The birth of bioethics in Spain—and the rest of Europe—has not necessarily been a replication of what happened in North America, despite the arguments made by a number of mainstream American authors. From a European perspective, this thesis looks incomplete at best, if not entirely erroneous. Let us see why.

During the last thirty years different methods have been proposed in order to manage and resolve ethical quandaries, specially in the clinical setting. Some of these methodologies are based on the principles of Decision-making theory. Others looked to other philosophical traditions, like Principlism, Hermeneutics, Narrativism, Casuistry, Pragmatism, etc. This paper defends the view that deliberation is the cornerstone of any adequate methodology. This is due to the fact that moral decisions must take into account not only principles and ideas, but (...) also emotions, values and beliefs. Deliberation is the process in which everyone concerned by the decision is considered a valid moral agent, obliged to give reasons for their own points of view, and to listen to the reasons of others. The goal of this process is not the reaching of a consensus but the enrichment of one's own point of view with that of the others, increasing in this way the maturity of one's own decision, in order to make it more wise or prudent. In many cases the members of a group of deliberation will differ in the final solution of the case, but the confrontation of their reasons will modify the perception of the problem of everyone. This is the profit of the process. Our moral decisions cannot be completely rational, due to the fact that they are influenced by feelings, values, beliefs, etc., but they must be reasonable, that is, wise and prudent. Deliberation is the main procedure to reach this goal. It obliges us to take others into account, respecting their different beliefs and values and prompting them to give reasons for their own points of view. This method has been traditional in Western clinical medicine all over its history, and it should be also the main procedure for clinical ethics. (shrink)

The goal of education is the promotion of the intellectual, moral and human skills as well as the character of human beings. In Kantian terms, it is to foster their autonomy. This is a quite strange activity, given most of the influences the environment exerts on human beings are pursuing the exact opposite: compel us to do what they want us to, that is, to act heteronomously. Ethics is quite the only academic discipline whose direct aim is to empower people (...) to do what they should; hence its enormous importance, comparable to its complexity. But all throughout Western history, ethics has also fallen into the habit of promoting heteronomy over autonomy. Such practice claims for immediate correction in such a troubled moment as the initial steps of the 21st century. (shrink)

What does autonomy mean from a moral point of view? Throughout Western history, autonomy has had no less than four different meanings. The first is political: the capacity of old cities and modern states to give themselves their own laws. The second is metaphysical, and was introduced by Kant in the second half of the 18th century. In this meaning, autonomy is understood as an intrinsic characteristic of all rational beings. Opposed to this is the legal meaning, in which actions (...) are called autonomous when performed with due information and competency and without coercion. This last meaning, the most frequently used in bioethics, is primarily legal instead of moral. Is there a proper moral meaning of the word autonomy? If so, this would be a fourth meaning. Acts can only be called moral when they are postconventional (using the terminology coined by Lawrence Kohlberg), inner-directed (as expressed by David Riesman), and responsible (according to Hannah Arendt). Such acts are autonomous in this new, fourth, and to my mind, the only one proper, moral meaning. The goal of ethics cannot be other than forming human beings capable of making autonomous and responsible decisions, and doing so because they think this is their duty and not because of any other nonmoral motivation, like comfort, convenience, or satisfaction. The goal of ethics is to promote postconventional and mature human beings. This was what Socrates tried to do with the young people of Athens. And it is also the objective of every course of ethics and of any process of training. (shrink)

En el año 1986 Diego Gracia publicó el libro `Voluntad de verdad: Para leer a Zubiri`, que pronto se consagró como la obra de referencia para una primera introducción al pensamiento del filósofo español. Pero han pasado desde entonces treinta años, las obras publicadas de Zubiri y sobre Zubiri se han multiplicado, su interpretación ha ido evolucionando y el conocimiento sobre él es cada vez más amplio y profundo. Ya no es hora de hacer introducciones a su filosofía (...) sino análisis detallados y críticos de la misma. Eso es lo que Gracia ha intentado en múltiples trabajos sobre el tema publicados en diferentes lugares a lo largo de estas tres décadas (y en algunos que se publican por primera vez aquí). Antonio Pintor-Ramos se ha encargado de revisar todos esos trabajos, seleccionarlos, ordenarlos y formar con ellos el presente volumen, que ha resultado no ser una simple recopilación de textos sino un libro perfectamente organizado y sistemático. Esta obra ofrece, por tanto, una revisión actual del pensamiento de Zubiri, profunda y detallada, que sintetiza las diversas interpretaciones realizadas sobre él a la vez que expone con argumentos la que el propio Gracia asume como suya. (Fuente: Triacastela). (shrink)

