In order to clarify whether Rawls is more or less cosmopolitan than Kant, we carry out a comparative analysis between his general proposals for the organization of international relations. Likewise, seeking to clarify the distance between cosmopolitanism, pacifism and ius internationalism, the ius ad bellum proposals of both authors are particularly analyzed in the war-and-peace debate context. On the one hand, as a result of the first analysis, different commonly unnoticed logical coincidences between the postulates of Kant and Rawls are (...) highlighted. On the other hand, after the conclusions of the second analysis and taking as a criterion the causes that both authors admit as just for war, a proposal of an ideal type of cosmopolitan ius ad bellum is also provided. (shrink)

Las Instituciones Nacionales de Derechos Humanos cumplen, fundamentalmente, con dos funciones: proteger a las personas a partir de recomendaciones, garantizándoles una reparación si se comente una violación a sus derechos, y prevenir futuras violaciones a los derechos humanos. Sobre esta base están llamadas a ser los organismos que guíen hacia una cultura ciudadana a favor de los derechos humanos. Para lograr la culturización en este campo, se requiere educar en derechos a través de la educación formal e informal. En el (...) caso de México, la Comisión Nacional de los Derechos Humanos es la institución encargada de realizar esta labor. Su posición flexible y dinámica, así como su autonomía dentro del Estado mexicano, le dan la posibilidad de propiciar esa cultura, ya que es una institución de configuración diferente al sistema tradicional de impartición de justicia, por lo que hace que mantenga una línea de investigación enfocada en los derechos humanos. La culturización empieza por el ámbito nacional o interno y se debe extender hacia el exterior, como un movimiento social internacional. (shrink)

The research shows the results of a study carried out on family-school integration as a foundation for meaningful learning in secondary basic education students, belonging to the official sector in the Colombian Caribbean region. The type of research was descriptive, with a deductive rationalist approach and a mixed or complementary paradigm. The sample was made up of sixty-four (64) students in their final year of high school and twenty-four (24) parents and/or guardians, to whom a survey was applied, eleven (11) (...) teachers and one (1) director of the educational institution, consulted through an interview. Once the information was obtained, the triangulation technique was used to cross-reference the opinions, perceptions and beliefs of the actors involved in the comprehensive training of the students. As a result, it was possible to characterize the factors that favor family-school integration, including emotionality, participation, communication, attention and motivation of parents in accompanying their children's academic activities. For their part, schools must organize spaces that promote integration relationships, which represents an alternative to face the dilemmas of the educational context and promote the development of meaningful learning. (shrink)

Del maestro Fernando González Ochoa se han dicho y escrito muchas cosas. Se le hatildado de ateo, rebelde, mal hablado; pero se olvida que fue un místico que buscó llegara una comunión con la Intimidad, un hombre amante de la vida; se olvida sulabor de maestro de escuela que quiso formar hombres auténticos, sacándolos de suvida de rebaño y dándoles el lugar que se merecen. El presente trabajo tiene como objetivo,a partir de la lectura de algunas de sus obras, (...) indagar sobre el pensamientoantropológico y educativo del maestro Fernando González Ochoa. Presento al lector alFernando González que encontré a lo largo de mi lectura de sus obras y del diversomaterial consultado para este trabajo. He sido lo más fiel posible a su pensamiento,realizando una actividad hermenéutica en la que busco presentar la comprensión propiadel autor ante el contexto que le tocó vivir, el cual le sirvió de pretexto para escribir sustextos. (shrink)

