Es bien conocida la posición crítica que Albert Einstein mantuvo frente a la interpretación del nuevo formalismo cuántico que se gestó en torno al Instituto de Física Teórica de Copenhague, dirigido por Niels Bohr, desde la tercera década del siglo XX hasta el fin de sus días. Simplificando la cuestión, suele afirmarse que aquel defendió una concepción realista de la ciencia, a diferencia de físicos como el propio Bohr, Werner Heisenberg, Wolfgang Pauli, también Max Born, y otros. Asimismo, frecuentemente se (...) atribuye esa defensa del realismo científico a posiciones “conservadoras”, en la medida en que no supo adaptarse a las nuevas concepciones que exigía el mundo microfísico. En el presente artículo se pretende analizar el tipo de realismo preconizado por este eminente científico en el marco de sus convicciones epistemológicas, lo cual permitirá perfilar mejor cuál fue el fondo de su polémica con Bohr y, en general, su interpretación de la mecánica cuántica. Para ello se comienza analizando la relación entre teoría y experiencia, así como la noción einsteiniana de “realidad”, para pasar después a considerar su modo de concebir la noción de sistema cuántico individual, noción en la que convergen sus principales tesis acerca de la mencionada cuestión de la interpretación de la teoría cuántica. (shrink)

Volume 31, Issue 4, December 2017, Page 429-432.

The formulation in 1927 of the so called uncertainty principle by Werner Heisenberg was originated to resolve a problem with wich it apparently did not bear any relation: the possible intuitive content of the quantum theory, whose mathematic formalism had already been constituted at the end of 1925. The work’s objective consists in the detailed showing of the ideas which lead to it’s obtainment, apart from all discussion relative to the determinist or indeterminist behavior of atomic systems.

The execution of critical thinking depends on a set of skills and dispositions. It is unanimously accepted that skills represent the cognitive component, but consensus varies with regard to dispositions. Although most theoreticians admit that this is a complex construct integrated by motivations and mental habits, they don’t explain further. We have performed a study attempting to explore the internal structure of dispositions. We suggest a possible hypothesis of “Motivational Genesis of Dispositions,” according to which disposition would be formed by (...) motivation and by mental habits, although the contribution of each of these factors would change depending on the practice gained in critical thinking. Thus, when a person is not practised in critical thinking, motivation makes a greatercontribution than mental habits. Nevertheless, with practice and motivated exercise of the skills of critical thinking, the influence of these mental habits increases. The regression analyses carried out support such a hypothesis. (shrink)

Traditionally, it has been held that critical thinking requires a set of cognitive skills and dispositions. The present work supports the opinion of some theorists who have proposed that these might not be the only two ingredients necessary for improving critical thinking. More specifically, new factors could be necessary if critical thinking is to be achieved, such as gaining an epistemological understanding of critical thinking; reaching a given level of epistemological development, or the beliefs that are held about thinking. These (...) new components are analysed conceptually and instructionally. Special attention is also devoted to dispositions. (shrink)

Desde un marco lingüístico funcional y cognitivo, se estudia el efecto de los preverbios añadidos en un Verbo de Manera de Moverse: volare. El corpus se establece desde toda la obra poética de Ovidio a partir del estudio de la diferencia semántica y gramatical de volare en forma simple y compuesta y la alteración de la telicidad y transitivación de las cláusulas.El latín es una lengua de marco por satélite y por lo tanto la añadidura de preverbios corroborará o no (...) las hipótesis establecidas acerca de sus efectos. (shrink)

IntroductionThis study aimed to evaluate, in adults with mild cognitive impairment, the brain atrophy that may distinguish between three AT biomarker-based profiles, and to determine its clinical value.MethodsStructural MRI was employed to evaluate the volume and cortical thickness differences in MCI patients with different AT profiles, namely, A−T−−: normal AD biomarkers; A+T−−: AD pathologic change; and A+T++: prodromal AD. Sensitivity and specificity of these changes were also estimated.ResultsAn initial atrophy in medial temporal lobe areas was found in the A+T−− and (...) A+T++ groups, spreading toward the parietal and frontal regions in A+T++ patients. These structural changes allowed distinguishing AT profiles within the AD continuum; however, the profiles and their pattern of neurodegeneration were unsuccessful to determine the current clinical status.ConclusionsMRI is useful in the determination of the specific brain structural changes of AT profiles along the AD continuum, allowing differentiation between MCI adults with or without pathological AD biomarkers. (shrink)

