This article suggests a novel approach to the study of the argumentative structure of Proclus’ Elements of Theology (ET). Instead of studying it through the prism of the Elements of Euclid (EG), this novel approach proposes an evaluation of ET’s argumentative structure based on Proclus’ reflections about the genre of stoicheiôsis and the methods of dialectic and geometry. Thus, I argue that studies under the suggested form of evaluation should standardize the conceptual framework of their analyses about the features of (...) ET’s argumentative structure, explicating their relevance for the interpretation of the text’s system of logical relations. Moreover, this article presents some examples of editorial enhancements made by editors of ET clarifying the argumentative structure of the text. With these examples, I will show how these enhancements help us clarify the argumentative structure of ET. (shrink)

Most formalisms for representing common-sense knowledge allow incomplete and potentially inconsistent information. When strong negation is also allowed, contradictory conclusions can arise. A criterion for deciding between them is needed. The aim of this paper is to investigate an inherent and autonomous comparison criterion, based on specificity as defined in [POO 85, SIM 92]. In contrast to other approaches, we consider not only defeasible, but also strict knowledge. Our criterion is context-sensitive, i. e., preference among defeasible rules is determined dynamically (...) during the dialectical analysis.We show how specificity can be defined in terms of two different approaches: activation sets and derivation trees. This allows us to get a syntactic criterion that can be implemented in a computationally attractive way. The resulting definitions may be applied in general rulebased formalisms. We present theorems linking both characterizations. Finally we discuss other frameworks for defeasible reasoning in which preference handling is considered explicitly. (shrink)

Últimamente, y en especial a partir del enfoque de capacidades y funcionamientos de Amartya Sen, se han cuestionado las mediciones de pobreza donde se tiene en cuenta sólo una dimensión del bienestar, como es el ingreso, y se ha dado creciente importancia a la medición de la pobreza desde una perspectiva multidimensional. La propuesta de medida de pobreza de tiempo e ingreso LIMTIP toma el trabajo no remunerado invisibilizado como punto de partida para establecer un umbral de requerimientos de tiempo. (...) Si el ingreso del hogar alcanza para compensar el valor de estos déficits de tiempo, entonces serán pobres de tiempo pero no de ingreso ajustado. Si el ingreso no alcanza para comprar sustitutos de este déficit de tiempo, entonces las personas y los hogares en que habitan serán pobres de tiempo e ingresos. La medida de pobreza de ingreso y tiempo LIMTIP corrige medidas de pobreza absoluta a las que estamos acostumbrados para hacerlas más fieles a sus supuestos. Este trabajo incorpora la dimensión temporal a la medición de pobreza utilizando la metodología LIMTIP sobre datos de la Encuesta de Uso de Tiempo y Voluntariado realizada en la ciudad de Rosario en 2010. (shrink)

Comparative study of the knowledge of IVF in medical students of universities with different ethical and humanistic valuesEstudo comparativo do conhecimento das técnicas de reprodução assistida em estudantes de Medicina de universidades com diferentes ideários éticos e humanísticosIn vitro fertilization continues to be presented as a relatively simple solution to produce a pregnancy without exposing the medical and ethical problems that this represents. This project consisted of conducting a survey to medical students from three medical schools in Mexico City with (...) different ethical and humanistic ideas with the aim of evaluating knowledge about IVF techniques and their ethical implications. The survey was applied to 404 medical students. Students in schools with personalistic ethics had a greater recognition of the bioethical principles involved in the use of these techniques. Knowledge of the technique and ethical issues involved in assisted reproduction could improve the sensitivity of medical students to ethical dilemmas that arise in their professional practice.Para citar este artículo / To reference this article / Para citar este artigoCantú-Quintanilla G, Vidal-Sentíes C, Marcó-Bach FJ, Camargo-Prieto F, Aguiñaga-Chiñas N, Contreras-Estrada D. Estudio comparativo del conocimiento de las técnicas de reproducción asistida en estudiantes de medicina de universidades con diferentes idearios éticos y humanísticos. Pers Bioet. 2020;24:166-176. DOI: https://doi.org/10.5294/pebi.2020.24.2.4Recibido: 04/09/2019Aceptado: 05/08/2020Publicado: 27/11/2020. (shrink)