María José Rincón González nació en Sevilla (España) y reside en República Dominicana desde 1992. Es miembro de número de la Academia Dominicana de la Lengua (ADL) desde el 2011 y directora del Instituto Guzmán Ariza de Lexicografía. Asimismo, es miembro correspondiente de la Real Academia Española (RAE) y miembro del consejo asesor de Fundéu Guzmán Ariza. Con respecto a su formación superior, es doctora en Filología por la Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia (UNED) y máster en (...) Lexicografía por la Universidad de Sevilla y la UNED. Ha participado en congresos internacionales y ha contribuido en las ediciones de diccionarios del idioma español. Entre sus publicaciones de artículos, se encuentran las que pertenecen al Diario Libre y el Boletín de la Academia Dominicana de la Lengua, entre otros textos, tales como “La antroponimia femenina dominicana (1945-1995)” (2002), “El Diccionario de la lengua” (2013), “Presentación del Diccionario de americanismos de la ASALE” (2013), “Variantes dialectales del léxico dominicano en el Diccionario de americanismos” (2016), “La lematización de variantes gráficas en el Diccionario del español dominicano” (2017) y “El Diccionario de criollismos, primer diccionario dominicano” (2020). De igual modo, ha publicado en libros y capítulos de libros. Entre ellos se encuentran el Diccionario del español dominicano (2013), “El nacimiento de un nuevo diccionario: el Diccionario del español dominicano” (2017) y De la eñe a la zeta (2019). (shrink)

We present an experiment in which we add a common delay in a choice between two risky prospects. The results show that delay produces the same change in preferences as in the well-documented common ratio effect in risky lotteries. The added common delay acts as if the probabilities were divided by some common ratio. Moreover, we show that there is a strong magnitude effect, in the sense that the effect of delay depends on the magnitude of the outcome. The results (...) are consistent with the recently introduced probability time trade-off (PTT) model by Baucells and Heukamp. We present a parameterization of the model based on the experimental results, showing that the value function exhibits increasing relative risk aversion, the weighting function is s-shaped, and the intrinsic discount rate is decreasing. (shrink)

Recent breakthroughs in stem cell differentiation and reprogramming suggest that functional human gametes could soon be created in vitro. While the ethical debate on the uses of in vitro generated gametes (IVG) was originally constrained by the fact that they could be derived only from embryonic stem cell lines, the advent of somatic cell reprogramming, with the possibility to easily derive human induced pluripotent stem cells from any individual, affords now a major leap in the feasibility of IVG derivation and (...) in the scope of their potential applications. In this paper we develop an ethical framework, rooted in recent scientific evidence, to support a robust experimental pipeline that could enable the first-in-human use of IVG. We then apply this framework to the following objectives: (1) a clarification of the genetic parenting options afforded by IVG, along with their ethical underpinnings; (2) a defence of the use of IVG to remedy infertility, broadening their scope to same-sex couples; (3) an assessment of the most far-reaching implications of IVG for multiplex parenting. These include, first, the liberation of parenting roles from the constraints of biological generations in vivo, allowing multiple individuals to engage in genetic parenting together, thus blurring the distinction between biological and social generations. Second, we discuss the conflation of IVG with sequencing technology and its implications for the possibility that prospective parents may choose among a hitherto unprecedented number of potential children. In view of these perspectives, we argue that, contrary to the exhausted paradigm according to which society lags behind science, IVG may represent instead a salient and most visible instance where biotechnological ingenuity could be used in pursuit of social experimentation. (shrink)

In the present paper we address the problem of optical isomerism embodied in the socalled “Hund’s paradox”, which points to the difficulty to account for chirality by means of quantum mechanics. In particular, we explain the answer to the problem proposed by the theory of decoherence. The purpose of this article is to challenge this answer on the basis of a conceptual analysis of the phenomenon of decoherence, that reveals the limitations of the theory of decoherence to solve the difficulties (...) posed by optical isomerism and, in general, by quantum measurement. (shrink)

Es un lugar común en los estudios sobre la Ciropedia de Jenofonte ver en ella un tratado sobre el liderazgo político (προστάτης; ἄρχων), así como un speculum principum para la Grecia de su tiempo y de toda la tradición occidental. Menos habitual ha sido leer la Anábasis como un tratado de filosofía política, pero tampoco han faltado solventes ejercicios que ven en ella otra obra de Jenofonte sobre el liderazgo político y en ambas la figura de un príncipe socrático en (...) una παμβασιλεία. (shrink)

It is widely held that there is a distinctive norm of assertion. A plausible idea is that there is an analogous, perhaps weaker, norm for indirect communication via implicatures. I argue against this type of proposal. My claim is that the norm of assertion is a social norm governing public updates to the conversational record. Off the record implicatures are not subject to social norms of this type. I grant that, as happens in general with intentional actions, off the record (...) communicative acts may be subject to normative assessments on different levels (for instance, regarding their moral or prudential appropriateness). However, such assessments do not generate distinctive norms that apply to all cases of implicature. (shrink)

Topics in Cognitive Science, Volume 14, Issue 1, Page 14-30, January 2022.

