In the Commentary on the Sentences of Thomas Aquinas, creation is conceived as a “hierarchical order”. This idea, which he takes from Dionysius the Areopagite, is related to the concept of similitude used to explain the relation between God and his creation, and to the idea that he create d it to manifest his goodness. In this article I show the importance that this idea of hierarchical order has when it is applied to creation in this early work of the (...) Dominican friar. In the first place, I analyze the definition of hierarchy, and I especially focus on its relation with the idea of similitude and the importance Aquinas gives to the “law of hierarchy” as a law that ordains not only being but also the action of beings. (shrink)

La siguiente reseña explora el libro más reciente del historiador Tomás Pérez Vejo, el cual se adentra en un relato de nación construido a partir de los acervos pictóricos. El imaginario visual que se construye desde las exposiciones y críticas de pintura marca un ciclo crístico de nacimientos, tormentos, liberaciones y resurrecciones, cuyo interés primordial es su poderosa impronta en la historia oficial nacional y en cómo esta permea aún el presente.

Nos proponemos analizar el pensamiento de Álvaro García Linera, uno de los intelectuales más interesantes en lengua española, y que mayor difusión está teniendo en los últimos tiempos. Para ello, tomaremos como punto de referencia cuatro de las ideas centrales dentro de la filosofía del boliviano: proyecto político, estado, hegemonía y dominación (analizando las dos últimas de manera conjunta). Comenzaremos exponiendo las influencias de García Linera, así como las peculiaridades de sus planteamientos, para centrarnos posteriormente en la etapa de su (...) producción intelectual más reciente, y acabar con una conclusión que mencionará también algunas de las críticas más importantes que se han vertido hacia el antiguo vicepresidente. (shrink)

Since Darwin, Biology has been framed on the idea of evolution by natural selection, which has profoundly influenced the scientific and philosophical comprehension of biological phenomena and of our place in Nature. This book argues that contemporary biology should progress towards and revolve around an even more fundamental idea, that of autonomy. Biological autonomy describes living organisms as organised systems, which are able to self-produce and self-maintain as integrated entities, to establish their own goals and norms, and to promote the (...) conditions of their existence through their interactions with the environment. Topics covered in this book include organisation and biological emergence, organisms, agency, levels of autonomy, cognition, and a look at the historical dimension of autonomy. The current development of scientific investigations on autonomous organisation calls for a theoretical and philosophical analysis. This can contribute to the elaboration of an original understanding of life - including human life - on Earth, opening new perspectives and enabling fecund interactions with other existing theories and approaches. This book takes up the challenge. (shrink)

Gangestad & Simpson present an idealized model of human mate strategies based on rational economics and genetics that elides most social constraints on human sexuality. They do not deal with observable complexities of courtship nor with ambiguities in short- and long-term mating. The model successfully explicates a narrow set of premises, but cannot yet explain complex sexual behavior.

Cuando Ortega hace referencia al concepto de vocación, expone, sobre todo, características de la misma. En ese sentido, uno puede encontrar en su obra explicaciones acerca de cómo opera la vocación, en qué medida guía al hombre en el camino hacia su propia realización, cuál es la relación de la misma con la sociedad en la cual el individuo desarrolla su vida, entre otros. Lo que no explica en ningún momento, sin embargo, es qué es la vocación, esto es, cuál (...) es su naturaleza metafísica. Este trabajo pretende abordar esta cuestión y explicar de qué manera resulta más apropiado entenderla. (shrink)

The first form of the inside-outside dichotomy appears as a self-encapsulated system with an active border. These systems are based on two complementary but asymmetric processes: constructive and interactive. The former physically constitute the system as a recursive network of component production, defining an inside. The maintenance of the constructive processes implies that the internal organization also constrains certain flows of matter and energy across the border of the system, generating interactive processes. These interactive processes ensure the maintenance of the (...) constructive processes thus specifying a meaningful outside. Upon this basic form of identity formation, the evolutionary and historical domain is open for the emergence of a whole hierarchy and ecology of insides and outsides. These which mutually subsume and collaborate in the maintenance of the essential inside-outside dichotomy that defines the conditions of possibility of the subjects and the worlds they generate. (shrink)

According to the traditional nomological-deductive methodology of physics and chemistry [Hempel and Oppenheim, 1948], explaining a phenomenon means subsuming it under a law. Logic becomes then the glue of explanation and laws the primary explainers. Thus, the scientific study of a system would consist in the development of a logically sound model of it, once the relevant observables (state variables) are identified and the general laws governing their change (expressed as differential equations, state transition rules, maximization/minimization principles,. . . ) (...) are well determined, together with the initial or boundary conditions for each particular case. Often this also involves making a set of assumptions about the elementary components of the system (e.g., their structural and dynamic properties) and modes of local interaction. In this framework, predictability becomes the main goal and that is why research is carried out through the construction of accurate mathematical models. Thus, physics and chemistry have made most progress so far by focusing on systems that, either due to their intrinsic properties or to the conditions in which they are investigated, allow for very strong simplifying assumptions, under which, nevertheless, those highly idealized models of reality are deemed to be in good correspondence with reality itself. Despite the enormous success that this methodology has had, the study of living and cognitive phenomena had to follow a very different road, because these phenomena are produced by systems whose underlying material structure and organization do not permit such crude approximations. Seen from the perspective of physics or chemistry, biological and cognitive systems are made of an enormous number of parts or elements interacting in non-linear and selective ways, which makes very difficult their tractability through mathematical models. In addition, many of those interacting elements are hierarchically organized, in a way that the “macroscopic” (observable) parts behave according to rules that cannot be, in practice, derived from simple principles at the level of their “microscopic” dynamics.. (shrink)

