Edith Stein (1891-1942) is a clear example of a philosopher, since she dedicated her entire life and effort to the conquest of Truth, of Being. The path she follows begins with her personal experience and her desire to find an answer to the existence of man. In phenomenology, she will find a means of confronting reality, free of prejudices. During her intellectual and existential journey, she meets a God that becomes living experience and quenches her thirst for Truth. She completes (...) her contemplation of the philosophical being by means of a mystic contemplation of Being. Her philosophical activity is a road that leads "from finite being to eternal being". (shrink)

Edith Stein (1891-1942) is a clear example of a philosopher, since she dedicated her entire life and effort to the conquest of Truth, of Being. The path she follows begins with her personal experience and her desire to find an answer to the existence of man. In phenomenology, she will find a means of confronting reality, free of prejudices. During her intellectual and existential journey, she meets a God that becomes living experience and quenches her thirst for Truth. She completes (...) her contemplation of the philosophical being by means of a mystic contemplation of Being. Her philosophical activity is a road that leads “from finite being to eternal being”. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The Journal of Aesthetic Education 40.1 (2006) 35-53 [Access article in PDF] "Truth Is What Works": Francisco J. Varela on Cognitive Science, Buddhism, the Inseparability of Subject and Object, and the Exaggerations of Constructivism—A Conversation Francisco J. Varela Bernhard Poerksen Institut für Journalistik und Kommunikationswissenschaft Universität Hamburg Francisco J. Varela (1946-2001) studied biology in Santiago de Chile, obtained his doctorate 1970 at Harvard University with a (...) dissertation on the insect eye, and worked there for some time in the laboratory of Torsten Wiesel, the later Nobel Laureate for medicine. From his scientific beginnings as a researcher in biology, he not only studied and practiced biology but, resisting the dominating mainstream, pursued a research program that ignored and broke down traditional disciplinary boundaries. This research program is best characterized as experimental epistemology, a concept introduced by the neuropsychiatrist and cybernetician Warren S. McCulloch. Francisco J. Varela's great aspiration was to examine and answer the philosophical ur-question of cognition with scientific precision and with the help of the best possible theoretical framework. [End Page 35]Having obtained his doctorate, he went back to Chile to work as a professor of biology together with Humberto R. Maturana. He contributed to the writing of the theory of autopoiesis, which was to cause a furor in the world of science as a universally applicable explanatory model. After the overthrow of Allende and the installation of the dictatorship by the putsch general Pinochet, Francisco J. Varela first escaped to Costa Rica, then became a professor at the American University of Colorado and University of New York, and finally returned in 1980 to the University of Chile in Santiago for five years. Temporary positions as guest professor for neurobiology, philosophy, and cognitive science in Germany, Switzerland, and France led him to Paris in the end, where he worked as research director of the Centre National de Recherche Scientifique until his death on May 28, 2001.In his research work embracing cognitive science, evolutionary theory, and immunology, Francisco J. Varela, constantly inspired by his fundamental interest in the key questions of epistemology, gave the epistemological debate a new orientation. In his thinking he refuses to accept the strict separation of subject and object, of knower and known, which as a rule unites realists and constructivists alike. Francisco J. Varela rejects the fundamental dualism dividing mind and world, which had shaped Western philosophy from its earliest beginnings. He does not subscribe to the idea that human individuals can invent their own realities—blindly and arbitrarily, and without experiencing any resistance from the external world and all other things given. He equally distances himself, however, from the diametrically opposite position that overstates the eigenpower of the world of objects. The external world and all other things given cannot determine what happens in an organism. Varela's claim is that individual and world create each other. The Computational Model of the Mind Poerksen: The ancient key questions of philosophy are at the center of modern cognitive science. What is the essence of the mind? Do our conceptions represent a given world, which is independent from our minds? What is the formative power of external objects over our perceptions? How does cognition function? The search for an adequate answer and an improved understanding of the human mind has led many cognitive scientists to entertain the assumption that the brain is actually a kind of computer. Memory is taken to be a store. Thinking and perceiving are understood as data processing in the sense that an independent external world is computationally transformed into symbols and represented in the organism in this manner. You are very critical of this view. Why?Varela: If the brain is considered as a kind of computer, then cognitive research is limited to discovering certain self-sufficient shapes—the symbols—together with the rules [End Page 36] governing them—the programs. But this search for symbols and programs will never be profitable because it... (shrink)

The Embodied Mind provides a unique, sophisticated treatment of the spontaneous and reflective dimension of human experience.