Nunca es fácil emitir un juicio de valor sobre el impacto de un autor en la tradición. Es verdad que hay nombres cuya influencia a lo largo de los tiempos es incuestionable, pero otros van y vuelven cíclicamente con variaciones en las valoraciones sobre la calidad y proyección de su obra o en su papel como hombres de acción. Jenofonte de Atenas (_ca. _431-354 a.C.) es uno de esos casos, muy apreciado hasta el siglo XIX, olvidado después hasta su recuperación (...) como filósofo político de primera línea por Leo Strauss, o como historiador imprescindible para los especialistas en Esparta, la antigua Persia aqueménida o la historia de Grecia de finales del s. V y primera mitad del IV a.C. Los filósofos lo han visto casi siempre como un pensador menor, comparado con su maestro Sócrates, con su contemporáneo Platón o con el más joven Aristóteles. (shrink)

Are risk preferences stable over time? To address this question we elicit risk preferences from the same pool of subjects at two different moments in time. To interpret the results, we use a Fechner stochastic choice model in which the revealed preference of individuals is governed by some underlying preference, together with a random error. We take cumulative prospect theory as the underlying preference model (Kahneman and Tversky, Econometrica 47:263–292, 1979; Tversky and Kahneman, Journal of Risk and Uncertainty 5:297–323, 1992). (...) We observe that the aggregate pattern of preferences is very similar in both sessions, and it matches the results reported in the literature. Most subjects are risk averse for gains, and risk seeking for losses. However, the subjects that jointly agree with the reflection effect of prospect theory are around 50%. The percentage of individuals that change their responses across sessions is quite high, 63%. Estimating the stochastic choice model we find that 72% of the subjects have an underlying preference which agrees with the reflection effect of prospect theory. The remaining 28% are mainly classified as risk averse for both gains and losses. The results reinforce the empirical validity of the reflection effect. Deviations from the reflection effect can be attributed to noise, as well as to the existence of a fraction of risk averse subjects. (shrink)

Timothy Williamson defensa que la filosofia és una ciència teòrica que s’ocupa d’investigar sobre la realitat, d’obtenir coneixement, i que ho fa construint teories, confrontant-les amb l’evidència, d’una manera sistemàtica, disciplinada i socialment organitzada, com les altres ciències. En aquest article es compara aquesta posició, d’una banda, amb la que considera que la filosofia és una reflexió de segon ordre sobre la ciència, la moral, la política, l’art…; i, de l’altra, amb la concepció de la filosofia com a guia de (...) la vida, com a recerca de la saviesa pràctica. (shrink)

Several objections against the morality of researching or employing mitochondrial replacement techniques have been advanced recently. In this paper, I examine three of these objections and show that they are found wanting. First I examine whether mitochondrial replacement techniques, research and clinical practice, should not be carried out because of possible harms to egg donors. Next I assess whether mitochondrial replacement techniques should be banned because they could affect the study of genealogical ancestry. Finally, I examine the claim that mitochondrial (...) replacement techniques are not transferring mitochondrial DNA but nuclear DNA, and that this should be prohibited on ethical grounds. (shrink)

Several European countries are approving legislative reforms moving to a presumed consent system in order to increase organ donation rates. Nevertheless, irrespective of the consent system in force, family's decisional capacity probably causes a greater impact on such rates. In this contribution we have developed a systematic methodology in order to analyse and compare European organ procurement laws, and we clarify the weight given by each European law to relatives' decisional capacity over individual's preferences (expressed or not while alive) regarding (...) the destination of his or her organs after death. In this sense, the results constitute the first comprehensive and comparative legislative mapping on European transplantation laws. (shrink)