Desde el ámbito filosófico cada vez más autores muestran interés por abordar la reflexión filosófica de la ingeniería. Del lado de la ingeniería, existe una demanda definida por las sociedades profesionales y los organismos de acreditación de las titulaciones de ingeniería de inclusión de las ciencias sociales y humanidades en la formación de los ingenieros que, sin embargo, presenta deficiencias en su implantación. El objetivo del presente trabajo es justificar la inclusión de la reflexión filosófica en la formación de los (...) titulados en ingeniería y, para mejorar la situación actual, presentar una propuesta de asignaturas que muestre cuál pueda ser su espacio. La propuesta consiste en la inclusión de una asignatura específica que relacione la ingeniería y la sociedad, donde la reflexión filosófica juega un papel significativo, como complemento a la inclusión de la reflexión filosófica sobre problemas concretos en asignaturas específicas de corte tecnológico. (shrink)

The following article proposes to think the notion of "love" from the work of two contemporary French philosophers: Alain Badiou and François Jullien. In order to account for this, the text is divided into three central parts. The first seeks to describe, in a general way and like as a historical background, the antecedents of love present in ancient Greek thought. In a second moment, and from Badiou's work, love will be understood as an event and by extension in its (...) coincidence with political forms. Thirdly, Jullien's reflections on the word de-coincidence and the question of love as a zone where our world is not-adjusted. Finally, some considerations will be left circulating by way of conclusion around a unique way in which the phenomenon of love appears in both thinkers. (shrink)

We propose a revision operator on a stratified belief base, i.e., a belief base that stores beliefs in different strata corresponding to the value an agent assigns to these beliefs. Furthermore, the operator will be defined as to perform the revision in such a way that information is never lost upon revision but stored in a stratum or layer containing information perceived as having a lower value. In this manner, if the revision of one layer leads to the rejection of (...) some information to maintain consistency, instead of being withdrawn it will be kept and introduced in a different layer with lower value. Throughout this development we will follow the principle of minimal change, being one of the important principles proposed in belief change theory, particularly emphasized in the AGM model. Regarding the reasoning part from the stratified belief base, the agent will obtain the inferences using an argumentative formalism. Thus, the argumentation framework will decide which information prevails when sentences of different layers are used for entailing conflicting beliefs. We will also illustrate how inferences are changed and how the status of arguments can be modified after a revision process. (shrink)

An experimental study was designed to analyze the effect of school-based training in self-regulation learning strategies on academic performance. Class-level variables were considered and the effects of the intervention were measured at the end of the intervention and 3 months later. A sample of 761 students from 3rd and 4th grades, from 14 schools, participated in the study. Data were analyzed using three-level analysis with within-student measurements at level 1, between-students within-classes at level 2, and between-classes at level 3. Data (...) showed a positive effect of the intervention on student performance, both at post-test and at follow-up considering the four school subjects together. However, the effect was significant just at follow-up when subjects were considered separately. Student performance was significantly related to the students’ variables and the context. Finally, students’ gender and level of reading comprehension, as well as the teacher’s gender, were found to moderate the effect of the intervention on students’ academic performance. Two conclusions were highlighted: first, data emphasize the importance of considering time while conducting intervention studies. Second, more teaching experience does not necessarily translate into improvements in the quality of students’ instruction. (shrink)

