This compilation offers us the rare opportunity to come in contact with the spontaneous words of an enlightened master. With refreshing insight, Prabhuji reveals a unique message of selfinquiry and evolution. For Prabhuji, yoga is "a path that begins and ends in you, from what you believe yourself to be to what you really are." The transcribed lectures included in this book encompass teachings from various paths of the ancient wisdom of yoga and invite the readers to study, (...) contemplate, and integrate the different aspects of the human experience in order to rediscover their authentic nature. The deep observations of the author, explained with great eloquence and clarity, can help each one to see what is, as it is. (shrink)

Advaita Vedanta is the most refined philosophical pearl of Hinduism. It is reserved for seekers of Truth who want to know their own essence and aspire to liberation, or mokṣa. It suggests following the path of knowledge, called jñāna-yoga, which is more an existential view than a theory, philosophy, doctrine, or deductive logical knowledge. It teaches self-inquiry: "Who am I?" This question is an expression of the highest and noblest rebellion. It restores our dignity and accepts us as the only (...) authority on who we are. Jñāna is knowing ourselves as Brahman and realizing our reality as the transcendental Self, beyond time and space. In this book, Prabhuji presents the principles of Vedanta that will help seekers take their first steps on this path. Rather than offering information, explanations, and answers, he inspires us to inquire, doubt, and investigate our own essence. He tells us that every effort to achieve enlightenment is superfluous because we already are what we aspire to be. We simply need to turn our attention to consciousness itself and be the Self. (shrink)

Manuscript type Empirical. Research question/issue This paper aims to contribute to an improved theoretical and empirical understanding of the role that corporation has to play in anticorruption efforts. Research findings/insights Using cross-country data from three databases (Bribe Payers Index, Corruption Perceptions Index, and Doing Business) we found that pro-bribery Investment Climate conditions in host countries are not related to the payments of bribes by multinational companies when these corporations operate abroad. Theoretical/academic implications After describing the conceptual and policy framework that (...) surrounds the discussion on the role played by firms in anticorruption, we present the current debate regarding the effectiveness of international bribery control instruments, with the World Bank-GAC (2006-2008) report as a basis. Both literature and policy seem to be divided into two main, although not mutually exclusive, positions: one demands improvements in Investment Climate conditions from a joint public-private consensus led by international agencies; the other one supports the effectiveness of self-regulation by firms, independent of Investment Climate improvements. The study provides empirical support to the idea that a better Investment Climate is not enough for reducing corrup tion. Practitioner/policy implications This study offers insights to policy makers interested in promoting the involvement of corporations in the fight against corruption. (shrink)

One of the most urgent debates of our time is about the exact role that new technologies can and should play in our societies and particularly in our public decision-making processes. This paper is a first attempt to introduce the idea of CrowdLaw, defined as online public participation leveraging new technologies to tap into diverse sources of information, judgments and expertise at each stage of the law and policymaking cycle to improve the quality as well as the legitimacy of the (...) resulting laws and policies. First, we explain why CrowdLaw differs from many previous forms of political participation. Second,we reproduce and explain the CrowdLaw Manifesto that the rising CrowdLaw community has elaborated to foster such approaches around the world. Lastly, we introduce some preliminary considerations on the notions of justice, legitimacy and quality of lawmaking and public decision-making, which are central to the idea of CrowdLaw. (shrink)

Aprender de los griegos es posible, pero solo si partimos de dos bases necesarias: la primera, que nuestro mundo es profundamente distinto al suyo; la segunda, que el pensamiento libre requiere no quedar prisionero de ningún dogma. La forma primitiva de pensar de los griegos es una escuela que nos puede ayudar a desnudar la enorme cantidad de supuestos en los que se apoya la mentalidad contemporánea.