How can science be brought to connect with experience? This book addresses two of the most challenging problems facing contemporary neurobiology and cognitive science. Firstly, understanding how we unconsciously execute habitual actions as a result of neurological and cognitive processes that are not formal actions of conscious judgment but part of a habitual nexus of systematic self-organization. Secondly, attempting to create an ethics adequate to our present awareness that there is no such thing as a transcendental self, a stable subject (...) or soul. The author combines researches in cognitive science and phenomenology with two representatives of what he calls the 'wisdom traditions': Confucianism and Buddhist epistemology. (shrink)

The ultimate source of explanation in biology is the principle of natural selection. Natural selection means differential reproduction of genes and gene combinations. It is a mechanistic process which accounts for the existence in living organisms of end-directed structures and processes. It is argued that teleological explanations in biology are not only acceptable but indeed indispensable. There are at least three categories of biological phenomena where teleological explanations are appropriate.

_Dialectic and Dialogue_ seeks to define the method and the aims of Plato's dialectic in both the "inconclusive" dialogues and the dialogues that describe and practice a method of hypothesis. Departing from most treatments of Plato, Gonzalez argues that the philosophical knowledge at which dialectic aims is nonpropositional, practical, and reflexive. The result is a reassessment of how Plato understood the nature of philosophy.

My purpose in this article is to propose an explicitly naturalized account of the experience of present nowness on the basis of two complementary sources: phenomenological analysis and cognitive neuroscience. What I mean by naturalization, and the role cognitive neuroscience plays will become clear as the paper unfolds, but the main intention is to use the consciousness of present time as a study case for the phenomenological framework presented by Depraz in this Special Issue.

This paper represents a step in the analysis of the key, but much-neglected role of affect and emotions as the originary source of the living present, as a foundational dimension of the moment-to-moment emergence of consciousness. In a more general sense, we may express the question in the following terms: there seems to be a growing consensus from various sources -- philosophical, empirical and clinical -- that emotions cannot be seen as a mere 'coloration' of the cognitive agent, understood as (...) a formal or un-affected self, but are immanent and inextricable from every mental act. How can this be borne out, beyond just announcing it? Specifically, what is the role of affect-emotion in the self-movement of the flow, of the. (shrink)

The question whether ethical behavior is biologically determined may refer either to thecapacity for ethics (e.i., the proclivity to judge human actions as either right or wrong), or to the moralnorms accepted by human beings for guiding their actions. My theses are: (1) that the capacity for ethics is a necessary attribute of human nature; and (2) that moral norms are products of cultural evolution, not of biological evolution.Humans exhibits ethical behavior by nature because their biological makeup determines the presence (...) of the three necessary, and jointly sufficient, conditions for ethical behavior: (i) the ability to anticipate the consequences of one's own actions; (ii) the ability to make value judgements; and (iii) the ability to choose between alternative courses of action. Ethical behavior came about in evolution not because it is adaptive in itself, but as a necessary consequece of man's eminent intellectual abilities, which are an attribute directly promoted by natural selection. (shrink)

In a critique of Heidegger that respects his path of thinking, Francisco Gonzalez looks at the ways in which Heidegger engaged with Plato’s thought over the course of his career and concludes that, owing to intrinsic requirements of Heidegger’s own philosophy, he missed an opportunity to conduct a real dialogue with Plato that would have been philosophically fruitful for us all. Examining in detail early texts of Heidegger’s reading of Plato that have only recently come to light, Gonzalez, in (...) parts 1 and 2, shows there to be certain affinities between Heidegger’s and Plato’s thought that were obscured in his 1942 essay “Plato’s Doctrine of Truth,” on which scholars have exclusively relied in interpreting what Heidegger had to say about Plato. This more nuanced reading, in turn, helps Gonzalez provide in part 3 an account of Heidegger’s later writings that highlights the ways in which Heidegger, in repudiating the kind of metaphysics he associated with Plato, took a direction away from dialectic and dialogue that left him unable to pursue those affinities that could have enriched Heidegger’s own philosophy as well as Plato’s. “A genuine dialogue with Plato,” Gonzalez argues, “would have forced [Heidegger] to go in certain directions where he did not want to go and could not go without his own thinking undergoing a radical transformation.”. (shrink)