Marañón ha pasado a la historia del siglo XX como arquetipo, debido a su actitud coherente y a su “talante liberal”. Marañón fue, sobre todo, un moralista en el sentido kantiano. Una persona autónoma que no se rigió por criterios externos, sino por deber; un convencido del papel transformador de las ciencias positivas en pos de una sociedad más feliz y más justa gracias a una profunda reforma intelectual. Marañón, como Fernando de los Ríos, integró krausismo, neokantismo y socialismo y (...) desde esa plataforma ideológica, propugnó el necesario cambio moral del pueblo español. (shrink)

The discussions of these past twenty years have significantly improved our knowledge about the foundation of bioethics and the meaning of the four bioethical principles with concern to at least three different points: that they are organised hierarchically, and therefore not “prima facie” of the same level; that they have exceptions, and consequently lack of absolute character; and that they are neither strictly deontological nor purely teleological. The only absolute principle of moral life can be the abstract and unconcrete respect (...) of human beings. But when determining the material content of this respect, principles become contingent and relative. Therefore, moral reasoning must have necessarily no less than three moments, one absolute but merely formal, namely respect for all human beings, and the other two relative and material. The first material moment is comprised of the four bioethical principles, divided into two levels, one private, including the principles of autonomy and beneficence, and the other one public, including those of nonmaleficence and justice. The second material moment deals with specific cases, and requires analysis of their context, including their circumstances and consequences. Only when following these steps, and therefore balancing principlism and contextualism, can moral reasoning be correct and complete. (shrink)

Philosophy is the search of truth. This means that philosophers are those which are looking for the truth, no matter where it could be. As a consequence, the study of previous philosophers can only have the role of an aid in order to reach this task. They are only means, not ends in themselves. The rest is ‘scholasticism’. As a true philosopher, Zubiri was changing all his life his mind and progressing in the analysis of reality. In this paper some (...) important differences between their two major works, On essence (1962) and Sentient intelligence (1980-1982) are analyzed. At the first glance it seems that both are talking about the same, ‘reality’, but the first is the analysis of what Zubiri calls ‘real-thing’ (cosa-realidad), while the goal of the second is the description of ‘reality’ as such, understood as the formality of the intellectual human approach to things. This difference, which seems minimal at the beginning, is at the end plenty of consequences, not only in the field of Metaphysics, but also in Anthropology and Theology. (shrink)

The relationship between science and philosophy has always been difficult. During thewhole classical and medieval periods, philosophy denied that science was an autonomousactivity, by defining it as epistéme or apodictic and deductive knowledge. Science thus cameto be confused with philosophy. This impeded the development of experimental scienceuntil well into the modern world. When, at the beginning of the 17thcentury, it breaks ontothe stage, a new process begins that will culminate in the 19th century, with philosophyturning into a theory of science. (...) Now it is science that denies a role to the philosophy.Such it was the work of the positivism. Zubiri considers that both science and philosophythey have their own specificity, but that they converge in a fundamental point, viz. beingknowledge about ousía or reality. There are three periods: between 1942 and 1960 he defines reality as “there are”; from 1960 to 1972 it is the “reality thing” as opposed to the“meaning thing”; and between 1973 and 1983 the character of “actuality” stands out. It ismainly in this last stage when Zubiri distinguishes three intellectual modes of actualizingreality: the most basic and immediate, common to science and philosophy, or “primordialapprehension of reality”, that proper to “logos”, merely descriptive, and that specificic to“reason” or what is formally explanatory. It is at this last level where both scientific andmetaphysical investigation unfold. Reason never exhausts reality, and for that reason itsknowledge is always penultimate. Whence the necessity to make explicit its ultimategrounds, which are those characteristic of the two previous strata.Las relaciones entre ciencia y filosofía han sido siempre difíciles. Durante toda la épocaclásica y medieval, la filosofía anuló a la ciencia como actividad autónoma, al definirla comoepistéme o saber apodíctico y deductivo. Ciencia venía a confundirse, de ese modo, confilosofía. Ello impidió el desarrollo de la ciencia experimental hasta bien entrado el mundomoderno. Cuando, a partir del siglo XVII, irrumpe con fuerza la ciencia moderna, se iniciaun nuevo proceso que culminaría en el siglo XIX, al convertirse la filosofía en teoría de laciencia. Ahora es la ciencia la que anula a la filosofía. Tal fue la obra del positivismo. Zubiri considera que ambas, ciencia y filosofía, tienen su propia especificidad, pero que convergen en un punto fundamental, el ser saberes sobre la ousía o realidad. Se diferencian tresperiodos: entre 1942 y 1960 define la realidad como “haber”, de 1960 a 1972 caracteriza la“cosa-realidad” por oposición a la “cosa-sentido”, y entre 1973 y 1983 resalta su carácter de“actualidad”. Es sobre todo en esta última etapa cuando Zubiri distingue tres modos intelectuales de actualización de la realidad, el más básico e inmediato, común a ciencia y filosofía, o “aprehensión primordial de realidad”, el propio del “lógos” o meramente descriptivo,y el específico de la “razón” o formalmente explicativo. Es en este último nivel en el que sedesarrollan tanto la investigación científica como la metafísica. La razón nunca agota larealidad, y por eso su conocimiento es siempre penúltimo. De ahí la necesidad de hacerexplícitos sus fundamentos últimos, que son los propios de los dos estratos previos. (shrink)

