The restructured globalized economy has provided women with employment opportunities. Globalisation has also meant a shift towards self-regulation of multinationals as part of the restructuring of the world economy that increases among others things, flexible employment practices, worsening of labour conditions and lower wages for many women workers around the world. In this context, as part of the global trend emphasising Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) in the 1980s, one important development has been the growth of voluntary Corporate Codes of Conduct (...) to improve labour conditions. This article reviews from a feminist interdisciplinary perspective the broad academic literature on women workers, covering the more classical debate on women workers in the industrialization process and entering into women workers in the global supply chains and women workers and corporate codes of conduct. The main argument is that this research on women workers is crucial to frame the issues of business ethics and in particular CSR and Codes of Conduct in the context of women in the global political economy. When this crucial knowledge is ignored, then the ethical policies of the companies also ignore the real situation of the women workers at the bottom of their supply chains. (shrink)

El propósito de este ensayo es discutir si existe una tal cosa como una moral cristiana “específica” y cómo hemos de definirla y comprenderla. Sugiero que si existe, ella no debería ser entendida como un sistema moral que sería válido en un sentido realista, “objetivista” o convencional, sino que más bien su especificidad debería basarse en la clase de motivación a la que daría lugar. Esto quiere decir que lo que pudiéramos definir como una moral cristiana genuina es una nueva (...) ontología, una nueva manera de concebir a los seres humanos, más que un sistema normativo cuya interpretación descansaría en la autoridad y no en su validez interna o intrínseca. Su fundamentación ha de ser, entonces, “postconvencional”. Intento mostrar este punto apoyada en distintas fuentes teológicas, tales como en la teología paulina y en su impacto en distintos teólogos contemporáneos de la moral. Todos los teólogos contemporáneos citados por mí están de acuerdo en que la revelación evangélica hace posible una motivación moral autónoma que se apoya en el discernimiento personal, más que en una pretendida opinión autorizada. (shrink)

Una cultura política orientada al entendimiento y la paz requiere, sostendré, no sólo que se tengan las disposiciones correctas, sino, ante todo, la convicción de que incluso nuestras disposiciones morales se encuentran enraizadas en la razón y la reflexión. Bajo este punto de vista, el cultivo de una cultura política respetuosa del otro y sensata supone que tanto la sociedad como sus instituciones ya han contribuido a un clima moral deliberativo, uno que no cree simplemente que la moral es sólo (...) el resultado de poseer la psicología o sensibilidad correctas, sino que sostiene que la moral debe ser promovida en la discusión pública y reflexiva. Por esta razón, en mi artículo examino y rechazo algunas fundamentaciones de la moral que separan demasiado tajantemente la razón del sentido moral. Examino la así llamada posición “internalista”, cuya figura más prominente fue Bernard Williams, y la confronto con una postura que admite una mayor participación de la deliberación racional en las decisiones morales, en particular en aquellas que conciernen la elección de principios de justicia. Sostengo que el internalismo moral sólo sirve a una teoría política que reduce la razón humana a la mera voluntad de poder. (shrink)

The aim of the study was to assess the effects of visual aesthetic perception on event-related potentials . Eight subjects assigned an aesthetic judgment and a 10-step beauty estimation to the target stimuli, consisting of famous artistic pictures and geometric shapes. In a further task, the subjects performed a motor response to the previously judged pictures and geometric shapes. ERPs were recorded through 54 scalp electrodes during both tasks. The P3b amplitude was increased during the categorization of the geometric shapes (...) compared to the artistic figures and during the vision of the beautiful targets preceding the motor response. The categorization of the aesthetic qualities of geometrical shapes seems to induce a higher level of attention, while a higher arousal variation was elicited by the recognition of beauty, in any form that was presented. (shrink)

The paper presents some knowledge of history of medicine – especially those from the embryological field – correlated with theological marks in order to motivate the rightfulness of the method of „bringing the mind down into the heart”, a procedure during the Jesus Prayer. The ascetic Fathers mentioned that the mind is an energy which starts from the heart and reaches the brain – which offers the possibility to express itself. It is possible to consider that this transfer begins since (...) the primitive heart is in the same plane and before the cerebral area. Then, after the folding of the embryo, the heart will be placed under the brain. So “bringing the mind down into the heart” is also biologically feasible. Although the primitive heart is structured after the neural tube, it starts beating at 21 to 22 days, unlike the brain which began its function on the 40th day. This explains the theological meaning of the heart, wider than the signification of the mind (attribute of the brain). (shrink)