The study of Plato's dialogues has traditionally oscillated between two paradigms: one that portrays the dialogues as treatises expounding doctrines and one that sees them as purely skeptical, rhetorical, or literary. This collection of new essays by twelve noted Plato scholars illustrates the fruitfulness of breaking away from those paradigms, which have divided Platonic scholarship and led it to a number of dead ends. While the essays are diverse in their approaches, each seeks to find a 'third way' to understand (...) Plato, reading him as neither a dogmatist nor a skeptic but as a philosopher capable of reconciling the content and form of his writings. (shrink)

The question whether ethical behavior is biologically determined may refer either to the capacity for ethics (i.e., the proclivity to judge human actions as either right or wrong), or to the moral norms accepted by human beings for guiding their actions. I herein propose: (1) that the capacity for ethics is a necessary attribute of human nature; and (2) that moral norms are products of cultural evolution, not of biological evolution. Humans exhibit ethical behavior by nature because their biological makeup (...) determines the presence of three necessary conditions for ethical behavior: (i) the ability to anticipate the consequences of one’s own actions; (ii) the ability to make value judgments; and (iii) the ability to choose between alternative courses of action. Ethical behavior came about in evolution not because it is adaptive in itself, but as a necessary consequence of man’s eminent intellectual abilities, which are an attribute directly promoted by natural selection. That is, morally evolved as an exaptation, not as an adaptation. Since Darwin’s time there have been evolutionists proposing that the norms of morality are derived from biological evolution. Sociobiologists represent the most recent and most subtle version of that proposal. The sociobiologists' argument is that human ethical norms are sociocultural correlates of behaviors fostered by biological evolution. I argue that such proposals are misguided and do not escape the naturalistic fallacy. The isomorphism between the behaviors promoted by natural selection and those sanctioned by moral norms exist only with respect to the consequences of the behaviors; the underlying causations are completely disparate. (shrink)

We start this Volume 13 with the usual Editorial Note reviewing the main features of Economics and Business Letters. EBL is an online letter-type journal, free both for authors and readers, covering all areas of economics and business and with theoretical and empirical letters.

Francisco J. Gonzalez - Die Idee des Guten in Platons Politeia: Beobachtungen zu den mittleren Buchern - Journal of the History of Philosophy 43:3 Journal of the History of Philosophy 43.3 354-355 Thomas A. Szlezák. Die Idee des Guten in Platons Politeia: Beobachtungen zu den mittleren Büchern. Sankt Augustin: Academia, 2003. Pp. viii + 160. Cloth, € 24,50. The first part of this book consists of a series of lectures delivered at the University of Macerata in April 2000. These (...) lectures provide a detailed and illuminating analysis of the middle books of the Republic, with the focus naturally on the three great similes. Appended to these lectures are three previously published articles on the Cave Analogy, the Idea of the Good, and Rafael Ferber's supposedly "skeptical interpretation" of Plato . While some repetition is unavoidable in such a compilation, the different parts of the book for the most part complement and.. (shrink)

The present paper has a negative aim and a positive aim, both limited in the present context to a sketch or outline. The negative aim, today less controversial, is to show that Aristotle’s theory of final causality has little or nothing to do with the teleology rejected by modern science and that, therefore, far from having been rendered obsolete, it has yet to be fully understood. This aim will be met through the identification and brief discussion of some key points (...) on which Aristotle’s theory differs from teleology as still commonly understood. The positive aim is more controversial as it proposes that we take an ontology of life as the proper context for understanding the significance and nature of final causation in Aristotle. The argument for final causation, in other words, is that, without it, we would lose the phenomenon of life and, indeed, of nature altogether, reducing nature to the inanimate and mechanical. (shrink)

A common objection to the use of balancing tests in human rights adjudication is that it is not possible to perform a quantitative comparison between gains and losses for rights or the public good by means only of rational criteria. Here I provide a general account of the incommensurability objection, with the aim of making explicit its scope, and of dispelling some common misconceptions surrounding it. Relying on this account, I engage with recent defences of balancing against the incommensurability objection.