Los autores resultan tanto más difíciles de entender cuanto más originales son sus planteamientos. El contexto de lectura de las obras de un innovador no puede ser otro que el previo a la innovación, aquel en que se acuñaron los términos que por necesidad él tendrá que utilizar, bien que dotándoles de nuevo sentido. Lo normal es que este nuevo sentido pase inadvertido para el lector, que tenderá a interpretar esos términos en su sentido tradicional. Esto es por demás evidente (...) en el caso de la filosofía de Zubiri, al que con frecuencia se le ha interpretado con categorías racionalistas completamente extrañas a su pensamiento. En este artículo se intenta aclarar ese punto, confrontando la razón pura leibniziana con la inteligencia impura o sentiente de Zubiri. Son dos modos distintos de entender el pensamiento y la realidad, que generan a su vez dos teorías filosóficas divergentes. (shrink)

Born in 1898, Zubiri’s life unfolds at the same time as the XX century. Though alreadyfully formed intellectually, during the decade of the twenties Zubiri is influenced by thephilosophies of life then in vogue in Europe and, especially is influenced by his teacher inMadrid, José Ortega and Gasset. This leads him to focus on the subject of God based onthe category of life. Religion is not a danger for the fullness of life, as Nietzsche argued, butjust the opposite: it is (...) the aspiration of the human being to a full and endless life. The contrast between this and the historical expression of religions, especially Catholicism, provoked a deep interior crisis for Zubiri. This crisis disappears toward the mid-thirties, afterhis sojourn in Germany and the influence of several authors, especially Heidegger. At thispoint he begins to focus on the topic of the religion in a new way that will no longer varysubstantially throughout the rest of his life. The formula of this change he expounded inhis university course university “Hellenism and Christianity” , opposing the“religion of life” to the “religation of life”. Life is not the original category. Life is religated.To what? To something that is difficult to define based on philosophy, but which Christiantheology expressed, through St. Paul, in the category of mysterion.Nacido el año 1898, la vida de Zubiri transcurre a la par que la del siglo XX. En plenaformación intelectual, durante la década de los años veinte, Zubiri recibe el influjo de lasfilosofías de la vida entonces en boga en Europa y, sobre todo, sufre la influencia de sumaestro más directo en Madrid, José Ortega y Gasset. Esto le lleva a enfocar el tema deDios desde la categoría de vida. La religión no es un peligro para la vitalidad, como defendióNietzsche sino todo lo contrario, la aspiración del ser humano a la vida plena e inacabable.El contraste entre esto y la expresión histórica de las religiones, en especial de la católica,le produjo una profunda crisis interior. Esta crisis desaparece hacia la mitad de los añostreinta, tras su permanencia en Alemania y el influjo de varios autores, en especial de Heidegger. A partir de aquí comienza a enfocar el tema de la religión de un nuevo modo, que yano variará sustancialmente a lo largo de su vida. La fórmula de este cambio la expresó en elcurso universitario “Helenismo y Cristianismo” , contraponiendo la “religión dela vida” a la “religación de la vida”. La vida no es la categoría originaria. La vida está religada. ¿A qué? A algo que desde la filosofía es difícil de definir, pero que la teología cristianaexpresó, a través de Pablo de Tarso, en la categoría de mysterion. (shrink)