Recent research in philosophy of science has shown that scientists rely on a plurality of strategies to develop successful explanations of different types of phenomena. In the case of biology, most of these strategies go far beyond the traditional and reductionistic models of scientific explanation that have proven so successful in the fundamental sciences. Concretely, in the last two decades, philosophers of science have discovered the existence of at least two different types of scientific explanation at work in the biological (...) sciences, namely: mechanistic and structural explanations. Despite the growing evidence about the radically different nature of these two types of explanation, no inquiry has been conducted to date to determine the ontological reasons that might underlie these differences, nor the way in which these types of explanations can be systematically related with each other. Here, we aim to cover this gap by connecting this plurality of research strategies with the existence of emergent levels of reality. We argue that the existence of these different—and apparently incompatible—explanatory strategies to account for biological phenomena derives from the existence of “ontological jumps” in nature, which generate different regimes of causation that in turn demand the development of different explanatory frameworks. We identify two of these strategies—mechanistic modelling and network modelling—and connect them to the existence of two ontological regimes of causation. Finally, we relate them with each other in a systematic way. In this vein, our paper provides an ontological justification for the plurality of explanatory strategies that we see in the life sciences. (shrink)

Ethical veganism is the view that raising animals for food is an immoral practice that must be stopped because of the harm it causes to the animals, the environment, and our health. Carlo Alvaro argues the only way to stop that harm is to acquire the virtues that enable us to act justly and benevolently toward animals.

Many moral philosophers have criticized intensive animal farming because it can be harmful to the environment, it causes pain and misery to a large number of animals, and furthermore eating meat and animal-based products can be unhealthful. The issue of industrially farmed animals has become one of the most pressing ethical questions of our time. On the one hand, utilitarians have argued that we should become vegetarians or vegans because the practices of raising animals for food are immoral since they (...) minimize the overall happiness. Deontologists, on the other hand, have argued that the practices of raising animals for food are immoral because animals have certain rights and we have duties toward them. Some virtue ethicists remain unconvinced of deontic and consequentialist arguments against the exploitation of animals and suggest that a virtue-based approach is better equipped to show what is immoral about raising and using animals for food, and what is virtuous about ethical veganism. (shrink)

This article shows the results of an investigation registered in the field of pedagogy. The scenario and starting point to situate our company is the fact of knowing that the subordination of education is increasingly greater than the mechanisms of the free market economy; besides that, a real reform of the education will not be carried out if the elements for the construction of the professional identity of the educator are not analyzed in depth, we think that a substantial reform (...) of the educative system involves the reconstruction of the educator's identity from the perspective philosophical, for this reason our goal is to help uncover the educator reason to be, that is, to expose –in front of present concealment– his identity, as well as to explain the keys of constitution of the educational act. (shrink)

Este ensayo analiza el tema de la pobreza y la desigualdad global desde una perspectiva filosófica. En este respecto se revisa la relación de los estudios filosóficos con respecto a la pobreza, se analiza si la noción de pobreza puede ser considerada como una idea filosófica, al igual que conceptos como desarrollo, capacidades, igualad o agencia. Se discute la correlación entre pobreza y desigualdad económica, se establece que no existe una correlación robusta entre ambos fenómenos. Por último, se presentan cuatro (...) modelos de interpretación de la relación entre pobreza y desigualdad global. Estos modelos van desde los más simplistas a los holistas y complejos. (shrink)

The aim of this commentary article is to discuss several problems in the distribution map for conscious organisms and suggest a different strategy to address their evolutionary development. I propose to complement the model of Unlimited Associative Learning (UAL) that Jablonka and Ginsburg present in their Target Article with the additional consideration of how body plans constrain the possibilities of evolution of the brain— in some cases blocking, in some others enabling its complexification and corporal integration. In my view, the (...) specific body plan of vertebrates has played a key role in the complexification and diversification of consciousness because it has favored an increasing integration between brain and body. (shrink)

The Heythrop Journal, Volume 63, Issue 5, Page 869-885, September 2022.

