The views on the acceptability of physician-assisted suicide of lay people in a Latin American country, Colombia, have been examined. In July 2019–January 2020, 134 lay people in Bogota judged the acceptability of physician-assisted suicide in 48 realistic scenarios composed of all combinations of four factors: the patient's age, the level of incurability of the illness, the type of suffering, and the patient's request for physician-assisted suicide. In all scenarios, the patients were women receiving the best possible care. The ratings (...) were subjected to cluster analysis and analyses of variance. Three qualitatively different positions were found: Never Acceptable, Depends on the Patient's Request, and Always Acceptable. The only important factor in increasing acceptability among people not systematically opposed was the patient's request to have her life ended. The young age of some patients did not affect participants’ positions. These empirical findings suggest that most Colombian lay people are not categorically for or against physician-assisted suicide, but judge its degree of acceptability as a function of patients’ requests and other circumstances. (shrink)

Valeroso ha sido el esfuerzo de Arno Münster, filósofo franco-alemán, profesor de la Universidad de Amiens, por hacer conocer la obra de Ernst Bloch. Esta lucha, larga de muchos años de enseñanza e investigación, a veces solitaria, a veces a contracorriente de ciertas tendencias dominantes en la filosofía universitaria continental europea, se materializa una vez más con ocasión de la publicación de su último libro que reagrupa de una serie de conferencias de diverso contenido temático sobre el pensamiento de (...) Bloch, pronunciadas en distintos escenarios a lo largo de los últimos cinco años. La primera, establece una especie de cuadro comparativo entre la idea de “comprenderse a sí mismo en la existencia” de Kierkegaard, el concepto de angustia en Heidegger y la ontología del todavía-no de Bloch. (shrink)

This paper provides a historical reevaluation of the originality and implications of Avempace's critique of Aristotle's causal explanation of the motion of projectiles. It also offers a serious revision of the place which has usually been assigned to Avempace in the history of science. The views regarding projectiles defended in Avempace's Arabic commentary are in sharp opposition to the anti-Aristotelian Avempace that was known in the Medieval West through Averroes. Avempace's commentary reveals only a moderate critic of Aristotle, a critic (...) who did not, in any case, break with the master, and who, therefore, did not even go as far as Philoponus in creating a new and more profound theory of projectile motion. (shrink)

I explore three points about the relationship between C.I. Lewis’s conceptual pragmatism and W.V. Quine’s naturalized epistemology inspired by Robert Sinclair’s Quine, Conceptual Pragmatism, and the Analytic-Synthetic Distinction. First, I highlight Lewis’s long-standing commitment to Platonism about meaning and its connection to his reflective philosophical method and rejection of a linguistic account of analyticity. Second, I consider Sinclair’s claim that “Lewis’s epistemology provides no indication concerning how, despite different sensory experiences, we still come to agree on what we are talking (...) about and what counts as evidence” (2022, 113). I find more hints, especially in Lewis’s account of how we verify that two people share meaning in common. However, some of the pragmatic and broadly empirical factors Lewis appeals to are not part of Quine’s naturalized epistemology. Finally, I relate these points to Quine’s (1953/1980) claim to advance a more “thorough pragmatism” than Lewis. Quine does not say much about action, value, and ethics, but these are central parts of Lewis’s conceptual pragmatism and a source of his reluctance to abandon those parts of his epistemology that Sinclair argues Quine found dispensable. (shrink)

Este ensaio tem como objetivo examinar a relação entre Spinoza e Goethe no contexto das implicações do conceito de infinito na cultura moderna. Como ele vai da metafísica especulativa mais radical para o reino da poesia dramática? Enquanto para o filósofo o conceito de infinito é a pedra angular da construção da “definição real de Deus”, para o poeta é uma das portas da experiência, da vida, do poder e da recuperação da juventude. Este ensaio tem como objetivo expor os (...) acordos e discordâncias entre uma filosofia que define o diabo entre seres imaginários e uma poesia que coloca o ser demoníaco no centro da mitologia moderna. Fausto é um mito da razão instrumental, da vontade de Domínio, uma visão do mal e também da salvação ativa da humanidade. (shrink)