a central thesis of martin heidegger's first reading of a Platonic dialogue, the 1924/25 course on the Sophist, was that, "for the Greeks, being means precisely to be present, to be in the present [Anwesend-sein, Gegenwärtig-sein]."1 Heidegger saw this Greek interpretation of being as leading to Plato's specific interpretation of being as eidos or idea. Heidegger makes this clear in the following passage from another Plato course, the 1931–32 course On the Essence of Truth: "'Idea' is the look [der Anblick] (...) of what something offers itself as being. These looks [Anblicke] are that in which the individual thing presents itself as this or that, that in which it is present and presencing [präsent und anwesend].... (shrink)

The question whether ethical behavior is biologically determined may refer either to the capacity for ethics (i.e., the proclivity to judge human actions as either right or wrong), or to the moral norms accepted by human beings for guiding their actions. I herein propose: (1) that the capacity for ethics is a necessary attribute of human nature; and (2) that moral norms are products of cultural evolution, not of biological evolution. Humans exhibit ethical behavior by nature because their biological makeup (...) determines the presence of three necessary conditions for ethical behavior: (i) the ability to anticipate the consequences of one’s own actions; (ii) the ability to make value judgments; and (iii) the ability to choose between alternative courses of action. Ethical behavior came about in evolution not because it is adaptive in itself, but as a necessary consequence of man’s eminent intellectual abilities, which are an attribute directly promoted by natural selection. That is, morally evolved as an exaptation, not as an adaptation. Since Darwin’s time there have been evolutionists proposing that the norms of morality are derived from biological evolution. Sociobiologists represent the most recent and most subtle version of that proposal. The sociobiologists' argument is that human ethical norms are sociocultural correlates of behaviors fostered by biological evolution. I argue that such proposals are misguided and do not escape the naturalistic fallacy. The isomorphism between the behaviors promoted by natural selection and those sanctioned by moral norms exist only with respect to the consequences of the behaviors; the underlying causations are completely disparate. (shrink)

In the recently published 1924 course, Grundbegriffe der aristotelischen Philosophie, Martin Heidegger offers a detailed interpretation of Aristotle's definition of kinesis in the Physics. This interpretation identifies entelecheia with what is finished and present‐at‐an‐end and energeia with being‐at‐work toward this end. In arguing against this interpretation, the present paper attempts to show that Aristotle interpreted being from the perspective of praxis rather than poiesis and therefore did not identify it with static presence. The paper also challenges later variations of Heidegger's (...) interpretation, in particular his account of dunamis in the 1931 course on Metaphysics Theta, which insists that its mode of being is presence‐at‐hand. By arguing that this reading too is untenable, the paper concludes that Aristotle's metaphysics is not a metaphysics of presence and that his texts instead point toward a possibility of metaphysics ignored by the attempts of Heidegger and others to overcome it. (shrink)

The “destructive” appropriation of the Aristotelian concepts of δύναµις and ἐνέργεια played a central role in Martin Heidegger’s own reflection on the meaning of being. While this has been generally known for some time, it is only now that we can understand the full scope, complexity and evolving character of this appropriation. One reason is the fairly recent publication of notes and protocols for seminars Heidegger led on Aristotle as late as the 1940s and 1950s. Another is the existence of (...) student transcripts in the Special Collections Department of Stanford University for a number of unpublished seminars on Aristotle that Heidegger led during the 1920s. Considering all of this material enables us to see both the significance of Heidegger’s interpretation of the δύναµις/ἐνέργιεα pair as well as how this interpretation evolved along with his own “Kehre”: from a “pandynamic” conception of being to being as “Ereignis.”. (shrink)