The article examines the conquest of the New World in the focus of interaction of different types of thinking in the clash and conflict of two civilizations, which develop in different ways and which are at different levels of social and economic development. The result of this clash was the destruction of the material, spiritual and intellectual traditions of indigenous cultures that existed on the American continent. The conquest of America is one of the most revealing examples of the clash (...) of civilizations, analyzing which, with particular clarity, one can observe contradictions between different types of world perception. The answer to questions about what kind of knowledge Nahua-speaking people possessed, what role knowledge played in their society, who was the creator, carrier and translator of knowledge about the world, reveals one of the main reasons that led to a rapid and irretrievable destruction of culture of “metaphors and numbers.” The author reveals the role of Catholic monks in preserving the spiritual, scientific and philosophical heritage of the Mexican culture, thanks to which we have the opportunity to touch the thought of the Nahua people, existing not in the form of traditional texts but in the form of an oral tradition, which accompanied visual images of graphic semantic writing. It shows how important the system of education and upbringing in the society of pre-Columbian Mexico was, how it solved the tasks of preparing young people for the performance of social functions. The destruction, as a result of the con- quest, of the system that regulated the daily life of each person and determined the ultimate destiny of the people in the shortest possible time led to the death of the entire civilization. (shrink)

O fio condutor deste artigo consiste em abordar a relação filosófica entre arte e realidade e o modo como as vanguardas artísticas do século XX, em especial o surrealismo, colocam em questão essa dicotomia ao se perguntar pelo papel da arte ante a realidade e pôr em xeque os modelos de representação tradicionais. É nosso objetivo, em um primeiro momento, mediante revisão bibliográfica, expor o papel da arte ante a realidade de acordo com a tradição filosófica e os modelos de (...) representação tradicionais e, em um segundo momento, analisar de que forma as vanguardas artísticas, em especial o surrealismo, subvertem esses modelos, partindo de estudos de filósofos da arte e da exemplaridade de algumas obras e manifestos europeus, mencionando também o caso brasileiro. Notamos, a partir destes dois momentos, que a ideia de realidade pode expressar tanto a realidade política, construída hierarquicamente aos moldes de uma tradição racionalista, moral e burguesa, quanto pode expressar o apagamento, pela arte, dos limites estabelecidos por essa realidade reificada para evocar uma realidade abscondita e primitiva, pertencente ao mesmo domínio subversivo da arte, como faz o surrealismo. Foi possível concluir que, se na tradição filosófica e nos modelos tradicionais de representação se estabelece, de modo geral, uma fissura entre o mundo da arte e o mundo real, em algumas manifestações vanguardistas, especialmente o surrealismo, visualiza-se uma tentativa de reunificação entre arte e realidade, assim como a própria noção de realidade é transformada. (shrink)

El artículo propone indagar cómo los sujetos se vinculan con lo cultural a través de prácticas y consumos que están inscriptas en diversos vínculos de sociabilidad —que recomiendan, llevan, acompañan— y que se combinan y entrelazan para conformar repertorios culturales complejos. Esta indagación fue desplegada a través de una reconstrucción de biografías culturales que se basó en la realización de entrevistas semi-estructuradas con un conjunto de sujetos que fuimos definiendo a través de los criterios del muestreo teórico. Del conjunto de (...) entrevistados, seleccionamos algunos casos que nos permitían construir perfiles de practicantes culturales. El desarrollo concluye con una caracterización de las prácticas culturales registradas como “sociales”, “reflexivas” e “interconectadas”, y apunta a describir un proceso emergente de singularización de las trayectorias culturales de los sujetos y de constitución de perfiles de gusto plurales y heterogéneos. (shrink)

Este trabajo está divido en dos partes: en la primera de ellas se aborda la novela decimonónica de Eça de Queirós El crimen del padre Amaro: Escenas de la vida devota, así como la adaptación cinematográfica de Carlos Carrera y el guión de Vicente Leñero para la película El crimen del padre Amaro. Y un particular retorno al género novelístico El padre Amaro de Vicente Leñero. La metodología que se usará en este primer apartado será: exégesis de la adaptación, resumen (...) y elementos característicos de la novela Eça de Queirós, la denuncia social, y la relación amorosa; en una segunda parte se realizará un análisis de El crimen del Padre Amaro bajo la perspectiva de semiótica de la cultura de Yuri M. Lotman basada en su texto Estructura del texto artístico. (shrink)