El objetivo fue examinar el valor del ocio lúdico y cultural compartido entre abuelos y nietos para el bienestar de ambas generaciones. Se utilizaron técnicas cuantitativas -cuestionario ad hoc administrado a 1080 estudiantes de primaria- y cualitativas-2 grupos de discusión-. Las actividades lúdicas y culturales fueron preferentesen el ocio compartido, practicándose más con las abuelas. Como aportacionesdestacaron el incremento de la comunicación, la diversión, el aprendizaje mutuo y elbienestar afectivo. La práctica de ocio cultural y lúdico intergeneracional se asociópositivamente con (...) la valoración de una mejor relación entre nietos y abuelos. (shrink)

The somatic mutation theory (SMT) of cancer has been and remains the prevalent theory attempting to explain how neoplasms arise and progress. This theory proposes that cancer is a clonal, cell‐based disease, and implicitly assumes that quiescence is the default state of cells in multicellular organisms. The SMT has not been rigorously tested, and several lines of evidence raise questions that are not addressed by this theory. Herein, we propose experimental strategies that may validate the SMT. We also call attention (...) to an alternative theory of carcinogenesis, the tissue organization field theory (TOFT), which posits that cancer is a tissue‐based disease and that proliferation is the default state of all cells. Based on epistemological and experimental evidence, we argue that the TOFT compellingly explains carcinogenesis, while placing it within an evolutionarily relevant context.magnified imagemagnified imageAna Soto and Carlos Sonnenschein are at Tufts University School of Medicine, Boston, MA, USA. (shrink)

Studies of creative industries typically contend that creative work is profoundly precarious, taking place on a freelance basis in highly competitive, individualized and contingent labour markets. Such studies depict creative workers as correspondingly self-enterprising, self-reliant, self-interested and calculative agents who valorise care-free independence. In contrast, we adopt the ‘ethics of care’ approach to explore, recognize and appreciate the communitarian, relational and moral considerations as well as interpersonal connectedness and interdependencies that underpin creative work. Drawing on in-depth interviews with creative workers (...) in a range of marginal socio-cultural contexts, we argue that creative workers cultivate and sustain a diverse array of practices of care arising from an affective concern with the well-being of others. Far from being merely individualistic and crudely competitive actors, creative workers enact practical ethical responsibilities and affectivities towards a range of human and non-human others, including families, local communities and neighbourhoods, colleagues, artistic scenes and their adjacent genres, and surrounding national and linguistic cultures. In emphasizing the fundamental and structuring role of care in contingent labour markets our approach accords with recent trends in the social sciences that ‘affirmatively’—as opposed to ‘negatively’ and ‘suspiciously’—recognize that mutuality, solidarity and affectivity are powerful drivers of action on a par with or even exceeding market-driven self-centredness. (shrink)

Authentic leadership has become increasingly important in the literature, attracting the attention of many scholars in the last decade. This study adopted an employee-centered perspective to guide its examination of the relationship between authentic leadership and individual performance and investigation of the sequential mediation of employees’ affective commitment and individual creativity. An analysis was conducted of data collected from 214 employees working in different business sectors. The results reveal a statistically significant positive relationship between authentic leadership and employees’ workplace performance, (...) which are both directly connected and indirectly linked through the two proposed psychosocial mechanisms. The findings thus indicate that authentic leadership reinforces workers’ emotional connection with their organizations, thereby increasing their individual creativity and, subsequently, promoting better on-the-job performance. This study presents new and significant results since, on the one hand, it relied on a sequential mediation analysis of variables and, on the other hand, integrated the four main constructs into a single model. The proposed model displays the chain of effects between authentic leadership, affective commitment, individual creativity, and employee workplace performance. Implications for organizational management are discussed. (shrink)