Pendant l’ete de 1928 Heidegger a offert un seminaire sur le troisieme livre de la Physique d’Aristote et donc sur l’explication aristotelicienne de la nature du mouvement. La derniere seance de ce cours, qui eut lieu le 25 juillet, est d’une grande importance parce que c’est a cette occasion que Heidegger va au livre neuf de la Metaphysique pour essayer de comprendre la notion ontologique qui est a la base de l’interpretation aristotelicienne du mouvement : l’energeia. Mais dans les protocoles (...) de ce seminaire qui se trouvent parmi les papiers de Heidegger et qui ont ete publies recemment dans le volume 83 de la Gesamtausgabe, la seance du 25 juillet se trouve absente. Ce fait a conduit l’editeur a conclure que le seminaire avait pris fin le 23 juillet, sans s’apercevoir donc que la conclusion du seminaire manquait. Il existe heureusement une transcription preservee parmi les papiers de l’etudiante de Heidegger, Helene Weiss, et accessible aujourd’hui dans les archives de l’universite de Stanford. Cette transcription montre que la derniere session eut bien lieu le 25 juillet et nous offre la lecture heideggerienne de Metaphysique IX qui ne se trouve pas dans la version de la Gesamtausgabe. C’est dans le contexte de cette lecture que Heidegger fait la declaration etonnante qui nous concerne ici : ≪Dans la derniere instance, la Metaphysique Θ revient a Platon ; la priorite de l’energeia est fondamentalement la meme chose que l’epekeina des Idees. ≫La première tâche que je me propose ici sera d’expliquer cette déclaration qui suggère une relation tres etroite, ou meme une identite, entre la notion aristotelicienne de l’energeia comme ayant une priorite vis‑a‑vis de la dunamis et la notion platonicienne de l’Idee du Bien comme etant epekeina de l’ousia. Pour cette explication je ferai appel non seulement au contexte du seminaire de 1928, mais aussi aux textes plus tardifs comme les Beitrage et les cours sur Nietzsche dans lesquels Heidegger semble presupposer et développer sa déclaration de 1928. Ma seconde tâche sera de comparer cette thèse heideggerienne a la tentative de Gadamer de surmonter l’opposition traditionnelle entre les ontologies de Platon et d’Aristote en faisant appel a l’idee du bien chez les deux. Cette tentative se trouve dans le texte Die Idee des Guten zwischen Plato und Aristoteles. La comparaison que j’entreprends ici va montrer certaines affinites entre les interpretations de l’Idee du Bien chez Heidegger et Gadamer, mais aussi de profondes differences qui vont determiner leurs differents projets philosophiques. (shrink)

During the 1920s Heidegger gave no less than twelve seminars and lecture courses devoted either exclusively or in large part to the reading of Aristotle's texts. Seven of these, especially the smaller seminars for advanced students, have not been published and apparently will never be included in the Gesamtausgabe. My focus here is on the very first of these. Billed as a reading of Aristotle's De Anima, much of it was devoted to Aristotle's Metaphysics. This decision not to separate Aristotle's (...) “psychology” from his “ontology” is a key move of the seminar that anticipates the project of Being and Time. This and many other ways in which Heidegger's early reading of De Anima anticipates the key moves of the later book constitute one of the reasons for its importance. Another is that the seminar allows us to see what gets suppressed in Heidegger's reading of Aristotle, most significantly, the phenomenon of life itself in favor of an eventual focus on the being of human life or Dasein. This early seminar thus enables us not only to better understand Heidegger's project, but also to raise some fundamental questions concerning it. (shrink)

In _Ecological Ethics and the Human Soul: Aquinas, Whitehead, and the Metaphysics of Value_, Francisco J. Benzoni addresses the pervasive and destructive view that there is a moral gulf between human beings and other creatures. Thomas Aquinas, whose metaphysics entails such a moral gulf, holds that human beings are ultimately separate from nature. Alfred North Whitehead, in contrast, maintains that human beings are continuous with the rest of nature. These different metaphysical systems demand different ethical stances toward creation. Benzoni (...) analyzes and challenges Thomas's understanding of the human soul, his primary justification for the moral separation, arguing that it is finally philosophically untenable. The author finds promising the alternative metaphysics of Whitehead, for whom human beings are a part of nature—even if the highest part; all creatures have a degree of subjectivity and creativity, and thus all have intrinsic value and moral worth, independent of subjective human valuation. Further, though there is difference, there is no moral gulf between God and the world. God is truly affected by the experience of creatures. Benzoni argues that if this vision of moral worth is articulated with sufficient force and clarity, it could help heal the human relation to our planet. “Eminently clear in concept and analysis, profound in insight, and precise in reasoning, this book not only contributes a distinguished study of Aquinas but also reshapes contemporary ecological ethics by relating it to basic issues of metaphysics. Both subsequent moral theory attentive to Aquinas and subsequent formulations of ecological ethics will be incomplete without taking account of Benzoni's argument.” —_Franklin I. Gamwell, Shailer Mathews Distinguished Service Professor of Religious Ethics, the Philosophy of Religion, and Theology, The University of Chicago Divinity School_ “In the introduction and conclusion, Francisco Benzoni makes clear the broader significance of this work for the field of ecological ethics and the future well-being of the human species on this earth. One can learn a great deal about the philosophy of both Aquinas and Whitehead in working through these pages.” —_Joseph Bracken, Xavier University _. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: Introduction: The Design Argument The Design Argument in Antiquity Christian Authors Hume's Onslaught William Paley's Natural Theology The Bridgewater Treatises Intelligent Design: A Political Movement Eyes to See No “There” There Blood and Tears Gambling to Non‐existence Natural Selection Natural Selection and Design Postscript: Counterpoint Notes References.