This article presents the results of the analysis of a number of linguistic metaphors found in a corpus of opinion articles published in the Spanish newspaper El País. The authors included in the corpus, who tend towards the left of the political spectrum, use metaphor to express moral judgements on the actions and decisions of the conservative, centre-right People’s party, which governs Spain with an overall majority. With the aim of describing this discourse, we have undertaken a qualitative analysis with (...) a conceptual framework deriving from CDA and cognitive linguistics. First, therefore, we have made use of the methodology developed by Steen and the Pragglejaz group to extract the discourse units that could be considered as the lexical expression of an underlying mapping between domains, that is, the metaphors; second, according to the descriptions of Talmy, Croft, Sweetser, Sullivan, and Dancygier and Sweetser, we have verified that the different types of grammatical structure in which the lexical items appeared also indicated the existence of a metaphorical thought process; and third, in the words of van Dijk, we have studied the ideological semantics underlying conceptual structures and conceptual content. As we have demonstrated, all the samples of linguistic metaphors found led readers to construct the same interpretation of the meaning: The Spanish People’s party government is the past, a past that provokes rejection and which was thought to be definitively ended. (shrink)

The \\)-Robertson–Walker spacetime is under investigation. With the derived Hamilton operator, we are solving the Wheeler–De Witt Equation and its Schrödinger-like extension, for physically important forms of the effective potential. The closed form solutions, expressed in terms of Heun’s functions, allow us to comment on the occurrence of Universe from highly probable quantum states.

This paper applies an Intersectionality Based Policy Analysis Framework to Ontario’s current mental health plan – The Roadmap: A Plan to Build Ontario’s Mental Health and Addictions Services – in order to identify the contextual influences, underlying values and assumptions, which promote or undermine the uptake of human rights and equity as a mental health policy priority in Ontario. We found that dominant framings of the “problem” of mental health (as lack of access, coordination or integration, as a fiscal drain, (...) as an economic burden, and as a clinical or medical problem) served to obscure and ignore the underlying social and structural conditions that impact mental health and the human rights violations that routinely occur in the context of “care.” We discuss the implications of The Roadmap ignoring social and structural determinants of health, and by way of contrast, explore how citizen engagement and activism can support rethinking mental health policy so that it is more just and equitable. (shrink)

Recent studies reported the development of psychological distress symptoms in patients who recovered from COVID-19. However, evidence is still scarce and new data are needed to define the exact risk and protective factors that can explain the variability in symptoms manifestation. In this study, we enrolled 257 patients who recovered from COVID-19 and we evaluated the levels of psychological distress through the Symptoms Checklist-90-R scale. Data concerning illness-related variables were collected from medical records, while the presence of subjective cognitive difficulties, (...) both before and after the illness, as well as the level of the cognitive reserve, were assessed over a clinical interview. Results revealed that being female and reporting the presence of subjective cognitive difficulties after COVID-19 were associated with higher levels of psychological distress. At the same time, being admitted to the hospital and having a high CR were protective factors. Adding new information to this emerging research field, our results highlight the importance of a complete psychological and cognitive assessment in patients with COVID-19. (shrink)

Los constantes cambios que sacuden el mundo actual han hecho entrar en una situación organizacional de ruptura paradigmática; hoy los viejos lenguajes son insuficientes para llegar a ser éticos, sensitivos y rentables en el día a día. Las organizaciones que aprenden, concebidas como sistemas complejos, deben ser autoconscientes y estar en proceso de construcción y deconstrucción permanente que posibiliten el desarrollo de valores para un ambiente de trabajo dinámico y potenciador. Se propone el concepto de “fárbices caórdicas” como elemento esencial (...) de un conjunto que resulta parte indeclinable de la composición de otros elementos que coinciden en resonancia sinérgica, en un todo llamado globalización. (shrink)