Este trabalho tem como propósito central expor uma das aspirações mais caras à filosofia de Espinosa: a liberação da faculdade de julgar, tanto como perspectiva hermenêutica como em seu significado político. A partir deste conceito, pretendese reconstruir alguns tramos do programa do filósofo, sempre enfático a respeito da liberdade, tanto no âmbito ético como no político, e os diversos significados que esta tem em sua obra. Há uma liberdade concebida sub specie aeternitatis e uma liberdade sub specie durationis? A questão (...) leva a estabelecer a relação que este filósofo tem com as coisas do mundo político, sempre movido a partir de paixões e interesses e, frequentemente, afastado de um sentido virtuoso da liberdade. Sem abandonar as aspirações de um sentido superior da liberdade, o autor sustenta que Espinosa se propõe examinar o problema da liberdade em um contexto no qual há mais prejuízos que idéias adequadas, mais temores que esperanças, mais superstição que sabedoria. (shrink)

Receptor oligomerization plays a key role in maintaining genome stability and restricting protein mutagenesis. When properly folded, protein monomers assemble as oligomeric receptors and interact with environmental ligands. In a gene-centered view, the ligand specificity expressed by these receptors is assumed to be causally predetermined by the cell genome. However, this mechanism does not fully explain how differentiated cells have come to express specific receptor repertoires and which combinatorial codes have been explored to activate their associated signaling pathways. It is (...) our contention that the plasma membrane acts as the locus where several contextual cues may be integrated. As such it allows the semiotic selection of those receptor configurations that provide cells with the minimum essential requirements for agency. The occurrence of protein misfolding makes it impossible for receptor monomers to assemble along the membrane and to sustain meaningful relationships with environmental ligands. How could a cell lineage deal with these loss-of-function mutations during evolution and restrain gene redundancy accordingly? In this paper, we will be arguing that the easiest way for bacteria clones to accomplish this goal is by getting rid of cells expressing mutated receptor proteins. The mechanism sustaining this cell selection is also occurring in many somatic tissues and its function is currently believed to counteract in vivo protein mutagenesis. Our discussion will be mainly focused on the significance and semiotic nature of the interplay between membrane receptors and the epigenetic control of gene expression, as mediated by the control of mismatched repairing and protein folding mechanisms. (shrink)

The study reported in this paper sought to examine the extent to which organisational leadership support and organisational culture explain the effect of regulation on sustainable procurement practice, as insights into this relationship is lacking in the extant literature. Useable survey data from 322 Ghanaian organisations were analysed using descriptive statistics, and structural equation modelling techniques. The analysis examined the nature of sustainable procurement practice in an African context, and the potential mediating effects of organisational leadership support and organisational culture (...) on regulation’s relationship with sustainable procurement. The findings reveal a moderate sustainable procurement practice in Ghanaian organisations, a significantly positive effect of regulation on related practices, and a mediation effect of organisational leadership support on regulation’s relationship with sustainable procurement. There was, however, no mediation effect relative to organisational culture. Potential relevance and implications of the study for theory and practice are explored in the discussion and conclusion sections. (shrink)

According to one of the most fundamental tenets in Indian Buddhist epistemology, there are only two means of knowledge - perception and inference - because there are only two objects of knowledge: the particular and the universal. This book deals with this tenet as it was expounded and substantiated in Dharmakirti's (7th c.) magnum opus, the Pramanavarttika, a work that has exerted lasting influence on Buddhist philosophy in India and Tibet up to the present day. (Series: Leipzig Studies on Culture (...) and History of South and Central Asia / Leipziger Studien zu Kultur und Geschichte Sud- und Zentralasiens - Vol. 5) [Subject: Buddhism, Religious Studies, Philosophy]. (shrink)