Knives, birds' wings, and mountain slopes are used for certain purposes: cutting, flying, and climbing. A bird's wings have in common with knives that they have been 'designed' for the purpose they serve, which purpose accounts for their existence, whereas mountain slopes have come about by geological processes independently of their uses for climbing. A bird's wings differ from a knife in that they have not been designed or produced by any conscious agent; rather, the wings, like the slopes, are (...) outcomes of natural processes without any intentional causation. Evolutionary biologists use teleological language and teleological explanations. I propose that this use is appropriate, because teleological explanations are hypotheses that can be subject to empirical testing. The distinctiveness of teleological hypotheses is that they account for the existence of a feature in terms of the function it serves; for example, wings have evolved and persist because flying is beneficial to birds by increasing their chances of surviving and reproducing. Features of organisms that are explained with teleological hypotheses include structures, such as wings; processes, such as development from egg to adult; and behaviours, such as nest building. A proximate explanation of these features is the function they serve; an ultimate explanation that they all share is their contribution to the reproductive fitness of the organisms. I distinguish several kinds of teleological explanations, such as natural and artificial, as well as bounded and unbounded, some of which but not others apply to biological explanations. (shrink)

Heidegger’s recently published 1932 seminar on Plato’s Phaedrus arguably represents his most successful dialogue with Plato, where such dialogue is characterized by both the deepest affinity and the most incisive opposition. The central thesis of Heidegger’s interpretation is that the Phaedrus is not simply a logos about eros, but rather an attempt to show that eros is the very essence of logos and that logos is thereby in its very essence dia-logue. Heidegger is thus here more attuned than ever before (...) to the erotic and dialogical character of philosophy while at the same time concerned with how this conception of philosophy can lead to the eclipse of being and truth. (shrink)

The present paper uses the theme of dialectic and dialogue to begin unraveling the similarities and differences between the hermeneutics of Paul Ricoeur and H.G. Gadamer. Ricoeur is shown to distance himself from Heidegger by insisting on a dimension of explanation and distanciation (which he sometimes identifies with Plato's `descending dialectic') that cannot be reduced to, or absorbed by, understanding and appropriation. This same move, however, leads him to reject Platonic dialogue, with the attendant prioritizing of oral conversation over the (...) written text, as a model for hermeneutics. Ricoeur therefore sees in Gadamer's recourse to such a model a regression to the problematic position of Heidegger. Yet the conception of philosophy as dialectical and dialogical which Gadamer finds in Plato is capable of responding to Ricoeur's objections. Where the fundamental difference between the hermeneutics of Ricoeur and Gadamer emerges is in the question of whether experience is fundamentally dialectical and whether language is inherently dialogical. (shrink)

This ambitious work aims to shed new light on the relations between Husserlian phenomenology and the present-day efforts toward a scientific theory of cognition—with its complex structure of disciplines, levels of explanation, and ...