How do we acquire a mental representation of our own face? Recently, synchronous, but not asynchronous, interpersonal multisensory stimulation between one’s own and another person’s face has been used to evoke changes in self-identification . We investigated the conscious experience of these changes with principal component analyses that revealed that while the conscious experience during synchronous IMS focused on resemblance and similarity with the other’s face, during asynchronous IMS it focused on multisensory stimulation. Analyses of the identified common factor structure (...) revealed significant quantitative differences between synchronous and asynchronous IMS on self-identification and perceived similarity with the other’s face. Experiment 2 revealed that participants with lower interoceptive sensitivity experienced stronger enfacement illusion. Overall, self-identification and body-ownership rely on similar basic mechanisms of multisensory integration, but the effects of multisensory input on their experience are qualitatively different, possibly underlying the face’s unique role as a marker of selfhood. (shrink)

Codes of medical ethics (codes) are part of a longstanding tradition in which physicians publicly state their core values and commitments to patients, peers, and the public. However, codes are not static. Using the historical evolution of the Canadian Medical Association's Code of Ethics as an illustrative case, we argue that codes are living, socio-historically situated documents that comprise a mix of prescriptive and aspirational content. Reflecting their socio-historical situation, we can expect the upheaval of the COVID-19 pandemic to prompt (...) calls to revise codes. Indeed, Alex John London has argued in favour of specific modifications to the World Medical Association's International Code of Medical Ethics (which has since been revised) in light of moral and scientific failures that occurred during the COVID-19 pandemic. Responding to London, we address the more general question: should codes be modified to reflect lessons drawn from the COVID-19 pandemic or future such upheavals? We caution that codes face limitations as instruments of policy change because they are inherently interpretive and ‘multivocal’, that is, they usually underdetermine or provide more than one answer to the question, ‘What should I do now?’ Nonetheless, as both prescriptive and aspirational documents, codes also serve as tools for reflection and deliberation—collective practices that are necessary to engaging with and addressing the moral and scientific uncertainties inherent to medicine. (shrink)

This article argues that thinking about entrepreneurship as a potential instrument for relief from endemic poverty and disadvantage, especially among the Indigenous, has all too often been captive to a concept of entrepreneurship that is built out of constrained economic and cultural assumptions. The authors develop this argument from a critical discussion of contributions by Karl Polanyi and Robert Heilbroner. The result is that approaches to venture have been encouraged that are sometimes a poor fit for the circumstances of those (...) they are meant to benefit, and other forms that could have considerable promise have gone unexplored. This article outlines some features of Indigenous culture and build on the analysis of David Harper to construct an improved notion of entrepreneurship that allows for these distinctive features. The article concludes that research and policy making concerning entrepreneurship as an instrument of development among the Indigenous need to be undertaken with this reconstructed understanding of entrepreneurship that is a better fit for the realities of Indigenous culture. (shrink)

Bioethical decision-making depends on presuppositions about the function and goal of bioethics. The authors in this issue of The Journal of Medicine and Philosophy share the assumption that bioethics is about resolving cases, not about moral theory, and that the best method of bioethical decision-making is that which produces useful answers. Because we have no universally agreed upon background moral theory which can serve as the basis for bioethical decision-making, they try to move bioethics away from theory. For them, a (...) good method of bioethical decision-making is one which resolves cases in ways that are justifiable to the parties involved, not necessarily in ways that bring us ‘close’ to the right and the true. The authors consider how the move away from theory and toward actual cases is best accomplished. In particular, the debate in this issue is about specification, specified principlism, and casuistry. (shrink)