Holobionts are symbiotic assemblages composed by a host plus its microbiome. The status of holobionts as individuals has recently been a subject of continuous controversy, which has given rise to two main positions: on the one hand, holobiont advocates argue that holobionts are biological individuals; on the other, holobiont detractors argue that they are just mere chimeras or ecological communities, but not individuals. Both parties in the dispute develop their arguments from the framework of the philosophy of biology, in terms (...) of what it takes for a “conglomerate” to be considered an interesting individual from a biological point of view. However, the debates about holobiont individuality have important ontological implications that have remained vaguely explored from a metaphysical framework. The purpose of this paper is to cover that gap by presenting a metaphysical approach to holobionts individuality. Drawing upon a conception of natural selection that puts the focus on the transgenerational recurrence of the traits and that supports the thesis that holobionts are units of selection, we argue that holobionts bear emergent traits and exert downward powers over the entities that compose them. In this vein, we argue, a reasonable argument can be made for conceiving holobionts as emergent biological individuals. (shrink)

ABSTRACTDo truth tables—the ordinary sort that we use in teaching and explaining basic propositional logic—require an assumption of consistency for their construction? In this essay we show that truth tables can be built in a consistency-independent paraconsistent setting, without any appeal to classical logic. This is evidence for a more general claim—that when we write down the orthodox semantic clauses for a logic, whatever logic we presuppose in the background will be the logic that appears in the foreground. Rather than (...) any one logic being privileged, then, on this count partisans across the logical spectrum are in relatively similar dialectical positions. (shrink)

Are properties universal or particular? According to Universalism, properties are universals because there is a certain fundamental tie that makes properties capable of being shareable by more than one thing. On the opposing side, Particularism is the view that properties are particulars due to the existence of a fundamental tie that makes properties incapable of being shared. My aim in this paper is to critically examine the connections between the notions of the fundamental tie and universality and particularity. I argue, (...) first, that universality and particularity can characterize a property if and only if there is a universalist or a particularist fundamental tie, and, second, that it is unclear that these should be the fundamental ties that connect ordinary and scientific properties to their respective bearers. Then I develop an alternative approach to properties and the fundamental tie, which is neutralist because it dispenses with universality and particularity as features of properties, and naturalist because it naturalizes the possession of properties by replacing metaphysical fundamental ties with a scientific one, in particular, a physical process. I show how this approach improves our understanding of properties and instantiation. (shrink)

Is structure a fundamental and indispensable part of the world? Is the question of ontology a question about structure? Structure is a central notion in contemporary metaphysics [Sider 2011. Writing the Book of the World. Oxford: Clarendon Press]. Realism about structure claims that the question of ontology is about the fundamental and indispensable structure of the world. In this paper, I present a criticism of the metaphysics of realism about structure based on a version of Russell’s famous regress argument against (...) nominalism [Russell 1911. “On the Relation of Universals and Particular.” In Logic & Knowledge. Reprint, London: George Allen & Unwin]. First, I argue that the three general tests for the fundamentality of structure proposed by realism about structure rely on a particular empirical test for structure, namely, the so-called ‘similarity test for structure.’ Second, I argue that the similarity test is not well-founded because it leads to a vicious regress. Third, I argue that the regress affects the whole metaphysics of realism about structure, and that no structural notion can be said to be fundamental in connection with any of the other tests. Lastly, I argue that the question of ontology as a question about structure is not substantive. (shrink)

What is the so-called “question of ontology?” Is the question of ontology genuinely a question about “categories” (Lowe 2006), “structure” (Sider 2011), “existence” (Thomasson 2015), or rather “reality” (Fine 2009)? In this article, I defend the neo-Sellarsian approach to the question of ontology, a novel, naturalistic approach according to which the foundational question of ontology is about “understanding the manifest and the scientific images of the world, and their multiple relationships.” First, I argue for the thesis of Impure Eliminativism, a (...) form of constructive pluralism about the question of ontology by which the substantivity of questions of ontology which are not the neo-Sellarsian one is to be built upon certain relations with the neo-Sellarsian question of ontology. Second, I argue for the categorial plasticity of the two images and their relations in connection with the hypothesis of Weak Epistemic Factualism. Third, and lastly, I argue for a person-based ontology framed in terms of the crucial notions of “fact” and “understanding” in response to the eliminativist categorizations of the two images and their relationships proposed by substantialism and structuralism. (shrink)

Esta obra está pensada para que sirva como ayuda para cursos universitarios de Filosofía de la Ciencia. Además de ocuparse del conocimiento científico, se propone una filosofía de la actividad científica, en la que se tienen presentes las interrelaciones entre ciencia y tecnología. Se abordan asimismo cuestiones relativas a valores que rigen la práctica científica.