Resumen: Diversos académicos han analizado la influencia de Toynbee y Spengler en la conocida saga Foundation, escrita por Isaac Asimov y considerada una de las más importantes de la ciencia ficción. Sin embargo, nuestra hipótesis es que, si bien existe un cierto diálogo transtextual con los trabajos de ambos autores, es en la obra del historiador griego Polibio, Historias, donde se halla la principal relación de tipo hipertextual. Comparando la anaciclosis descrita por Polibio con la evolución política que Asimov narra (...) en sus novelas, comprobamos que las semejanzas no solo alcanzan a los diferentes sistemas de gobierno, sino incluso a la misma secuencia en que estos se suceden. El resultado es una obra que permite una interesante lectura palimpséstica, enriqueciendo sensiblemente la experiencia del lector con formación humanística.: Several scholars have analyzed the influence of Toynbee and Spengler, in the well-known saga of the Foundation, written by Isaac Asimov and considered one of the most important of science fiction. However, although there exists a transtextual dialogue with Spengler's and Toynbee’s works, our hypothesis is that the main hypertextual relationship must be searched in the work of the Greek historian Polybius, Histories. Comparing the anacyclosis described by Polybius with the political evolution that Asimov narrates in his novels, we can see that similarities not only reach different systems of government, but even the very same sequence in which they happen. The result is a work that allows an interesting palimpsestic reading, significantly enriching the experience of those readers possessing humanistic knowledge. (shrink)

Diversos académicos han analizado la influencia de Toynbee y Spengler en la conocida saga Foundation, escrita por Isaac Asimov y considerada una de las más importantes de la ciencia ficción. Sin embargo, nuestra hipótesis es que, si bien existe un cierto diálogo transtextual con los trabajos de ambos autores, es en la obra del historiador griego Polibio, Historias, donde se halla la principal relación de tipo hipertextual. Comparando la anaciclosis descrita por Polibio con la evolución política que Asimov narra en (...) sus novelas, comprobamos que las semejanzas no solo alcanzan a los diferentes sistemas de gobierno, sino incluso a la misma secuencia en que estos se suceden. El resultado es una obra que permite una interesante lectura palimpséstica, enriqueciendo sensiblemente la experiencia del lector con formación humanística. (shrink)

Authoritative school climate is a relevant and novel construct that improves the academic performance and social-emotional development of students. This study aimed to evaluate the psychometric properties of reliability and validity of the Authoritative School Climate Survey (ASCS) in a sample of Chilean adolescents. A cross-sectional study was carried out, in which 808 students from 12 schools in Chile participated (55.1% men and 44.9% women), with a mean age of 15.94 (SD= 1.32). The results obtained through exploratory and confirmatory factor (...) analyzes ratified the hypothesized structure of two correlated factors. As expected, evidence of criterion validity showed significant relationships between the measures of authoritative school climate and attitude toward institutional authority. This study provides evidence regarding the psychometric quality of the scale to assess authoritative school climate, allowing its use in the Chilean context. (shrink)

School climate is a multidimensional construct that has been related to a series of psychological, social, and school variables. The dual school climate and school identification measure-student (SCASIM-St) is a measure that has a multidimensional factor structure, with four first-order factors and a second-order factor, plus an independent factor that evaluates school identification. However, the SCASIM-St is long, with 38 items measuring school climate. The first objective of this study was to examine the psychometric properties of reliability and validity of (...) the abbreviated version of the dual school climate and school identification measure-student (SCASIM-St-15), for use in contexts with time limitations or for explanatory studies that need to apply multiple instruments simultaneously. The second objective was to analyze the degree of invariance for the groups: sex, type of education, and age. The sample was made up of 2,044 students of both sexes (49.1% women and 50.9% men), with a mean age of 14.64 (SD = 0.718), representing 27 secondary schools in Chile. The results indicated that the SCASIM-St15 presents adequate indicators of reliability and construct validity. Evidence of external criterion validity confirmed significant associations with the Attitudes to Institutional Authority in Adolescence Scale measure. The results of the factorial invariance analysis indicate that the SCASIM-St15 remains stable up to the level of metric invariance for the variable sex and the level of scalar invariance for the variables type of education and age. The study concluded that despite the significant decrease in the number of items, the SCASIM-St15 measures school climate in a reliable and valid way, without losing its theoretical and conceptual robustness. (shrink)