Fencing for the blind and visually impaired is an emerging sub-discipline of fencing that creates unusual conditions for meaning-making through interaction between embodied endowments and worldly affordances. With the rules of fencing slightly adjusted to the needs of the blindfolded participants – regardless of their sightedness – the discipline requires the fencers to engage in a duel by relying on other than visual cues. This article explores what an autoethnographic account of experiences of participation in fencing for the blind and (...) visually impaired brings to debates on the embodied, and specifically sensory difference. The discussion of these experiences intersects with debates on affect, affordance, and habit, with all three having important roles in related semiotic processes. Presented vignettes draw upon the author’s lived experiences of participation in fencing for the blind and visually impaired and are analyzed as part of a mixed-method autoethnographic study, accompanied by sensory methodologies, with a focus on an inquiry beyond the visual. The vignettes elucidate how we make sense of our surroundings through a complex engagement with the ecology of sensory and affective processes. In addition to exploring the role of affective and pre-conceptual aspects of our experiences, the article seeks to understand how semiosis occurs through both exposure to as well as the active pursuit of specific environmental signs available to us. The article also derives from biosemiotics to examine the complex relationship between meaning-making processes and habits. Finally, the autoethnographic account provides an insight into how we habituate the world and our embodied differences and thus enable meaning-making processes. (shrink)

Examining how new forms of currencies diffuse is important to uncover their impact on the organization of communities, and thus motivates our study of community currencies. Community currencies provide a medium of exchange by using alternative banknotes or electronic money, which circulates only within particular communities, allowing members to trade goods, increase social cohesion, and achieve collective goals. In this study, we examine how community currencies help facilitate social commons by serving as a setting for building community relationships and a (...) catalyst for other social activities beyond market relations. We analyze cases of community banks that provide microfinance and issue community currencies in Brazil. We find that microfinance entrepreneurs who involve a greater diversity of stakeholders from public, private, and nonprofit sectors in decision making even prior to startup, while also facilitating the formation of supportive social capital from diverse cross-sector stakeholders, increase opportunities for developing new community currencies. By exploring the implications of entrepreneurial actions that promote inclusive participation of diverse stakeholders for accomplishing collective goals, our findings are relevant for other activities that create a common pool of resources while also developing the vitality of the community, including initiatives that use cryptocurrencies and other emerging forms of currencies for building social commons. (shrink)

The contemporary confluence of globalization and ethical pluralism is at the origin of many ethical challenges that confront business nowadays, both in practice and in theory. One of the challenges arising from the development of globalization has to do with respect for cultural diversity. It is often said that the success of economic globalization tends towards social and cultural homogeneity. To the extent that cultural diversity is usually seen as a valuable reality, that global trend seems to contradict our efforts (...) to respect ethical pluralism, both personal and cultural, within society. In this paper I argue that (a) ethical minimalism, despite its emphasis on tolerance and justice, does not take pluralism seriously into account in present-day society, and (b) ethical minimalism is not suited to balancing the homogenizing trend of globalization. Certainly ethical norms are necessary, but by no means are they sufficient in themselves to encourage either justice or tolerance; nor are they sufficient to inspire and encourage good practices and sound regulations. Instead, virtue-based ethics has the capacity of inspiring and encouraging good practices. Particularly, virtue-based ethics is able to inspire a serious dialogue about ethical and legal issues both in the public arena and within organizations. (shrink)

This article deals with the relationship between argumentation and persuasion. It defends the idea that these two concepts are not as opposed as all too often said. If it is important to recognize their differences (there are argumentative discourses without persuasion and persuasive discourses without argumentation), there is nevertheless an overlap, in which characteristics are taken from both. We propose to call this overlap “persuasive argumentation”. In order to bridge argumentation and persuasion, we will first distinguish the latter from manipulation. (...) In the second part of this article, we will analyze four cases of persuasive argumentation: the enthymeme, a few rhetorical figures, narration and visual argumentation. (shrink)

In this study, we aim to disentangle pantomime from early signs in a newly-born sign language: Sao Tome and Principe Sign Language. Our results show that within 2 years of their first contact with one another, a community of 100 participants interacting everyday was able to build a shared language. The growth of linguistic systematicity, which included a decrease in use of pantomime, reduction of the amplitude of signs and an increase in articulation economy, showcases a learning, and social interaction (...) process that constitutes a continuum and not a cut-off system. The human cognitive system is endowed with mechanisms for symbolization that allow the process of arbitrariness to unfold and the expansion of linguistic complexity. Our study helps to clarify the role of pantomime in a new sign language and how this role might be linked with language itself, showing implications for language evolution research. (shrink)