We show that certain type of tree forcings, including Sacks forcing, increases the covering of the strong measure zero ideal \. As a consequence, in Sacks model, such covering number is equal to the size of the continuum, which indicates that this covering number is consistently larger than any other classical cardinal invariant of the continuum. Even more, Sacks forcing can be used to force that \<\mathrm {cov}<\mathrm {cof}\), which is the first consistency result where more than two cardinal invariants (...) associated with \ are pairwise different. Another consequence is that \ in ZFC where \ denotes Marczewski’s ideal. (shrink)

In one of his last published interviews before his death in 2001, Pedro Laín Entralgo expressed his admiration of Zubiri for his expertise in the latest philosophy and science without sacrificing his religious faith.1 Faith and cognition harmonize in Zubiri’s posthumously published course Estructura dinámica de la realidad,2 a work valuable for understanding his evolution as a whole. EDR incorporates much doctrinal material employed previously, as well as ideas to be developed in subsequent works. It belongs to the period of (...) Sobre la esencia ,3 yet points in the direction of Inteligencia sentiente.4 Having translated EDR to English, tried to paraphrase its less transparent passages, and annotated all its references to proper names, I have unexpectedly come into possession of unexplored keys to Zubiri’s cognitive insights. Further, in the learning process, I have found palpable errors in transcription from the oral to the written version of the work. However, these mistakes come as no surrprise in view of the great difficulties that Zubiri’s text obviously presented to its first editor, Diego Gracia Guillén, and has continued to present to me, as its second; for Zubiri’s course spans a dauntingly wide variety of fields: ontology, classical physics, topology,special and general relativity, quantum mechanics, astro-physics, embryology, paleoanthropology, philosophy of society, and philosophy of history. He joins Aristotle, Leibniz, Locke, Kant, and Hegel in commanding multiple disciplines of his times. Stimulated by criticism of Sobre la esencia as excessively static in its approach to being,5 Zubiri elaborates a philosophy of becoming in EDR, and the theme in itself requires cross-disciplinary study. The conceptual tools he has at hand come to him via two main sources: his background in philosophy and theology, acquired at the Madrid Seminary where he studied between 1915 and 1919, as well as his philosophy studies in Louvain and Rome; and his acquaintance as of 1919 with Ortega y Gasset,6 who unlocked to him contemporary Germanic philosophy and science. I shall discuss in order [1.] Zubiri’s debt to Scholasticism in EDR, [2.] contributions of Ortega to EDR, and [3.] the consequent Aristotelianism of EDR in nearly all its parts: Aristotle guides Zubiri in directions enabling him to correct the Stagirite with the latest philosophy and material science available to him so as to elaborate his own metaphysics of dynamism. (shrink)

We show that the properties of [relative] semisimplicity and congruence 3-permutability of a [quasi]variety with equationally definable [relative] principal congruences (EDP[R]C) can be characterized syntactically. We prove that a quasivariety with EDPRC is relatively semisimple if and only if it satisfies a finite set of quasi-identities that is effectively constructible from any conjunction of equations defining relative principal congruences in the quasivariety. This in turn allows us to obtain an ‘axiomatization’ of relatively filtral quasivarieties. We also show that a variety (...) is 3-permutable and has EDPC if and only if there is a single pair of quaternary terms satisfying two simple equations, and whose equality defines principal congruences in the variety. Finally, we combine both results to obtain a neat characterization of semisimple, 3-permutable varieties with EDPC, which is applied to solve a problem posed by Blok and Pigozzi in the third paper of their series on varieties with EDPC. (shrink)

¿Podemos llamar madre a Dios? Responder a esta pregunta es lo que tratamos de hacer en las siguientes líneas partiendo del estudio de la raíz hebrea "rhm", cuyo significado original es "útero". Comenzamos haciendo un rápido repaso del significado del término y de sus palabras derivadas en los textos bíblicos. Nos centramos en el uso del término por el profeta Isaías y -especialmente- por el profeta de la Consolación. Así, parece que concebir y entender a Dios como madre es algo (...) que forma parte de la revelación. (shrink)

