistemic injustice” (Fricker 2007). Fricker’s account of how people can be undermined in their capacity as knowers can be extended to show how people can be undermined in their capacity as makers of moral claims, which can be called “claimant injustice”. (shrink)

Holobionts are symbiotic assemblages composed by a macrobe host plus its symbiotic microbiota. In recent years, the ontological status of holobionts has created a great amount of controversy among philosophers and biologists: are holobionts biological individuals or are they rather ecological communities of independent individuals that interact together? Chiu and Eberl have recently developed an eco-immunity account of the holobiont wherein holobionts are neither biological individuals nor ecological communities, but hybrids between a host and its microbiota. According to their account, (...) the microbiota is not a proper part of the holobiont. Yet, it should be regarded as a set of scaffolds that support the individuality of the host. In this paper, we approach Chiu and Eberl’s account from a metaphysical perspective and argue that, contrary to what the authors claim, the eco-immunity account entails that the microorganisms that compose the host’s microbiota are proper parts of the holobiont. Second, we argue that by claiming that holobionts are hybrids, and therefore, not biological individuals, the authors seem to be assuming a controversial position about the ontology of hybrids, which are conventionally characterized as a type of biological individual. In doing so, our paper aligns with the contemporary tendency to incorporate metaphysical resources to shed light on current biological debates and builds on that to provide additional support to the consideration of holobionts as biological individuals from an eco-immunity perspective. (shrink)