Following Goldman’s seminal work, most contemporary philosophical contributions on the novice-expert relation have adopted a normative, expert-focused approach. In this paper, we aim to shift the focus of the philosophical analysis towards the characteristics of the novices, and how they might determine the choices that experts make. On the bases of recent empirical evidence from social psychology, we discuss how novices evaluate the messages that they receive and distinguish diverse kinds of novices according to their competence in message assessment. Building (...) on that analysis, we discuss the difficulties of approaches to expertise that focus only on the standpoint of novices or assume novices are homogeneous. In our analysis, we introduce the standpoint of experts, and we pay special attention to the heterogeneity of novices. This approach allows us to identify and address the difficulties faced by experts in the context of science communication. In the last part of the paper, we characterise and discuss the problem of experts when choosing a strategy in the issuing of a public campaign to advise or inform certain populations of novices. (shrink)

Resumen: La variación lingüística es un fenómeno presente en casi todos los idiomas. Su interés para los estudios traductológicos es incuestionable. En el presente trabajo pretendemos investigar cómo se resuelven los problemas que plantea la variación lingüística para la traducción literaria chino-español. Con tal objetivo, hemos elegido la obra La casa de té y sus dos versiones de español como corpus de análisis. Partiendo de la hipótesis de que en la traducción de los elementos de la variación lingüística de esta (...) obra se recurre a la estandarización como solución traductora preferente, hemos analizado el corpus para obtener datos tanto cualitativos como cuantitativos. Los resultados nos permiten confirmar la hipótesis general, así como identificar las características específicas y problemas que presenta la traducción de la variación lingüística del chino al español. Abstract: Linguistic variation is a phenomenon present in almost all languages. Its importance for translation studies is unquestionable. In this paper, we intend to investigate how the problems posed by linguistic variation are solved for Chinese-Spanish literary translation. To this end, we have chosen the work Teahouse and its two Spanish versions as the corpus of analysis. Based on the hypothesis that in the translation of the elements of linguistic variation in this work, standardization is used as the preferred translation solution, we analyzed the corpus to obtain both qualitative and quantitative data. The results allow us to confirm the general hypothesis, as well as to identify the specific characteristics and problems presented by the translation of linguistic variation from Chinese into Spanish. (shrink)

Background: The decision whether to initiate cardiopulmonary resuscitation may sometimes be ethically complex. While studies have addressed some of these issues, along with the role of nurses in cardiopulmonary resuscitation, most have not considered the importance of nurses acting as advocates for their patients with respect to cardiopulmonary resuscitation. Research objective: To explore what the nurse’s advocacy role is in cardiopulmonary resuscitation from the perspective of patients, relatives, and health professionals in the Basque Country (Spain). Research design: An exploratory critical (...) qualitative study was conducted from October 2015 to March 2016. Thematic analysis was used to analyse the data. Participants: Four discussion groups were held: one with patients and relatives (n = 8), two with nurses (n = 7 and n = 6, respectively), and one with physicians (n = 5). Ethical considerations: Approval was obtained from the Basque Country Clinical Research Ethics Committee. Findings: Three significant themes were identified: (a) accompanying patients during end of life in a context of medical dominance, (b) maintaining the pact of silence, and (c) yielding to legal uncertainty and concerns. Discussion: The values and beliefs of the actors involved, as well as pre-established social and institutional rules reduced nurses’ advocacy to that of intermediaries between the physician and the family within the hospital environment. On the contrary, in primary health care, nurses participated more actively within the interdisciplinary team. Conclusion: This study provides key information for the improvement and empowerment for ethical nursing practice in a cardiac arrest, and provides the perspective of patients and relatives, nurses and physicians. (shrink)