Resumen Se estudia comparativamente el desempeño de adultos mayores y de adultos jóvenes en una tarea concurrente que consiste en leer oraciones ecuacionales mientras, al mismo tiempo, se retienen en la memoria tres palabras. El propósito del experimento es averiguar si existe un efecto de las variables edad, memoria operativa, complejidad sintáctica e interferencia de una carga concurrente de memoria en el procesamiento y comprensión de oraciones de sintaxis compleja. El análisis estadístico multinivel realizado revela que tanto el procesamiento en (...) línea de las oraciones ecuacionales como su comprensión se ven afectados significativamente por la edad de los participantes cuando opera una carga de memoria concurrente. Las variables memoria operativa y complejidad sintáctica, por su parte, afectan también significativamente el desempeño de los sujetos, pero independientemente de su edad.The performance of older and young adults in a concurrent task -to read equational sentences while at the same time the subjects retain in memory three words- is comparatively studied. The purpose of the experiment is to find out if there is an effect of the variables of age, working memory, syntactic complexity and interference of a concurrent memory load processing on the comprehension of syntactically complex sentences. The multilevel statistical analysis reveals that both online processing of cleft sentences as their understanding is significantly affected by the age of participants when operating a concurrent memory load. The working memory variables and syntactical complexity, meanwhile, also significantly affect the performance of subjects, but regardless of age. (shrink)

"The book presents in accessible fashion recent important work on the self and self-consciousness and also moves the issues forward with interesting new ideas. It provides a notably crisp and clear treatment of some extremely intriguing topics." -- Jane Heal, Department of Philosophy, University of Cambridge In this book, José Luis Bermú dez addesses two fundamental problems in the philosophy and psychology of self-consciousness: (1) Can we provide a noncircular account of fully fledged self-conscious thought and language in terms (...) of more fundamental capacities? (2) Can we explain how fully fledged self-conscious thought and language can arise in the normal course of human development? Bermú dez argues that a paradox (the paradox of self-consciousness) arises from the apparent strict interdependence between self-conscious thought and linguistic self-reference. The paradox renders circular all theories that define self-consciousness in terms of linguistic mastery of the first-person pronoun. It seems to follow from the paradox of self-consciousness that no such account or explanation can be given. Drawing on recent work in empirical psychology and philosophy, the author argues that any explanation of fully fledged self-consciousness that answers these two questions requires attention to primitive forms of self-consciousness that are prelinguistic and preconceptual. Such primitive forms of self-consciousness are to be found in somatic proprioception, the structure of exteroceptive perception, and prelinguistic forms of social interaction. The author uses these primitive forms of self-consciousness to dissolve the paradox ofself-consciousness and to show how the two questions can be given an affirmative answer. (shrink)

The author challenges the view that birth cannot be a morally relevant fact in the process of development from zygote to child. He reviews specific arguments against giving any moral significance to the fact of birth. Drawing on recent work in developmental psychology, he contends that the lives of neonates can have a level of self-consciousness that confers moral significance but can only be possessed after birth. He shows that the position he has argued for provides a framework within which (...) the move from the moral validity of aborting sentient fetuses to the moral validity of infanticide might be resisted. He concludes that arguments suggesting that birth can be morally significant support the view that the acquisition of moral significance is a gradual and multilayered phenomenon. (shrink)

My topic in this paper is social understanding. By this I mean the cognitive skills underlying social behaviour and social coordination. Normal, encultured, non-autistic and non-brain-damaged human beings are capable of an impressive degree of social coordination. We navigate the social world with a level of skill and dexterity fully comparable to that which we manifest in navigating the physical world. In neither sphere, one might think, would it be a trivial matter to identify the various competences which underly this (...) impressive level of performance. Nonetheless, at least as far as interpersonal interactions are concerned, philosophers show a rare degree of unanimity. What grounds our success in these interactions is supposed to be our common mastery of folk psychology. (shrink)

How precisely to understand and evaluate counterfactuals can be an intricate issue. The aim of this article is to examine a new set of difficulties for evaluating counterfactuals that arise in the context of the dynamical spacetimes described by the theory of general relativity (GR). The initial value formulation provides us with a methodology to pin down the specific combination of features of the theory at the origin of the difficulties, namely, non-linearity and certain non-local aspects (typically captured by ellipticity (...) at the analytical level), in particular when combined with the global and/or quasi-local character of physical quantities in GR. Finally, we connect the philosophical question about counterfactuals with concrete applied physical issues in GR about extracting meaningful predictions by constructing appropriate initial data sets, leading us to question the very suitability of the Cauchy approach to fully account for the explanatory power of the theory. (shrink)

Philosophers have often argued that ascriptions of content are appropriate only to the personal level states of folk psychology. Against this, this paper defends the view that the familiar propositional attitudes and states defined over them are part of a larger set of cognitive proceses that do not make constitutive reference to concept possession. It does this by showing that states with nonconceptual content exist both in perceptual experience and in subpersonal information-processing systems. What makes these states content-involving is their (...) satisfaction of certain basic conditions deriving from a general account of representation-driven behaviour that is neutral on the question of concept possession. It is also argued that creatures can be in states with nonconceptual content even though they possess no conceptual abilities at all. (shrink)

Thinking Without Words provides a challenging new theory of the nature of non-linguistic thought. Jose Luis Bermudez offers a conceptual framework for treating human infants and non-human animals as genuine thinkers. The book is written with an interdisciplinary readership in mind and will appeal to philosophers, psychologists, and students of animal behavior.