"Knowing how we know" is the subject of this book. Its authors present a new view of cognition that has important social and ethical implications, for, they assert, the only world we humans can have is the one we create together through the actions of our coexistence. Written for a general audience as well as for students, scholars, and scientists and abundantly illustrated with examples from biology, linguistics, and new social and cultural phenomena, this revised edition includes a new afterword (...) by Dr. Varela, in which he discusses the effect the book has had in the years since its first publication. (shrink)

Socrates can be said to have left the subsequent philosophical tradition with the problem of the relation between philosophy and politics. Already in the Republic the proposal of philosopher-kings represents more a tension than an identity. While Aristotle responds by insisting on a sharp distinction between politics and philosophical wisdom, this distinction proves on closer examination much less sharp than might appear. Heidegger characterizes philosophy as the only authentic politics and the philosopher as ruling just by virtue of being a (...) philosopher. In contrast, Foucault insists that, if philosophy can play a role in relation to politics by transforming the subject who lives politically, it plays no role within politics. In this contrast can be seen the 'fallout' of the tension bequeathed by Socrates through both Plato and Aristotle. Podría decirse que Sócrates le dejó a la tradición filosófica posterior el problema de la relación entre filosofía y política. Ya en la República la propuesta del rey filósofo representa más una tensión que una identidad. Mientras que la respuesta de Aristóteles insiste en una clara distinción entre la política y la sabiduría filosófica, un examen cuidadoso demuestra que esta distinción es menos clara de lo que parece. Heidegger caracteriza la filosofía como la única política auténtica y al filósofo como gobernante por el mero hecho de ser filósofo. En contraste, Foucault insiste en que si bien la filosofía puede desempeñar un papel en relación con la política al transformar al sujeto que vive políticamente, aquella no desempeña papel alguno dentro de la política. Este contraste ilustra el resultado de la tensión legada por Sócrates a través de Platón y Aristóteles. (shrink)

El presente trabajo explora cómo la Inteligencia Artificial (IA) puede integrarse en los cuidados a personas dependientes y con discapacidad en España, resaltando su capacidad para promover la autonomía y la atención centrada en la persona. Inspirado en la Convención sobre los Derechos de las Personas conDiscapacidad de las Naciones Unidas, el documento propone un cambio del modelo institucionalizado de cuidado hacia uno comunitario y más integrado en el hogar, donde la tecnología, especialmente la IA, juegue un papel crucial. Se (...) discuten los beneficios y riesgos de la IA en los cuidados, como mejorar la calidad de vida y la eficiencia de los servicios, al tiempo que se plantea la necesidad de un análisis cuidadoso para evitar la discriminación y asegurar el respeto por los derechos humanos. Además, se detallan ejemplos de tecnologíasactuales, como robots de atención domiciliaria y sistemas de monitoreo remoto, mostrando la creciente integración de la IA en el ámbito de los cuidados. (shrink)

This paper sets forth a familiar theme, that science essentially consists of two interdependent episodes, one imaginative, the other critical. Hypotheses and other imaginative conjectures are the initial stage of scientific inquiry because they provide the incentive to seek the truth and a clue as to where to find it. But scientific conjectures must be subject to critical examination and empirical testing. There is a dialogue between the two episodes; observations made to test a hypothesis are the inspiration for new (...) conjectures. Inductive generalizations may also inspire hypotheses, but cannot validate them. A hypothesis is empirically tested by ascertaining whether or not predictions about the world of experience deduced from the hypothesis agree with what is actually observed. This has been appropriately considered the 'criterion of demarcation' that distinguishes science from other knowledge. But scientific hypotheses must satisfy other tests as well, e.g., whether they have explanatory value and further understanding. I briefly explore such issues as verifiability and falsifiability, empirical content and truthfulness, contingency and certainty, fact and theory, error and fraud. Science like any human activity is subject to error and to the foibles and other failings of human beings. But severe attempts of empirical falsification and other trials yield knowledge that stands the test of time and provides a foothold for further knowledge. Moreover, scientists have developed social mechanisms, such as peer review and publication, to evaluate their work. Because the research of scientists depends on the validity of previous knowledge, it is of great consequence that they discern valid from invalid knowledge and thus scientists are inclined to transcend ideology, nationality, friendship, monetary interest and other prejudices when the mettle of scientific knowledge is at stake. I use historical examples to illustrate some relevant aspects of scientific practice: its success (Mendel), misrepresentation (Darwin), ideological abuse (Lysenko), arrogant violation of the requirement of testing (Koch), theory replacement (Priestly and Lavoisier, Newton and Einstein), and the indispensability of context (Oswald Avery and Alfred Wegener). (shrink)