El proceso de aprendizaje en un adulto es diferente al que ocurre en la etapa de la niñez; el adulto posee un piso de competencias al que es capaz de integrarla adquisición de nuevos conocimientos y asume su aprendizaje como un proceso electivo en función de sus motivaciones e intereses. El adulto como totalidad “bio-psico-sociológica” siente, vive, actúa y otorga significado a lo que aprende como parte de la realidad y del paradigma en el que se halla inserto. Considerar al (...) adulto descontextualizado de esta compleja realidad que representa, es cercenar su naturaleza y condenarlo a formarse en la incomprensión de su propia racionalidad. Concebir un proceso de autorregulación en el aprendizaje de un individuo, es reconocer en él la capacidad de tomar las riendas de ese ser que representa; reconocerlo capaz de asumir la responsabilidad para consigo, para con los otros, para con el todo del vivir y existir, respetando el proceso que lo revela como un ente, quees -por naturaleza propia- único e irrepetible. (shrink)

Interest in Japanese language, and consequently the number of students of the Japanese language is constantly growing, both globally, and on the national level. Pula University undergraduate study program of Japanese Language and Culture and graduate program of Japanese studies with Japanese Language Teaching module, the first accredited Japanese study programs in Croatia, open up the possibility of introducing the subject curriculum of the Japanese language in secondary schools in the Republic of Croatia. Creation of educated teaching staff and the (...) publication of Japanese language textbooks in Croatian are important prerequisites for teaching in secondary schools, as the results of surveys in secondary schools and the number of students enrolled in Japanese study program indicate a great interest in this language. The aim of this paper is to develop a proposal for a subject curriculum of the Japanese language for secondary schools in the Republic of Croatia with content and structure based on an analysis of existing Japanese language curricula of foreign countries (the curricula of Germany, Serbia, Canada, and Ireland) and on the foreign language subject curricula of the Republic of Croatia (French, Serbian, Greek and Latin). The proposal presents parts of the elaborated learning outcomes and suggests selected topics and language content for two classes of secondary schools. In addition, cross‑subject topics correlated with Japanese language were also listed. (shrink)

Against those who dismiss Kant's project in the "Religion" because it provides a Pelagian understanding of salvation, this paper offers an analysis of the deep structure of Kant's views on divine justice and grace showing them not to conflict with an authentically Christian understanding of these concepts. The first part of the paper argues that Kant's analysis of these concepts helps us to understand the necessary conditions of the Christian understanding of grace: unfolding them uncovers intrinsic relations holding between God's (...) justice and grace. Parts two and three provide an analysis of two concepts of grace used by Kant. Getting clear on their differences is the key to understanding why Kant's account is not Pelagian. (shrink)

Autonomy generally is a valued condition for persons in liberal cultures such as the United States. We uphold autonomous agents as the exemplar of persons who, by their judgment and action, authenticate the social and political principles and policies that advance their interests. But questions about the value of autonomy are often problematic. They are problematic because they concern the kind of value autonomy has and not just how much value autonomy has when weighed against competing goods. The two questions (...) are frequently conflated. For example, in asking what happens when the putative right to autonomy is tested against competing goods, such as personal contentment or political security, we might overlook the fact that we are comparing goods that are valued for different reasons. My aim in this paper is to explore in a very general way some of the issues surrounding these questions about the value of autonomy. I plan to do so by focusing on the phenomenon of being “blinded” by an inarticulate ideal of the value of autonomy. (shrink)

Worldwide and certainly in the EU, we are silently rather advanced in a new economic logic, a new economic paradigm. This is a huge transformation of the very tool of production, comparable to the shift from agriculture towards industry, last century. And at least in the positive scenario, this post capitalist logic represents a huge shift towards human and nature centred economic logic. Our society is exposed to radical changes in basic paradigms, dealing with challenges that were unknown few decades (...) ago. E.g.: The negative scenario of manipulation of human body and mind is also prospering and very active today. The widely discussed topic is sustainability of current quantitative growth and the shift into qualitative character of economic growth. The valuation of capital is influencing both micro and macro levels. The value of human capital is becoming primary and machines are becoming secondary. Advancements toward the knowledge society lead to fundamental changes in the nature of power, trade, economy, money, and management. The paper introduces positive role of competent human beings, who produces knowledge from knowledge, their opportunities and their achievements. The paper deals with the new definition of economy, new way of understanding of a value – adding a special value to objects composed of raw materials. Accepting a complexity of a creation process, most observers now agree that humans use their bodies, their minds and their souls, to create. The importance of abstract values rises in importance. We are shifting from the machine and factory towards the human person. Under the trial and error approach, we are supposed to allow errors and cover them. The innovative management must respect the body mind and souls of his personnel. (shrink)