Status anxiety, the constant concern about individuals’ position on the social ladder, negatively affects social cohesion, health, and wellbeing. Given previous findings showing that status anxiety is associated with economic inequality, we aimed in this research to test this association experimentally. A cross-sectional study was run in order to discard confounding effects of the relationship between perceived economic inequality and status anxiety, and to explore the mediating role of a competitive climate. Then we predicted that people assigned to a condition (...) of high inequality would perceive more status anxiety in their social context, and they would themselves report higher status anxiety. Thus, in an experimental study PEI was manipulated. In Study 1, PEI uniquely predicted status anxiety, and perceived competitiveness mediated the relationship. In Study 2 PEI increased perceived contextual status anxiety, a specific form of perceived competitiveness based on socioeconomic status. Moreover, preliminary evidence of an indirect effect was found from PEI to personal status anxiety, through perceived contextual status anxiety. These preliminary findings provide experimental evidence for the effects of economic inequality on status anxiety and the mechanism involved. Economic inequality makes people feel that they live in a society where they are constantly concerned and competing with each other for their SES. These results could have important implications as health and wellbeing could be promoted by reducing economic inequalities and the competitive and materialistic environments of our societies. (shrink)

Lewis has objected to Armstrong's notion of a structural universal on the grounds that it violates the Principle of Uniqueness of Composition (PUC), which says that given some parts, there is only one whole that they compose. This paper reviews Armstrong's case for structural universals, and then attempts to reconcile structural universals with PUC by arguing for the existence of arrangement universals. The latter are not only a key to defending structural universals against Lewis' objection, but are in fact essential (...) to Armstrong's conception of structural universals in general. Three objections to my proposal are deflected, and two alternative proposals are shown to be inferior to it. (shrink)

The opponents of Epicureanism in antiquity, including Cicero, Plutarch and Lactantius, succeeded in establishing a famous cliché: the theoretical and practical disinterest of Epicurus and the Epicureans in political communities. However, this anti-Epicurean literature did not provide considerations of Epicurean political theory or the testimonies about Epicurean lifestyle. Therefore, the purpose of this book is to shed light on the contribution of Epicurean thought to political life in the ancient world. Incorporating the most up-to-date archaeological material, including papyri which have (...) been recovered from Herculaneum and the Greek epigraphy of the Roman Epicureans, this volume will bring to the foreground new testimonies surrounding the public activities of the Epicureans. In this way, the reader will learn that Epicurean political theory is, in fact, a crucial ingredient of its philosophy. As a result, this connection creates an ongoing dialogue with the Greek philosophical tradition, revealing the presence of Plato in the Epicurean political model. (shrink)

States have rights to unilaterally determine their own immigration policies under international law and few international institutions regulate states’ decision-making about immigration. As a result, states have extensive discretion over immigration policy. In this paper, I argue that states should join international migration institutions that would constrain their discretion over immigration. Immigration restrictions are morally risky. When states restrict immigration, they risk unjustly harming foreigners and restricting their freedom. Furthermore, biases and epistemic defects pervasively influence states’ decision-making about immigration policy. (...) States should transfer some of their decision-making authority over immigration to more reliable institutions in order to mitigate the risks that they will unjustly restrict immigration. International institutions that include the interests of potential immigrants would be more reliable with respect to immigration policy than unilateral state decision-making. Thus, states should subject their immigration policies to international control. (shrink)