Decision Theory and Rationality offers a challenging new interpretation of a key theoretical tool in the human and social sciences. This accessible book argues, contrary to orthodoxy in politics, economics, and management science, that decision theory cannot provide a theory of rationality.

Table of Contents Acknowledgments 1 Self-Consciousness and the Body: An Interdisciplinary Introduction by Naomi Eiland, Anthony Marcel and José Luis Bermúdez 2 The Body Image and Self-Consciousness by John Campbell 3 Infants’ Understanding of People and Things: From Body Imitation to Folk Psychology by Andrew N. Meltzoff and M. Keith Moore 4 Persons, Animals, and Bodies by Paul F. Snowdon 5 An Ecological Perspective on the Origins of Self by George Butterworth 6 Objectivity, Causality, and Agency by Thomas Baldwin (...) 7 At Two with Nature: Agency and the Development of Self-World Dualism by James Russell 8 Ecological Perception and the Notion of a Nonconceptual Point of View by José Luis Bermúdez 9 Proprioception and the Body Image by Brian O’Shaughnessy 10 Awareness of One’s Own Body: An Attentional Theory of Its Nature, Development, and Brain Basis by Marcel Kinsbourne 11 Body Schema and Intentionality by Shaun Gallagher 12 Living without Touch and Peripheral Information about Body Position and Movement: Studies with Deafferented Subjects by Jonathan Cole and Jacques Paillard 13 Bodily Awareness: A Sense of Ownership by M. G. F. Martin 14 Bodily Awareness and the Self by Bill Brewer 15 Introspection and Bodily Self-Ascription by Quassim Cassam 16 Consciousness and the Self by Naomi Eilan Contributors Index. (shrink)

It is now 25 years since Gareth Evans introduced the distinction between conceptual and nonconceptual content in The Varieties of Reference. This is a fitting time to take stock of what has become a complex and extended debate both within philosophy and at the interface between philosophy and psychology. Unfortunately, the debate has become increasingly murky as it has become increasingly ramified. Much of the contemporary discussion does not do full justice to the powerful theoretical tool originally proposed by Evans (...) and subsequently refined by theorists in the late 1980’s and early 1990’s – most effectively, I think, by Christopher Peacocke (particularly in his 1992). Even worse, significant parts of the discussion are somewhat confused. This paper makes a start on clarifying what I think ought to be the central issues in debates about nonconceptual content. I begin in §1 by pointing out how narrowly focused contemporary discussion is relative to Evans’s original discussion. We are not making as much use as we should of nonconceptual content as a tool for understanding subpersonal information processing and the complexities of its status relative to perception and thought at the personal level. In §2 I turn to what is the central focus of contemporary discussion, namely, the content of perception and identify a “master argument” for nonconceptualism based on the relation between conceptual capacities and capacities for perceptual discrimination. The aim of §3 is to clarify the relation between the claim that perception has nonconceptual content and some superficially similar claims discussed by philosophers of perception. Finally, in §4 I explain why the attention recently focused on what is sometimes called the state version of the nonconceptualist thesis seems to me to be misdirected. (shrink)

In this paper, we examine the legal case involving the Court of Arbitration of Sport, the Union of European Football Associations, and the Turkish team Eskişehirspor to analyze the leg...

