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)

En este artículo se discuten algunas de las propuestas planteadas en la discusión contemporánea sobre los modelos normativos para un nuevo orden internacional. En la primera parte se exponen las estrategias argumentativas del realismo político, del liberalismo de John Rawls y del modelo deliberativo..

No início do movimento psicanalítico, a Hungria foi um dos países pioneiros dentre os que acolheram e propagaram a psicanálise. Sándor Ferenczi, figura principal de desenvolvimento da psicanálise no país, abraçou a causa psicanalítica e se tornou um dos mais importantes teóricos de sua história. Responsável pela criação da Associação Psicanalítica Internacional, fundaria também a Sociedade Húngara de Psicanálise, instituição reconhecida pela originalidade de suas propostas. Além de Ferenczi, Melanie Klein, Michael e Alice Balint, Géza Roheim, dentre outros, foram seus (...) membros. Neste estudo de caráter histórico, o intuito é retomar todo o caminho trilhado pela instituição húngara, desde sua fundação até sua dissolução, em 1949. A identidade e o “espírito” investigativo daquela instituição se perpetuariam ao longo da história psicanalítica, influenciando, direta ou indiretamente, grandes escolas e teóricos da psicanálise, como D. W. Winnicott e alguns pensadores das escolas americanas e francesas. Palavras-chave: psicanálise; história da psicanálise; sociedade húngara de psicanálise; instituições psicanalíticas; Sándor Ferenczi.: Hungary was a place where psychoanalysis founded a great support and development at the beginning of psychoanalytical movement. Sándor Ferenczi, leading figure of psychoanalytical increase in the country, embraced the psychoanalytic cause and became one of its most important theorists and thinkers in history. Responsible for the foundation of the International Psychoanalytical Association, also created the Hungarian Psychoanalytical Society, an institution recognized for the originality of their proposals. Besides Ferenczi, Melanie Klein, Michael and Alice Balint, Géza Roheim, among others, were its members. In this historical study, the purpose is to resume the entire path taken by the Hungarian institution, from the foundation to its dissolution in 1949. The identity and the investigative “spirit” of that institution perpetuate throughout psychoanalytical history, influencing, directly or indirectly, great schools and theorists of psychoanalysis, eg, D. W. Winnicott and some thinkers of American and French schools. Keywords: psychoanalysis; psychoanalytical history; hungarian psychoanalytical society; psychoanalytical institutions; Sándor Ferenczi. (shrink)

This article identifies a double allusion to the tragic characters of Phaedra and Eriphyle in Amm. Marc. 14.1.3 and considers its possible meanings. In combination, these allusions evoke the double nature of the story of Eriphyle, therefore functioning as a reference to the double nature of Caesar Gallus’ depiction in Ammianus. The double allusion consequently forms part of Ammianus’ tragic style throughout Book 14. Having identified the presence of this double allusion, the article illuminates its possible meaning by connecting Ammianus’ (...) passage to the Virgilian rewriting of the description of Eriphyle in Homer. (shrink)

One of the most striking features observed throughout tropical agricultural frontiers is the extreme variability in land-use strategies from one farmer to the next. This article analyzes the forest conversion process and predominant land uses associated with smallholder settlement expansion in the Amazon frontier. The discussion seeks to increase understanding of the micro and macro-level forces that propel land-use decisions in the Amazon and offer insights about how farmers' land-use decisions may be altered to bring about forms of resource use (...) that are consistent with the constraints and opportunities of the frontier environment. Recognizing that no frontier area can be truly representative of the Amazon as a whole, this article also introduces some detailed evidence from another Amazon country (Ecuador) within a topic that has been previously dominated by research mainly in Brazil. The analysis suggests that to be effective, any policy or technology-based effort on the part of governments or researchers to alter colonist land-use systems must begin to look systematically at the production systems of agricultural colonist populations already present in frontier environments. This knowledge is essential to understand the social and economic factors affecting present land use and choice of technology. It is also important for understanding factors influencing farmers' demand for more optimal systems of land use that are consistent with varying agroecological potentials, demographic situations, and the management capacity of the farmer. (shrink)

Finlay et al. address the importance of developmental constraints in brain size evolution. I discuss some aspects of this view such as the relation of brain size with processing capacity. In particular, I argue that in human evolution there must have been specific selection for increased processing capacity, and as a consequence for increased brain size.

Cuando se piensa en los conceptos de naturaleza y potencia en Spinoza, generalmente se tiende a dirigir la atención a la política. Pero hay una irreductible perspectiva individual. No todo es una tarea social y política. También está la dimensión personal de la felicidad, algo esencialmente ligado a la naturaleza y la potencia del hombre, como nos revela, sobre todo, la última parte de la Ética1. Entre la máxima potencia del sabio y la vida impotente del supersticioso hay dos situaciones (...) intermedias, que son capitales para el pensamiento de Spinoza. Cercana a la vida del sabio en el tercer género de conocimiento está la del que disfruta del segundo género de conocimiento, por medio del que puede llegar a la felicidad. Pero también hay un terreno que puede hacer de puente entre la religión supersticiosa y la vida del segundo género de conocimiento: es la práctica de lo que Spinoza piensa es la verdadera religión. Precisamente la principal tarea del Tratado Teológico-político es definir este tipo de vida. Empezaremos hablando de la naturaleza y la potencia de la felicidad en el segundo y tercer género de conocimiento. Seguidamente, mostraremos el agudo contraste entre la vida de esos dos géneros de conocimiento y la de quien vive en la religión supersticiosa. Finalmente veremos la naturaleza y la potencia de la salvación en la verdadera religión y cómo está cercana a la felicidad del que vive del segundo género de conocimiento. (shrink)

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)

In this article, I consider Alkis Kontos’ and Allan Bäck’s critiques to Suits that his theory of games and good living lack ontological grounds or rests on the wrong foundations. Taking these criti...