ZusammenfassungDieser Beitrag befasst sich mit einer wenig bekannten Kontroverse zwischen Jakob Stuchlik und Walter Slaje über die Verstrickung von Erich Frauwallner, dem renommierten Gelehrten der indischen Philosophie (1898–1974), mit NS-Institutionen. Er wirft ein neues Licht auf diese Kontroverse und zeigt die arisch-supremistische Ideologie, die sich in Frauwallners Aufteilung der Geschichte der indischen Philosophie in eine arische und eine nichtarische Periode widerspiegelt. Im Großen und Ganzen stellt sich der Aufsatz auf die Seite von Stuchlik und entlarvt Slajes Versuch, Frauwallner und bestimmte (...) Aspekte seines Werkes zu beschönigen, obwohl er sich die NS-Ideologie zu eigen machte und mit NS-Institutionen wie der Gestapo und der SA zusammenarbeitete. Darüber hinaus befasst sich der Beitrag mit Frauwallners Festhalten an Antisemitismus und arisch-supremistischer Ideologie auch nach dem Zweiten Weltkrieg und noch in den 1960er Jahren. (shrink)

This essay is drawn up to represent Francisco Suárez's system of laws. The civil law is mainly founded on the legislator's will, but this law must also be fair. The law of nations is divided into a...

Il dualismo trascendente / trascendentale come possibile chiave di lettura per una discussione del pensiero platonico.

Este artículo se propone examinar la historia de la recepción inicial de las vanguardias históricas en la literatura hispanoamericana a través de la obra de Alfonso Reyes. Sin ignorar el estallido de la Revolución Mexicana y de la Primera Guerra Mundial, el futurismo y el cubismo responden a la praxis cotidiana relacionada con el belicismo. Ambos pueden encontrarse en otros textos de Reyes escritos entre 1914 y 1924 en Madrid, donde él se había autoexiliado. Este ensayo termina comparando el vanguardismo (...) inicial de Reyes con el de Borges y Huidobro. (shrink)

The "clinical" method is one of the possible methodological choices for Pedagogy as a profession and as a research, for Social Sciences and for other sciences, as well as for the professions that refer to these sciences. It can also be called "casuistic and situational method", and it is an exclusive alternative to the statistical operational method, with a full community of scientific rigor and technical applicativeness. It consists in the consideration of the individual case and of the single person (...) with all its specific symptomatic and phenomenal characteristics, through the mediation of the professional to a general case within the limited number of general cases whose corpus makes science, profession and scientific and professional community, and in obtaining the indications for the help and the service to whom the professional has addressed. A particular reflection is dedicated to the specific technique for the transition from the particular to the general through the mediation provided by the professional, that is through human mediation, according to a non-tautological technique known from ancient Greece with the name of "abduction" or "retroduction" "Ἐπιχείρημα” or “Reductio ad absurdum” by Zeno from Elea, or 'απαγωγή known to Aristoteles. The theme offers a precious opportunity for various reflections on the profession of pedagogist and on his practice: a profession that has recently had its legal recognition in Italy too. (shrink)

Infants initiate joint attentional exchanges by pointing relevant referents out to addressees. Over the second year of life, the functional meaning of the pointing gesture develops from declarative (sharing a referent) to informational (giving some information that is new to the addressee). This chapter analyzes this transition in the development of pointing based on experimental evidence about its production contexts and, in particular, of variables concerning the visibility of referents for infant and addressee. Further evidence is reported concerning the association (...) of pointing with vocalizations and visual checking towards the addressee in different temporal sequencing. It is argued that shared attention initiated by pointing plays a pivotal role in the intersection between social cognition and language development. (shrink)

Con objetivo de comparar la autoeficacia y el desempeño en estadística de universitarios, previo y posterior a un curso de estadística tradicional y uno bajo la metodología de solución de problemas, se llevó a cabo un estudio cuasiexperimental de dos grupos intactos de 84 y 115 estudiantes de psicología, respectivamente, aplicando un test de fuentes de autoeficacia en estadística como pre y postest, un examen de matemáticas previo al curso y un examen de estadística luego del curso. Los resultados mostraron (...) diferencia significativa en el desempeño en estadística posterior al curso, siendo el grupo experimental el que tuvo mejores resultados. (shrink)