For the last 50 years the dominant stance in experimental biology has been reductionism in general, and genetic reductionism in particular. Philosophers were the first to realize that the belief that the Mendelian genes were reduced to DNA molecules was questionable. Soon, experimental data confirmed these misgivings. The optimism of molecular biologists, fueled by early success in tackling relatively simple problems has now been tempered by the difficulties encountered when applying the same simple ideas to complex problems. We analyze three (...) examples taken from experimental data that illustrate the shortcomings of this sort of reductionism. In the first, alterations in the expression of a large number of genes coexist with normal phenotypes at supra-cellular levels of organization; in the second, the supposed intrinsic specificity of hormonal signals is negated; in the third, the notion that cancer is a cellular problem caused by mutated genes is challenged by data gathered both from the reductionist viewpoint and the alternative view proposing that carcinogenesis is development gone awry. As an alternative to reductionism, we propose that the organicist view is a good starting point from which to explore these phenomena. However, new theoretical concepts are needed to grapple with the apparent circular causality of complex biological phenomena. (shrink)

In her recent book Gillian Brock argues that states’ legitimacy depends on their being part of a just state system that protects human rights. Here I discuss some practical limitations raised by Brock’s legitimacy framework: mainly, (1) the problematic real-world implications of such an account, and (2) the epistemic challenges that judgements inspired by this account would have to face, were we to proceed solely on the basis of it.

Online education has become an essential component of education. Thus, several factors, such as the student’s learning strategy and motivation, generally contribute to their academic success. This study investigates the relationship between learning strategies, motivation, and online learning environment among 150 first-year college students. Employing correlational design, the statistical findings of the study reveal that the r coefficient of 0.59 indicates a moderate positive correlation between the variables. The p-value of 0.00, which is less than 0.05, leads to the decision (...) to reject the null hypothesis. Hence, a significant relationship exists between learning strategies, motivation, and the online learning environment. (shrink)

Public decisions concerning large projects with detrimental environmental or heritage impacts involve value conflicts which stem from the diverse interests and variety of ways of evaluating the costs and benefits of such projects. They are also framed by institutionalised procedures and practices which favour certain concerns to the detriment of others. This paper aims to contribute towards a better understanding of how these procedures and practices, namely decision support tools such as the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA), tend to shape public (...) decision-making processes in particular ways. It draws on a study of the public controversy surrounding the Foz Tua dam in Portugal, with a focus on the values upheld by the different parties in the controversy and their interplay in the production of justifications, specifically the actors’ positions on values and value conflicts and the restrictions posed by institutionalised public decision-making procedures on the expression and consideration of certain values. (shrink)

In this essay I present some of my thoughts on the issue of boundaries in the professional relationship between service users and social workers. As a graduate student of social work, I had an opportunity to discuss ethical dilemmas in an international perspective in one of my courses. A guest professor, who provided international perspectives, was Prof. Kim Strom from UNC at Chapel Hill in North Carolina, USA. The lectures offered a fresh perspective that raised many questions about thick and (...) thin boundaries in social work – especially when approaching social work by following prevailing guidelines for social work in Slovenia requiring us to co-create solutions through dialogue with service users, keeping in mind that service users are actually the ones who are the experts from experience. In this way, the working relationship seeks to foster a sense of partnership between social workers and service users. In this essay I would like to challenge the idea of rigid boundaries in social work and explore the possibility of fluid boundaries, keeping in mind that boundaries should reflect their main purpose, which I believe is to protect human dignity. (shrink)