A general view in philosophy of science says that the appropriateness of an object to act as a surrogate depends on the user’s decision to utilize it as such. This paper challenges this claim by examining the role of surrogative reasoning in high-throughput sequencing technologies as they are used in contemporary microbiome science. Drawing on this, we argue that, in technology-driven surrogates, knowledge about the type of inference practically permitted and epistemically justified by the surrogate constrains their use and thus (...) puts a limit to the user’s intentions to use any object as a surrogate for what they please. Ignoring this leads to a serious epistemic misalignment, which ultimately prevents surrogative reasoning. Thus, we conclude that knowledge about the type of surrogate reasoning that the technologies being used allow is fundamental to avoid misinterpreting the consequences of the data obtained with them, the hypothesis this data supports, and what these technologies are surrogates of. (shrink)

This text reflects on the theme of freedom and its relationship with values. To do this, it shows the original approach to this issue present in the thought of the current Spanish philosopher J. M. Méndez. According to the characteristic thinking of this author, freedom does not represent a value but the gateway or the very possibility of participation in any ethical value, as postulated by his _axiological liberalism_.

In a recent article, Hayakawa and Keysar (2018) propose that mental imagery is less vivid when evoked in a foreign than in a native language. The authors argue that reduced mental imagery could even account for moral foreign language effects, whereby moral choices become more utilitarian when made in a foreign language. Here we demonstrate that Hayakawa and Keysar's (2018) key results are better explained by reduced language comprehension in a foreign language than by less vivid imagery. We argue that (...) the paradigm used in Hayakawa and Keysar (2018) does not provide a satisfactory test of reduced imagery and we discuss an alternative paradigm based on recent experimental developments. (shrink)

The Sellarsian task of ontology is to reconcile two seemingly divergent images of ordinary objects such as persons, tomatoes and tables, namely, the manifest image of common sense and the scientific image provided by fundamental physics (Sellars, Science, Perception, and Reality, 1963). Can the genuine categories of the ontologies of Substantialism (Heil, The World as We Find It, 2012), Structural Realism (Ladyman and Ross,Every Thing Must Go: Metaphysics Naturalized, 2007; French, The Structure of the World: Metaphysics and Representation, 2014), and (...) Factualism (Cumpa, ‘A Materialist Criterion of Fundamentality’, American Philosophical Quarterly, 2014), such as ‘substance’, ‘structure’, and ‘fact’, help us to solve the problem of the reconciliation of the two images of ordinary objects? In this paper I defend the thesis that the ontology of Factualism does a better job of reconciling the manifest and the scientific images of ordinary objects than other ontologies. (shrink)

The systematic importance of the eidetic account of phantasy for Husserlian phenomenology in general is undisputed, but whether this account can be relevant for Aesthetics has often been put into question. In this paper I argue that Husserl’s rich phenomenology of phantasy, and in particular his account of perceptual phantasy, can nevertheless significantly enhance our understanding of how we recognize and imaginatively participate in artistic fictions. Moreover, I show how Husserl’s peculiar formulation of a non-intuitive phantasy at stake in artistic (...) representation anticipates some uses of the imagination in Aesthetics suggested by Ernst Gombrich and Kendall Walton. (shrink)

According to the cohabitation account, all the persons that result from a fission event cohabit the same body prior to fission. This article concerns a problem for this account. Suppose Manuel and Jimena are suffering from an equally painful migraine. Unlike Jimena, however, Manuel will undergo fission. Assuming you have a spare painkiller, whom should you give it to? Intuitively, you have no more reason to give it to one or the other. The problem is that the cohabitation account suggests (...) otherwise. According to the account, there are two persons cohabiting Manuel’s body, in which case you should arguably give them the pill, since doing so alleviates the pain of more beings. One response argues that the two persons cohabiting Manuel’s body share one pain. Thus, giving them the pill alleviates no more pain than giving it to Jimena, and therefore you have no more reason to do one or the other. The goal of this article is to show that this response fails. (shrink)