According to logical non-necessitarianism, every inference may fail in some situation. In his defense of logical monism, Graham Priest has put forward an argument against non-necessitarianism based on the meaning of connectives. According to him, as long as the meanings of connectives are fixed, some inferences have to hold in all situations. Hence, in order to accept the non-necessitarianist thesis one would have to dispose arbitrarily of those meanings. I want to show here that non-necessitarianism can stand, without disposing arbitrarily (...) of the meanings of connectives, based on a minimalist view on the meanings of connectives. (shrink)

In a recent paper –Lesbian motherhood and mitochondrial replacement techniques: reproductive freedom and genetic kinship– we argued that lesbian couples who wish to have children who are genetically related to both of them should be allowed access to mitochondrial replacement techniques (MRTs). Françoise Baylis wrote a reply to our paper –‘No’ to lesbian motherhood using human nuclear genome transfer– where she challenges our arguments on the use of MRTs by lesbian couples, and on MRTs more generally. In this reply we (...) respond to her claims and further clarify our position. (shrink)

This book joins the contemporary recovery of Kant’s empirical works to highlight the relevance of his concept of culture for understanding the sources of various characteristic modern dilemmas, such as the tension between culture and happiness, the morally ambivalent nature of cultural progress, or the existing conflicts between a factual plurality of cultures and the historical forces pressing toward a universal civilization. The book will be of special interest for Kantian scholars, moral and political philosophers, as well as philosophers of (...) culture. (shrink)

This book analyzes the role of language in scientific research and develops the semantics of science from different angles. The philosophical investigation of the volume is divided into four parts, which covers both basic science and applied science: I) The Problem of Reference and Potentialities of the Language in Science; II) Language and Change in Scientific Research: Evolution and Historicity; III) Scientific Language in the Context of Truth and Fiction; and IV) Language in Mathematics and in Empirical Sciences. Language plays (...) a key role in science: our access to the theoretical, practical or evaluative dimensions of scientific activity begins with the mastery of language, continues with a deepening in the use of language and reaches the level of contribution when it creates new terms or changes them in sense and reference. This reveals the compatibility between objectivity in semantic contents and historicity in the progress of science. This volume is a valuable enrichment to students, academics and other professionals interested in science in all its forms, who seek to deepen the role that language plays in its structure and dynamics. (shrink)

La ideación artística y arquitectónica está en gran medida configurada a partir de un concepto o metáfora que rige los diseños como síntesis de nuestro pensamiento y que, posteriormente, se ve confrontada con el lugar, creando con ello una cierta tensión entre paisaje e intervención proyectual. Este artículo explora el concepto de «corte» de Sverre Fehn, tomado como elemento simbólico de resistencia ligado al tiempo, al lugar y a la memoria, como idea generatriz, basada en analogías conceptuales que el artista (...) aplicaba en sus proyectos. Así, un simple gesto, una grieta, una hendidura o incluso un vacío en el terreno, es tomado como memoria pues, de algún modo, configura la idea del lugar que recorremos con la mirada y remite al testimonio de otro tiempo mientras lo experimentamos en diálogo permanente con el paisaje en el que se inscribe. Se crea así una relación intensa entre luz, espacio, materia y memoria con el horizonte paisajístico, como límite de la obra. Este artículo realiza un recorrido por diferentes obras artísticas, arquitectónicas e incluso patrimoniales. Su denominador común es el concepto «corte», un elemento de permanencia que facilita una lectura integradora desde el proyecto, en un intento por cruzar e, incluso, vincular el lenguaje empleado entre las disciplinas para diluir las fronteras, traspasar los límites, recobrar la memoria y establecer, como diría Rosalind Krauss, un nuevo «territorio expandido». (shrink)

This paper proposes freedom as the condition of possibility for the construction of trust in human relationships. The methodology used is a review of the scientific literature of the most recent moral and political philosophy. As a result of the dialogue between different positions, it is discovered that freedom, despite being present in the act of trust, is forgotten in the discussion around trust, a forgetfulness that has as its main causes the assumption that trust is natural and the confusion (...) between the propensity to trust and the act of trusting. All this leads to proposing an approach of the act of trusting that starts from the freedom of the trustee and the trustor. (shrink)