(1999). Information self‐organization and consciousness—towards a holoinformational theory of consciousness. World Futures: Vol. 53, No. 4, pp. 309-327.

I. WINCHESTER and K. BLACKWELL (eds.), Antinomies and paradoxes. Studies in Russell's early philosophy. Hamilton, Ontario: McMaster University Library Press, 1989. 248 pp. No price stated.

Half a century after Halbwachs laid the foundations of a sociology of memory, a new edition of his work Les cadres sociaux de la mémoire has allowed scholars both to understand it more fully and to appreciate its limitations. This article attempts to elucidate the problem of collective memory, distinguishing different forms of memory in the state and civil society. In this dialectic between state and society, collective memory is constructed. This is the main hypothesis of the article. The author (...) uses Fromm’s classic work on Mexican peasants as well as Borges’s Funes the Memorious. Both texts – one socio-psychoanalytic, the other literary – illustrate forms of social memory, its achievements and its limitations. (shrink)

This article examines multinational banks’ approaches to corporate social responsibility in developing countries’ subsidiaries, particularly in Latin America. Building on in-depth case studies of two MNBs that are based in Europe and market leaders in Latin America, we analyze their CSR motivations and outcomes in host countries. We examine institutional environments by applying the national business system framework, and we suggest missing categories in its financial and educational dimensions. We theorize how institutional necessity determines MNBs' CSR in developing countries. Finally, (...) we examine the CSR outcomes in Latin America, where banks’ responsible conduct has led to major improvements in educational levels and financial inclusion. These improvements alleviate poverty and enhance both country's social wellbeing and MNBs’ legitimacy, leading to mutual prosperity. (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 the Nile excursus of his Bellum Civile (10.172-333), Lucan portrays Caesar's inquiry into the source of the river, a well-known topos of human ambition, as an act of aggression, an imperialistic push to transgress natural boundaries. This aggressive drive is foiled by the duplicitous response of both the priest Acoreus and the divinity who inspires him. The digressive quality of the episode offers a redirection and setback for the character of Caesar, which are achieved through the momentary transference of (...) the conflict of the epic to the field of didactic exposition. (shrink)

Plotinus –IIIth Century– have devoted two Enneads to the teaching about the Beauty: Ennead I,8 (1) – «On Beauty»– and Ennead V,8 (31) –«On the Intelligible Beauty»–. The purpose of the paper is to establish the different aspects that the Neoplatonic philosopher states in relation with the kalokagathós on three diverse levels: the aesthetic perception, the intuition of beautiful activities and the contemplation of the Beautiful that it is displayed to the Good/One. It is commented also the differences with Plato (...) and some distinctions with the interpretations in regard to the Beautiful that have been outlined by some contemporary scholars and writings. (shrink)

The paper deals with the interpretation made by Marsilio de Padua of the Aristotelian definition of law. In the first place, the author analyzes the definition of Aristotle to determine why Aristotle says that it is coercive. Since Marsilio works on the translation of Roberto Grosseteste, in second place the author analyzes that translation. He then carefully examines the steps taken by Marsilio to offer his own definition of coercive lex. The paper concludes by showing the transition from the Aristotelian (...) conception of the law, derived from a unitary rational principle, towards the Marsilian conception of the law, built from the empirical principle of the multiplicity of citizens. (shrink)

The article considers the processes of subjectivation of youngsters in poverty condition of a neighborhood of Cordoba. From a Foucauldian analytic standpoint, it analyzes the ways in which subjects constitute themselves through a historical development and within a framework of practices of government and resistance. Therefore, the purpose of the article is to understand how the youngsters of the neighborhood built their subjectivities within a context of social exclusion. Particularly, it analyzes the relevance of kinship and the consequences for women. (...) The fieldwork was undertaken between 2013 and 2017 by means of observation record and analysis of newspapers and government communications. The way of subjectivation that was observed in the youngsters reinforces kinship as a possible way to maintain social bonds despite the social fragmentation and stigmatization that they experience throughout their lives. In turn, this familist retreat fosters a space in which women are reduced to the role of mothers or caretakers, and because of that, are overwhelmed by everyday demands. These features occurred within a context of State policies that made nuclear family their aim of intervention and, also because of neoliberalism, the only providers of care. It concludes with some questions regarding the possibilities of such familism to become the foundation for broader community processes. (shrink)

Texto presentado en el Congreso Internacional “Recepciones de Ortega y Gasset en Chile” celebrado en el Centro Cultural de España en Santiago durante los días 30 y 31 de mayo de 2018, en Santiago de Chile. Forma parte de la compilación recogida en número especial de la Revista de Filosofía Otrosiglo, en junio del 2023.