This paper presents an account of the nature of stem cells based on the philosophical concept of disposition. It is argued that stem cells can be conceived as dispositional objects, and adopting this attitude allows overcoming some of the controversies surrounding the nature of stemness (most notably, the state vs. entity debate) because it offers a framework that accommodates the lessons from different theories. Additionally, the account is simultaneously useful for interpreting stem cell experiments and guiding potential interventions. The account (...) shows how different levels, both molecular and emergent network-level, play the primary causal role in explaining some empirical results, and hence they suggest that the explanations can be mechanistic or topological, respectively. The realization that any of these levels may play a more prominent causal role than another allows suggesting interventions at the genetic, molecular and population levels. (shrink)

En este trabajo sostendremos una interrogación a los sistemas computacionales y a la noción misma de computación desde perspectivas conceptuales, políticas y culturales. La ubicuidad y la insoslayable y creciente importancia que estos sistemas tienenen todos los ámbitos de la vida suele llevar a análisis apresurados y distópicos de sus alcances y límites,considerando algunas consecuencias propias de un estadio particular de su desarrollo como constitutivas o inevitables. Tratando de desenredar una vieja, pero renovada trama de confusiones, tomaremos algunas ideas y (...) descubrimientos fundacionales de la computación como la efectividad, la programabilidad y la abstracción, los programas como datos y el interjuego entre manipulación humana y mecánica de símbolos propuesta por Dijkstra, como claves para construir una mirada que se sustraiga a los frecuentes prejuicios antropomórficos y que habilite pensar un horizonte de mejores entramados entre humanos y algoritmos. Para ello presentaremos tres niveles de análisis de sistemas computacionales que dan cuenta de propiedades diferentes en cada nivel de manera de poder sopesar mejor no solo la actualidad de la IA, sino también las posibilidades de evolución de las mediaciones computacionales en general. (shrink)

Las reflexiones transdisciplinares de este artículo estudian la relación entre naturaleza, ciencia y religión. Se dirigen a fenómenos complejos de nuestra realidad ontológica desde una perspectiva donde ciencia y religión se funden para dar paso a la filosofía cosmoderna. Como resultado, surge una ética global para reinventar lo sagrado como producto de la integración entre cosmovisiones religiosas y científicas. También se describe un diálogo interreligioso e intra-religioso donde la naturaleza y el cosmos constituyen el encuentro entre conocimiento científico y religioso. (...) En resumen, el enfoque cosmoderno sostiene que aprender a co-evolucionar conscientemente requiere el desarrollo de una ecología de saberes, donde el conocimiento físico externo y la sabiduría espiritual interna convergen y se complementan en diferentes niveles de nuestra experiencia. (shrink)

In this article we present symmetric diffusion networks, a family of networks that instantiate the principles of continuous, stochastic, adaptive and interactive propagation of information. Using methods of Markovion diffusion theory, we formalize the activation dynamics of these networks and then show that they can be trained to reproduce entire multivariate probability distributions on their outputs using the contrastive Hebbion learning rule (CHL). We show that CHL performs gradient descent on an error function that captures differences between desired and obtained (...) continuous multivariate probability distributions. This allows the learning algorithm to go beyond expected values of output units and to approximate complete probability distributions on continuous multivariate activation spaces. We argue that learning continuous distributions is an important task underlying a variety of real‐life situations that were beyond the scope of previous connectionist networks. Deterministic networks, like back propagation, cannot learn this task because they are limited to learning average values of independent output units. Previous stochastic connectionist networks could learn probability distributions but they were limited to discrete variables. Simulations show that symmetric diffusion networks can be trained with the CHL rule to approximate discrete and continuous probability distributions of various types. (shrink)