Jürgen Habermas is regarded as a central bioconservative commentator in the debate on the ethics of human prenatal genetic manipulations. While his main work on this topic, The Future of Human Nature, has been widely examined in regard to his position on prenatal genetic enhancement, his arguments regarding prenatal genetic therapeutic interventions have for the most part been overlooked. In this work I do two things. First, I present the three necessary conditions that Habermas establishes for a prenatal genetic manipulation (...) to be regarded as morally permissible. Second, I examine if mitochondrial replacement techniques meet these necessary conditions. I investigate, specifically, the moral permissibility of employing pronuclear transfer and maternal spindle transfer. I conclude that, according to a Habermasian perspective on prenatal genetic manipulation, maternal spindle transfer and pronuclear transfer are morally impermissible. Maternal spindle transfer is, in principle, morally permissible, but only when we have beforehand preselected a sperm and an egg for our reproductive purpose. These findings are relevant for bioconservatives, both for those who hold a Habermasian stance and for those who hold something akin to a Habermasian stance, because they answer the question: what should bioconservatives do regarding mitochondrial replacement techniques? In fact, the answer to this question does not only normatively prescribe what bioconservatives should do in terms of their personal morality, but it also points towards what kind of legislation regulating mitochondrial replacement techniques they should aim at. (shrink)

The aim of this article is to discuss and illustrate the grammaticalization process and the polysemic and polyfunctional nature of the Spanish and Catalan markers la verdad and la veritat, from an original objectified referential meaning of the forms to a highly subjectified procedural meaning of the markers. The pragmatic meaning of these markers stems from the loss of semantic features and the different uses that they can adopt in a variety of syntactic and pragmatic contexts, where their subjective, evaluative, (...) and intensifying modal dimensions are fully manifested. In lexical terms, they are noun phrases that can take variable and invariable forms. In morphological terms, the variable form is inflected in number and has a referential value, whereas the invariable form, prosodically extraposed, or followed by a verbal predicate when working as pragmatic marker, is always uninflected and is polyfunctional, with a procedural value. When followed by a verbal predicate, la verdad and la veritat acquire a structural dimension, besides their modal illocutionary one, being used as boundary markers that separate description of facts from first person evaluation, in a monologued stretch of discourse. In an interactional context, the marker frequently prefaces counter expectations. In order to show its grammaticalization process, I will discuss and exemplify their role as evidential marker with a truth-attesting value, epistemic modality markers used to introduce the speaker’s attitude to the content of the proposition or to the addressee in the context of an utterance, intensifiers or boosters used to modify the illocutionary force of a speech act, and discourse boundary markers used to delimit real-world facts from personal opinion. In order to account for their polysemic and polyfunctional dimensions, I will propose salient meanings and prototypical functions. (shrink)

Mi objetivo en este texto es obtener ciertos rendimientos que sirvan para desarrollar una comprensión de la necesidad práctica dentro de la filosofía moral de Kant por medio de una discusión, principalmente, con la interpretación de Scarano. En esta última se busca establecer algún tipo de identidad entre necesidad práctica y necesidad teórica, con lo cual se reduce la primera a una forma puramente lógica, descuidando así el carácter propiamente práctico que también la constituye. Mi propuesta alternativa tiene como clave (...) la mención a la voluntad divina en la explicación por parte de Kant sobre qué significa que la ley moral sea válida para todo ente racional. Esta mención nos permite comprender, al menos en principio, que la necesidad práctica es aquella con la cual actuaría una voluntad divina de acuerdo con la ley moral. En nuestro caso, como además de la razón tenemos la inclinación como fundamento de determinación de la acción, no necesariamente actuamos de acuerdo con la ley moral, pero debemos hacerlo, de modo que la ley moral es constrictiva para nosotros. (shrink)