The project of growing meat artificially represents for some the next best thing to humanity. If successful, it could be the solution to several problems, such as feeding a growing global population while reducing the environmental impact of raising animals for food and, of course, reducing the amount and degree of animal cruelty and suffering that is involved in animal farming. In this paper, I argue that the issue of the morality of such a project has been framed only in (...) terms of the best consequences for the environment, animals, and humans, or in terms of deontic principles. I argue that to appreciate how deep and difficult this issue is, it is necessary to consider it in terms of a virtue-oriented approach. Such an approach will reveal aspects that are not apparent, not contemplated by typical approaches, but are essential to our understanding of the morality of lab-grown meat. As I argue, evaluating the issue from a virtue-oriented perspective suggests that the project of in vitro meat should not be supported because it stems from unvirtuous motivations. (shrink)

The project of growing meat artificially represents for some the next best thing to humanity. If successful, it could be the solution to several problems, such as feed- ing a growing global population while reducing the environmental impact of raising animals for food and, of course, reducing the amount and degree of animal cruelty and suffering that is involved in animal farming. In this paper, I argue that the issue of the morality of such a project has been framed only (...) in terms of the best conse- quences for the environment, animals, and humans, or in terms of deontic princi- ples. I argue that to appreciate how deep and difficult this issue is, it is necessary to consider it in terms of a virtue-oriented approach. Such an approach will reveal aspects that are not apparent, not contemplated by typical approaches, but are essen- tial to our understanding of the morality of lab-grown meat. As I argue, evaluating the issue from a virtue-oriented perspective suggests that the project of in vitro meat should not be supported because it stems from unvirtuous motivations. (shrink)

We attempt to distinguish, in a biological frame, ontogenetical adaptation from learning. Ontogenetical adaptation arises as a second order (sensorimotor) loop on the ground of the operational closure that provides autonomy and reproductive identity to the living system. Adaptation ensures, through perception, the functional correlation between metabolicmotor states and the states of the environment. Learning brings about a qualitative change in regard to adaptation, the most generic and simple form of optimization at an individual scale. It implies the idea of (...) new knowledge, in the sense that the organism links what formerly appeared as an undistinguished whole. In other words, it means the capability to change its own codes of meaning. Finally, we outline some basic ideas for modelling an adaptive sensor embedded in a (partially) autonomous system, which implies the former distinction between adaptation and learning. (shrink)

Para elaborar sua filosofia civil, Thomas Hobbes preliminarmente se dedicou ao exame daquilo que constitui a república: o homem. Em sua análise da dinâmica afetivo-cognitiva humana, tecida a partir dos conceitos de sensação, imagem, linguagem e paixão, o conceito de imaginação é apresentado como um resíduo da experiência sensível no corpo. Como tal, uma imagem estará sujeita a se eclipsar sob a luz de imagens mais fortes ou mais recentes, que podem apagá-la da mente tomando o seu lugar. O ato (...) ou faculdade de imaginar, a imaginação — para Hobbes “sensação em declínio” —, é memória, que exprime no presente a sensação passada. Lançada ao futuro, a imagem mantém-se na expressão do medo ou da esperança, paixões que impelem aos homens serem credores de certo esquema de poder. A imaginação dá a forma da expectativa, que projeta passado e presente ao futuro, como uma profecia autorrealizável, garantido a estabilidade do poder e da riqueza. (shrink)

El llamado “argumento maestro” de Berkeley, por el cual demuestra su principio _esse est percipi_, ha recibido críticas mixtas por parte de los comentaristas: algunos defienden su validez desde sus propias interpretaciones y otros lo acusan de falaz con base en diversas objeciones. El presente artículo defiende al argumento maestro de tres objeciones por parte de Russell, Pitcher y Tipton, las cuales son referidas como _“objeción de la confusión entre el acto perceptivo y el objeto percibido”, “objeción de la confusión (...) entre el concepto del objeto y el objeto mismo” y “objeción del solipsismo del presente”_. El autor propone su propia lectura del argumento maestro para evitar malentendidos y sostiene que dicho argumento cobra su verdadero sentido a partir de los siguientes puntos: la aclaración de los conceptos berkeleyanos de _idea y percepción_; la explicitación de la_ intencionalidad_ de la percepción en el sentido de su _dirección intencional_ hacia objetos intencionales (ideas); y la distinción entre los _dos niveles de dirección intencional de la percepción mediata_ (de una idea _por medio_ de otra), a saber: uno dirigido al _concepto o representación mental como su objeto intencional inmediato_ y el otro dirigido al _objeto representado_ como su _objeto intencional mediato_. (shrink)

The transition from chemistry to biology is an extremely complex issue because of the huge phenomenological differences between the two domains and because this transition has many different aspects and dimensions. In this paper, I will try to analyze how chemical systems have developed a cohesive, self-maintaining and functionally differentiated system that recruits its organization to stay far from equilibrium. This organization cannot exist but in an individualized form, and yet, it unfolds both a diachronic-historical and a synchronic collective dimension. (...) I will argue that, far from being a problem, these different dimensions of the phenomenon of life, appear as a consequence of the nature of this individualized organization. (shrink)

El año 2021 marca un punto de inflexión en Jordania, con la creación de una Comisión Real para la Modernización Política. El objetivo es crear un sistema de partidos que deje atrás las dinámicas clientelistas que en el pasado habían capturado el parlamento. A pesar de ello, el legislativo sigue supeditado al resto de poderes del Estado, y todavía no existe el espacio físico ni digital para que la sociedad se organice en líneas ideológicas.