The facts and inferences exposed in this writing, and the arguments that support it, allow us to conclude that the «extension of the mind», opened during the evolutionary process, since always and today accelerated by the work of human intervention, in no case authorizes us to consider that the «extension of mind» has changed human nature, as we have always known it. Therefore, there is no justification to speak of transhumanism, as if a new man, a «transhuman», had appeared at (...) the moment of the Singularity, whose nature had undergone substantial changes in relation to the usual human nature. For this reason, we consider that we should continue speaking of an «extensive humanism». No more. (shrink)

Resumen: El llamado “caso Schreber” es uno de los textos más visitados, tanto por la tradición psicoanalítica como por los distintos debates interdisciplinares que se entretejen alrededor de él. En el interior de la abundante riqueza de lecturas filosóficas, literarias, clínicas y otras, hay un aspecto al que, sorprendentemente, se le ha prestado poca atención, a saber, la relación entre el delirio de Daniel Paul Schreber y el forjamiento, del lado de Sigmund Freud, de una teoría no solo de la (...) psicosis como estructura clínica, sino también de las fuerzas y dinamismos que rigen el funcionamiento del aparato anímico, la llamada teoría pulsional [Trieblehre]. En este artículo se discute esta relación de la mano del análisis comparativo de la noción de “mito endopsíquico”, que atravesará los campos del delirio schreberiano y de la metapsicología freudiana, para evidenciar en ambos dominios, mediante una serie de relaciones de analogía e isomorfismo, los elementos cruciales de una representación de la vida como de-vivir, es decir, como desgaste o degradación de las poderes de lo viviente.: The so-called “Schreber case” is one of the most visited texts, both by the psychoanalytic tradition and by the interdisciplinary debates intertwined around it. Within the abundant richness of philosophical, literary, clinical, and other readings, one aspect has surprisingly been given little attention, namely, the relationship between the Daniel Paul Schreber delirium and the forging, by Sigmund Freud, of a theory of psychosis as a clinical structure and also of the forces and dynamisms that rule the functioning of the psychic apparatus, the so-called drive theory {Trieblehre}. In this article, this relationship is discussed through a comparative analysis of the notion of “endopsychic myth” in the fields of Schreberian delirium and of Freudian metapsychology, in order to show in both domains, using a series of relations of analogy and isomorphism, the crucial elements of a representation of life as a “dis-living”, that is, as a wear or degradation of the powers of all living matter. (shrink)

The present commentary addresses the main results obtained in the Butler and Klein [Butler, B. C., & Klein, R. . Inattentional blindness for ignored words: Comparison of explicit and implicit memory tasks. Consciousness and Cognition, 18, 811–819.] study and discusses them in relation to the Perceptual Load Theory of Lavie [Lavie, N. . Perceptual load as a necessary condition for selective attention. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 21, 451–68.]. The authors claim that the use of implicit indexes (...) of conceptual distractor processing in high-load situations would be an important addition to the load literature, which would benefit the research field regardless of their positive or negative findings. (shrink)

Oversimplified conceptions of cognitive neuroscience regard the goal of this discipline as the localization of previously discovered and validated cognitive processes. Research however is showing how brain data goes far beyond this translation role, as it can be used to help in explaining human cognition. Knowing about the brain is useful in building and redefining taxonomies of the mind and also in describing the mechanisms by which cognitive phenomena proceed. The present paper takes the cognitive system of attention as a (...) model research field to exemplify how biological knowledge can be used to advance the psychological theories explaining mental phenomena. (shrink)