Every day, students from marginalized communities disproportionately face adversity and trauma. It is well documented that exposure to adverse childhood experiences can impact children's ability to focus, learn, and even regulate their emotions. Many schools, rather than providing multi-tiered systems of support to address the root causes of behavior, place these students at greater risk of experiencing health disparities through the use of exclusionary school discipline practices. ESDs not only deny students important educational opportunities, but also can compound existing social, (...) economic, and health inequities. Thus, ESD practices must be understood as more than simply impacting what happens in the classroom. Instead, they should be conceptualized as public health policies with far-reaching impacts on a child's lifelong health and well-being. Even though school discipline has largely been overlooked by the public health community, current reform efforts are one aspect of a holistic health justice framework.This article seeks to begin to bridge current gaps in the literature and public discourse by identifying key linkages between ESD practices and health. It then presents evidence-based design principles to ensure education policy is aligned with a health justice framework. And finally, it explores a specific school-based intervention, restorative justice. (shrink)

The search for mechanisms has been a common practice in scientific research. However, since the empiricist critique of causality, and especially during the second third of the twentieth century, other non-mechanistic perspectives—especially deductivism—gained predominance. But the sustained effort of authors such as Michael Scriven, Mario Bunge and especially Wesley Salmon contributed to restoring the respectability of causality and mechanisms in philosophy of science. Some members of the causal family, usually lumped under the name of “new mechanistic philosophy”, emphasize the description (...) of mechanisms, especially causal ones, as a central aspect of explanation and other research practices in several areas of science. This approach offers viable solutions to the various ontological and methodological objections that are opposed to the two traditional approaches. In this work the basic characteristics of three philosophies that highlight the description of mechanisms as a central element to explanation and their suitability for the science of ecology are discussed. (shrink)

In this paper, we address the question whether a mechanistic approach can account for evolutionary causes. The last decade has seen a major attempt to account for natural selection as a mechanism. Nevertheless, we stress the relevance of broadening the debate by including the other evolutionary causes inside the mechanistic approach, in order to be a legitimate conceptual framework on the same footing as other approaches to evolutionary theory. We analyse the current debate on natural selection as a mechanism, and (...) extend it to the rest of the evolutionary causes. We focus on three approaches that we call the stochastic view, the functional view, and the minimalist view. We argue that all of them are unable to account for evolutionary causes as mechanisms. It is concluded that the current mechanistic proposals cannot be accepted as a common framework for evolutionary causes. Finally, we outline some guidelines and requirements that any mechanistic proposal should meet in order to be applied to evolutionary theory. (shrink)

The relation between Wittgenstein's philosophy of mathematics and mathematical Intuitionism has raised a considerable debate. My attempt is to analyse if there is a commitment in Wittgenstein to themes characteristic of the intuitionist movement in Mathematics and if that commitment is one important strain that runs through his Remarks on the foundations of mathematics. The intuitionistic themes to analyse in his philosophy of mathematics are: firstly, his attacks on the unrestricted use of the Law of Excluded Middle; secondly, his distrust (...) of non-constructive proofs; and thirdly, his impatience with the idea that mathematics stands in need of a foundation. These elements are Fogelin's starting point for the systematic reconstruction of Wittgenstein's conception of mathematics. (shrink)

Abstract Background The first live birth following the use of a new reproductive technique, maternal spindle transfer (MST), which is a mitochondrial replacement technique (MRT), was accomplished by dividing the execution of the MST procedure between two countries, the USA and Mexico. This was done in order to avoid US legal restrictions on this technique. -/- Sources of data Academic articles, news articles, documents obtained through freedom of information requests, laws, regulations and national reports. -/- Areas of agreement MRTs are (...) new reproductive techniques that present novel ethical and legal challenges, since genetic material from three people is employed to create a child. -/- Areas of controversy Could the first MST procedure that culminated in a live birth negatively impact reproductive medicine in Mexico? -/- Growing points The USA and Mexico need specific and clear legislation on MRTs, in order for such techniques not to be governed by prior existing legislation on assisted reproduction that is inadequate for dealing with the new challenges that these techniques present. -/- Areas timely for developing research There is a pressing need for work to be done on the international governance of new reproductive techniques. (shrink)