The relationship between social and financial performance (CSP – FP) has been a main objective in the literature on business management, as it would provide an economic justification for the social investment insofar as it contributes to the creation of value. This relationship has been empirically tested by several authors though without using a theoretical model that sustains this relationship. The aim of this article is to propose a theoretical model of the process of the creation of value from the (...) reputation generated by companies, integrating the factors that have been shown to be more relevant in this process from previous research, in such a way that hypotheses are put forward regarding the existence of this relationship and the factors that determine it. Finally, an empirical test is performed using the 100 most prestigious companies operating in Spain during 2004. (shrink)

Frames and framing make one dimension of a decision problem particularly salient. In the simplest case, framesprimeresponses (as in, e.g., the Asian disease paradigm, where the gain frame primes risk-aversion and the loss frame primes risk-seeking). But in more complicated situations frames can function reflectively, by making salient particular reason-giving aspects of a thing, outcome, or action. For Shakespeare's Macbeth, for example, his feudal commitments are salient in one frame, while downplayed in another in favor of his personal ambition. The (...) role of frames in reasoning can give rise torational framing effects. Macbeth can prefer fulfilling his feudal duty to murdering the king, while also preferring bravely taking the throne to fulfilling his feudal duty, knowing full well that bravely taking the throne just is murdering the king. Such patterns ofquasi-cyclicalpreferences can be correct and appropriate from the normative perspective of how one ought to reason. The paper explores three less dramatic types of rational framing effects: (1) Consciously framing and reframing long-term goals and short-term temptations can be important tools for self-control. (2) In the prototypical social interactions modeled by game theory, allowing for rational framing effects solves longstanding problems, such as the equilibrium selection problem and explaining the appeal of non-equilibrium solutions (e.g., the cooperative solution in the Prisoner's Dilemma). (3) Processes for resolving interpersonal conflicts and breaking discursive deadlock, because they involve internalizing multiple and incompatible ways of framing actions and outcomes, in effect create rational framing effects. (shrink)

Regulatory science, which generates knowledge relevant for regulatory decision?making, is different from standard academic science in that it is oriented mainly towards the attainment of non?epistemic (practical) aims. The role of uncertainty and the limits to the relevance of academic science are being recognized more and more explicitly in regulatory decision?making. This has led to the introduction of regulation?specific scientific methodologies in order to generate decision?relevant data. However, recent practical experience with such non?standard methodologies indicates that they, too, may be (...) subject to important limitations. We argue that the attainment of non?epistemic values and aims (like the protection of human health and the environment) requires not only control of the quality of the data and the methodologies, but also the selection of the level of regulation deemed adequate in each specific case (including a decision about which of the two, under?regulation or over?regulation, would be more acceptable). (shrink)

En este escrito se analizan ciertos conceptos del estructuralismo empirista de Bas van Fraassen, en particular, el de representación, para intentar una crítica a su posición con respecto al vínculo entre los modelos de las teorías y, en última instancia, el mundo físico por medio de los modelos de datos, a los cuales van Fraassen les adjudica el papel de representantes de los fenómenos. Al final se delinea, a muy grandes rasgos, una alternativa conceptualista.

A lo largo de este ensayo el autor pone de manifiesto el interés creciente que ha experimentado en nuestro panorama filosófico la asignatura de “Historia de la Filosofía Española”, especialmente a través de iniciativas variadas que tienen como protagonista a la “Asociación de Hispanismo Filosófico”, fundada en 1988. La conclusión es que hoy es posible “pensar en español”.

Galen Strawson's keynote paper offers us one way of modelling the self, one that starts from the phenomenology of the sense of self and derives from that metaphysical conclusions about the nature of the self. Strawson is surely correct to hold that phenomenological considerations cannot be ignored in thinking about the metaphysics of the self. I am not as convinced as he is, however, that phenomenology is the royal road to metaphysics. What I want to sketch out in this short (...) paper is another approach to the metaphysics of the self, one that is driven by reductivist concerns. As far as I can see it is an open question whether there are any global points of disagreement between us. (shrink)

In 2003, Ruth Zimmerling wrote an article titled Globalization and democracy: a framework for discussion, which was an outcome of the second annual meeting of the Tampere Club. The aim of that article was to offer “a systematic overview over ideas and assumptions about the relationship between globalization and democracy”. As many other of her works, this was conceived as a contribution to bring some clarity and systematization to a discussion that back then in 2003 was already fashionable and overwhelmingly (...) omnipresent. (shrink)

La tesis central de este estudio puede resumirse así: el estado-nación, como forma histórica del estado, adolece de falta de adecuación con el modelo de estado democrático y de derecho, tal como fue formulado por la tradición liberal-republicana. Para mostrar esta falta de adecuación, el estudio expone primero los axiomas del paradigma republicano. Se definen después los conceptos de universalidad, ciudadanía y nacionalidad. Y se describen, por fin, las operaciones ideológicas modernas que han unificado los conceptos de pueblo y nación, (...) por un lado, y de nación y estado, por otro. (shrink)