Wachsein ist in der abendlandischen Philosophie ein Randthema. In psychologischem und medizinischem Kontext ist das Wachsein meist nur Thema in der Perspektive der dritten Person: Man beschreibt, wie sich andere verhalten, wenn sie wach sind. Dieses Buch halt sich an die Perspektive der ersten Person. Es geht um das subjektive Erleben, darum, wie es fur mich ist, wach zu sein. Das ist uns vertraut und gerade deswegen fremd und unbefragt. Zumeist hintergrundig bewusst, wird es erst explizit, wenn das Erleben gestort (...) wird. Im Zentrum steht die These, es fuhle sich irgendwie an, wach zu sein. Wachsein bestehe in unterschiedlichen Gefuhlen bestimmter Struktur, die man als "Selbstgefuhle" bezeichnen kann, weil ich in ihnen in strengerem Sinn auf mich bezogen bin als in anderen Gefuhlen. Eine Theorie der Gefuhle, die auf Brentano und Meinong zuruckgeht, nach der Gefuhle Modifikationen von Strebungen sind, macht dies verstandlich und zeigt, wie sich Gefuhle des Wachseins von anderen Gefuhlen unterscheiden. Die Philosophische Bedeutung des Wachseins resultiert aus den Beziehungen zu einigen klassischen Problemen der Philosophie: zum Selbstbewusstsein, zur freien Entscheidung sowie zum Ursprung des Bewusstseins. Zudem bildet es das Medium, in dem uns etwas bewusst ist. Wir mussen nicht wissen, was Wachsein ist, um wach zu sein, aber dieses Wissen ist unverzichtbar fur das Selbstverstandnis von uns als Menschen. (shrink)

When visual attention is directed away from a stimulus, neural processing is weak and strength and precision of sensory data decreases. From a computational perspective, in such situations observers should give more weight to prior expectations in order to behave optimally during a discrimination task. Here we test a signal detection theoretic model that counter-intuitively predicts subjects will do just the opposite in a discrimination task with two stimuli, one attended and one unattended: when subjects are probed to discriminate the (...) unattended stimulus, they rely less on prior information about the probed stimulus’ identity. The model is in part inspired by recent findings that attention reduces trial-by-trial variability of the neuronal population response and that they use a common criterion for attended and unattended trials. In five different visual discrimination experiments, when attention was directed away from the target stimulus, subjects did not adjust their response bias in reaction to a change in stimulus presentation frequency despite being fully informed and despite the presence of performance feedback and monetary and social incentives. This indicates that subjects did not rely more on the priors under conditions of inattention as would be predicted by a Bayes-optimal observer model. These results inform and constrain future models of Bayesian inference in the human brain. (shrink)

El siguiente texto intenta exponer algunas de las ideas básicas de la tercera de las tres partes que componen Meditaciones del Quijote: la “Meditación primera. Breve tratado de la novela”. En las no muchas páginas que ocupa el texto de Ortega, se ofrece una visión sobre el inmortal libro de Cervantes que no puede dejar indiferentes a los filósofos.

The purpose of this article is to offer a reconstruction of the moral theory defended by Callicles in Plato’s Gorgias, aided by other contemporary texts that contribute to explain and refine such a theory. The first step of this reconstruction is to show that Callicles offers a perspectivist theory of moral judgements, according to which moral judgements can be issued from two radically distinct perspectives, the contractual and the natural one. The second step is to show that Callicles makes use (...) of a peculiar conception of nature that allows him to claim that certain natural rights and privileges stemming from the natural perspective of valuation must override those rights stemming from the contractual perspective. The resulting theory, as well as being worthy of philosophical interest, does not appear to be vulnerable to most of the objections advanced by the dominant interpretations, nor does it entail the implausible sort of hedonism that Plato attributes to Callicles in this dialogue. (shrink)

In this paper I will defend an approach to the thought experiment known as ‘Maxwell’s Demon’ based on a Maxwellian conception of statistical mechanics. Instead of assuming that thermodynamic descriptions depend reductively on the dynamics of molecular components, I will adopt a conception of thermophysics as a ‘resource theory’ in the Maxwellian line recently defended by Myrvold (2011) and Wallace (2017). From this interpretative stance, Maxwell’s demon would not lead directly to the plausibility of violating the second law of thermodynamics, (...) but to show the pragmatic impossibility of knowing deterministically the exact microscopic of thermal systems. (shrink)