Cybersecurity aggregates are numerical data obtained by aggregation on features along a database of cybersecurity reports. These aggregates are obtained by integration of time-stamped tables using some recent results of non-standard calculus. Time-series of aggregates are shown to contain relevant information about the concrete system dealt with. Trend time series is also forecasted using known data-driven methods. Although absolute forecasting of trend time series is not obtained, a directional forecasting of trend time series is achieved thence validated by means of (...) a rolling cross validation scheme on a public database of Scareware reports. (shrink)

An algebraically expandable (AE) class is a class of algebraic structures axiomatizable by sentences of the form $\forall \exists! \mathop{\boldsymbol {\bigwedge }}\limits p = q$. For a logic L algebraized by a quasivariety $\mathcal {Q}$ we show that the AE-subclasses of $\mathcal {Q}$ correspond to certain natural expansions of L, which we call algebraic expansions. These turn out to be a special case of the expansions by implicit connectives studied by X. Caicedo. We proceed to characterize all the AE-subclasses of (...) abelian $\ell $ -groups and perfect MV-algebras, thus fully describing the algebraic expansions of their associated logics. (shrink)

A function is algebraic on an algebra if it can be implicitly defined by a system of equations on. In this note we give a semantic characterization for algebraic functions on quasiprimal algebras. This characterization is applied to obtain necessary and sufficient conditions for a quasiprimal algebra to have every one of its algebraic functions be a term function. We also apply our results to particular algebras such as finite fields and monadic algebras.

We introduce the property “F-linked” of subsets of posets for a given free filter F on the natural numbers, and define the properties “μ-F-linked” and “θ-F-Knaster” for posets in a natural way. We show that θ-F-Knaster posets preserve strong types of unbounded families and of maximal almost disjoint families. Concerning iterations of such posets, we develop a general technique to construct θ-Fr-Knaster posets (where Fr is the Frechet ideal) via matrix iterations of <θ-ultrafilter-linked posets (restricted to some level of the (...) matrix). This is applied to prove consistency results about Cichoń's diagram (without using large cardinals) and to prove the consistency of the fact that, for each Yorioka ideal, the four cardinal invariants associated with it are pairwise different. At the end, we show that three strongly compact cardinals are enough to force that Cichoń's diagram can be separated into 10 different values. (shrink)

A \documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$${\forall\exists!}$$\end{document}-sentence is a sentence of the form \documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$${\forall x_{1}\cdots x_{n}\exists!y_{1}\cdots y_{m}O(\overline{x},\overline{y})}$$\end{document}, where O is a quantifier-free formula, and \documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$${\exists!}$$\end{document} stands for “there exist unique”. We prove that if \documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$${\mathcal{C}}$$\end{document} is (up to isomorphism) a finite class of finite models then \documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} (...) \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$${\mathcal{C}}$$\end{document} is axiomatizable by a set of \documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$${\forall\exists!}$$\end{document}-sentences if and only if \documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$${\mathcal{C}}$$\end{document} is closed under isomorphic images, \documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$${\mathcal{C}}$$\end{document} has the intersection property, and \documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$${\mathcal{C}}$$\end{document} is closed under fixed-point submodels. This result is employed to characterize the subclasses of finitely generated discriminator varieties axiomatizable by sentences of the form \documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$${\forall\exists!\bigwedge p=q}$$\end{document}. (shrink)

As in other countries, the public in Argentina became aware of the existence of something called “the theory of relativity” only after November 1919. Although the news of Arthur Eddington's eclipse expedition, which provided the first confirmation of Einstein's theory, was poorly reported in the newspapers, by the end of 1920 Einstein had become a household name for the educated middle class of Buenos Aires, the capital city of the country. This was in great measure the result of the activity (...) of a few enthusiastic lecturers. Significantly, none of them belonged to the prestigious Institute of Physics of the University of La Plata, which during the decade of the 1910s was considered the most important center of physical research in Latin America. Between July and August 1920 the Spanish physicist Blas Cabrera – perhaps the greatest popularizer of Einstein's theory in Spain – visited Argentina and talked about relativity. In September Georges Duclout, a French engineer who had graduated from the Zurich Polytechnic and by then was professor of applied mechanics at the School of Exact, Physical and Natural Sciences of the University of Buenos Aires, also gave a series of conferences on the subject. That same month José Ubach, a Jesuit astronomer trained at the Ebro Observatory in Spain, and established in Buenos Aires, lectured on relativity at the Colegio del Salvador. (shrink)