BackgroundThe European Charter of Patients' Rights (ECPR) presents basic patients' rights in health care. We analysed the characteristics of patients' complaints about their rights submitted through the official complaints system and to a non-governmental organization in Croatia.MethodsThe official system for patients’complaints in Croatia does not have a common pathway but offers different modes for addressing patient complaints. In this cross-sectional study, we analysed the reports about patients’ complaints from the official regional committees sent to the Ministry of Health. We also (...) analysed the complaints received by the Croatian Association for the Protection of Patient’s Rights (CAPR) and mapped them to the ECPR.ResultsThe aggregated official data from the Ministry of Health in 2017 and 2018 covered only 289 individual complaints from 10 out of 21 counties. Complaints were most frequently related to secondary and tertiary healthcare institutions and details were not provided. CAPR received a total of 440 letters, out of which 207 contained 301 complaints about violations of patients’ rights in 2017–2018. The most common complaint was the Right of Access to health care (35.3%) from the ECPR, followed by the Right to Information (29.9%) and the Right to Safety (21.7%). The fewest complaints were about the Right to Complain (1.9%), Right to Innovation (1.4%), Right to Compensation (1.4%), and Right to Preventive Measures (1.0%).ConclusionsReporting and dealing with patients’ complaints about violations of their patients’ rights does not appear to be effective in a system with parallel but uncoordinated complaints pathways. Mapping patient's complaints to the ECPR is a useful tool to assess the perception of patients’ rights and to plan actions to improve the complaints system for effective health care. (shrink)

This book advances a 'naturalized' normative theory of deliberative democracy; one that is informed by an empirically-grounded analysis of public deliberation in naturalistic settings and in unadulterated form, and goes on to provide institutional design proposals for how to improve it.

Este artigo analisa os conceitos de sexualidade e gênero na contemporaneidade. Procura-se identificar as produções bibliográficas recentes em vários campos de conhecimento e seus limites e avanços epistemológicos para entender outras relações sociais e os novos contextos diaspóricos na produção de sexualidades, raça, gênero, afetividade e corpo na pós-colonialidade.

Since the cessation of Mapuche guerrilla warfare against Chileans in 1881, machis who are predominantly women, have progressively incorporated aspects of traditional warring into their shamanic healing and performance of collective nguiUatun rituals. Guns, knives, war cries, and male pre‐war bonding acts are used by machis to "kill" or "defeat" illness, evil, and the effects of acculturation on their patients and the community. Acculturation is often seen by the Chilean Mapuche as the root of illness, evil, and alienation. All three (...) are conceived as enemies that threaten the Mapuche self from the outside and are detrimental to the physical and spiritual well‐being of the individual or group. While ritual played an important role in gaining supernatural help to strengthen warriors in the past, the warring complex in ritual, and healing in particular, is crucial in reinforcing contemporary Mapuche identity, traditions, and wholeness. I analyze the performance of spiritual warfare in healing and collective ritual as the Mapuche way of aggressively advocating the opposition between self, tradition, and life on one hand, and otherness, acculturation, and death, on the other. (shrink)

This paper will address the collaborative networks and the gendered organization of the scientific work at the first Unit on Human Genetics of the Mexican Institute for Social Security. There, women and men had different tasks, duties and authority according to their gender and individual and professional skills. I will focus on physician Susana Kofman, who specialized in cytogenetics with Jérôme Lejeune and Jean de Grouchy in France, and physician Leonor Buentello, who graduated in virus genetics in Germany. This narrative (...) intends to return them to the forefront of the history of cytogenetics and to illustrate the contribution of women to scientific developments when research on human genetics was becoming a medical domain for diagnosis at an international level. (shrink)

The proposed reflection intends to present the problem of judicial adjudication as a substantially-axiologically founded autonomous moment on the practical realization of law, and to explore this understanding in confrontation with external exigencies, mostly teleologically determined—hence, beyond strict deductive application, as a syllogistic reference of facts to norms, and finalistically determined decision, as an option among possible alternatives to achieve specific aims. The main objective is to enter into a discussion on the methodological meaning of “integrity”, “hard cases” and “right (...) answer”, as presented by Ronald Dworkin, and a critical reflection on the criticism of that approach levelled by Neil MacCormick, so as to confront the relevance of principle and policy arguments, in order to bring about a different methodological approach, an alternative jurisprudentialist conception of adjudication, incorporating a practical-normative constitutive dialectics between legal controversy and legal system, such as that presented by Castanheira Neves. The focus will, then, be the legitimacy of the connection of arguments of principle and consequentialist arguments in adjudication, its selection and its justification, stating, therefore, a specifically assumed judicium, a judicative decision, having the legal system as its horizon of normative reference and of substantial and institutional autonomy. (shrink)