Recent experimental evidence suggests that most of the genome is transcribed into non‐coding RNAs. The initial transcripts undergo further processing generating shorter, metabolically stable RNAs with diverse functions. Small nucleolar RNAs (snoRNAs) are non‐coding RNAs that modify rRNAs, tRNAs, and snRNAs that were considered stable. We review evidence that snoRNAs undergo further processing. High‐throughput sequencing and RNase protection experiments showed widespread expression of snoRNA fragments, known as snoRNA‐derived RNAs (sdRNAs). Some sdRNAs resemble miRNAs, these can associate with argonaute proteins and (...) influence translation. Other sdRNAs are longer, form complexes with hnRNPs and influence gene expression. C/D box snoRNA fragmentation patterns are conserved across multiple cell types, suggesting a processing event, rather than degradation. The loss of expression from genetic loci that generate canonical snoRNAs and processed snoRNAs results in diseases, such as Prader‐Willi Syndrome, indicating possible physiological roles for processed snoRNAs. We propose that processed snoRNAs acquire new roles in gene expression and represent a new class of regulatory RNAs distinct from canonical snoRNAs.Also watch the Video Abstract. (shrink)

Much of the literature devoted to the topics of agent autonomy and agent responsibility suggests strong conceptual overlaps between the two, although few explore these overlaps explicitly. Beliefs of this sort are commonplace, but they mistakenly conflate the global state of being autonomous with the local condition of acting autonomously or exhibiting autonomy in respect to some act or decision. Because the latter, local phenomenon of autonomy seems closely tied to the condition of being responsible for an act, we tend (...) to think of the former, global phenomenon as a condition of responsibility as well. But one can act autonomously, or manifest autonomy with respect to some occurrent state, without satisfying the conditions for autonomous agency. Autonomous agency and responsible agency are logically distinct in part due to the varient conceptions of rationality each calls for. Both agent responsibility and holding a person responsible imply a fairly ``thick'''' form of rationality, where rationality embodies a normative component and is a matter of satisfying criteria that are objective in the sense that they are independent of what a person happens to want or to value. But autonomous agency calls for a quite different, ``thin'''' conception of instrumental rationality. (shrink)

The Extent of the Literal develops a strikingly new approach to metaphor and polysemy in their relation to the conceptual structure. In a straightforward narrative style, the author argues for a reconsideration of standard assumptions concerning the notion of literal meaning and its relation to conceptual structure. She draws on neurophysiological and psychological experimental data in support of a view in which polysemy belongs to the level of words but not to the level of concepts, and thus challenges some seminal (...) work on metaphor and polysemy within cognitive linguistics, lexical semantics and analytical philosophy. (shrink)

Moral taint occurs when one’s personality has been compromised by the introduction of something that produces disfigurement of the moral psyche. While taint may be traced to vicarious liability for our voluntary associations, the thought that we might be responsible for taint and that taint is something we must confront and make amends for becomes problematic when taint is acquired by circumstantial luck. I argue that the idea of circumstantial taint—for example, the idea that people can be morally compromised by (...) their heritage—is coherent. In such cases, although taint is not due to a deficient level of care or to an unsavory quality of will, shame is the appropriate affect and atonement the appropriate response. The concept of moral taint is helpful in assisting our comprehension of more vexing cases of responsibility and blame where shame and a need for atonement exist. (shrink)

ABSTRACTThe paper is a response to the articles published in the current issue analysing Rorty’s philosophy of hope. In these articles, Bianca Thoilliez, Stefano Oliverio and Kai Wortmann highlight the pragmatist characteristics of post-critical pedagogy. Taking a poststructuralist perspective, I propose to examine some limits of the association between Rorty’s philosophy of hope and post-critical pedagogy. I will discuss, in turn, their take on the definition of hope, on the place of critique in post-critical pedagogy and on the affirmative ethos (...) of post-critical pedagogy. (shrink)