Category-based induction is an inferential mechanism that uses knowledge of conceptual relations in order to estimate how likely is for a property to be projected from one category to another. During the last decades, psychologists have identified several features of this mechanism, and they have proposed different formal models of it. In this article; we propose a new mathematical model for category-based induction based on distances on conceptual spaces. We show how this model can predict most of the properties of (...) this kind of reasoning while providing a solid theoretical foundation for it. We also show that it subsumes some of the previous models proposed in the literature and that it generates new predictions. (shrink)

In this paper, we outline a comprehensive approach to composed analogies based on the theory of conceptual spaces. Our algorithmic model understands analogy as a search procedure and builds upon the idea that analogical similarity depends on a conceptual phenomena called ‘dimensional salience.’ We distinguish between category-based, property-based, event-based, and part-whole analogies, and propose computationally-oriented methods for explicating them in terms of conceptual spaces.

In Gärdenfors and Makinson :197–245, 1994) and Gärdenfors it was shown that it is possible to model nonmonotonic inference using a classical consequence relation plus an expectation-based ordering of formulas. In this article, we argue that this framework can be significantly enriched by adopting a conceptual spaces-based analysis of the role of expectations in reasoning. In particular, we show that this can solve various epistemological issues that surround nonmonotonic and default logics. We propose some formal criteria for constructing and updating (...) expectation orderings based on conceptual spaces, and we explain how to apply them to nonmonotonic reasoning about objects and properties. (shrink)

In this article I am going to reconstruct Stephen Toulmin’s procedural theory of concepts and explanations in order to develop two overlooked ideas from his philosophy of science: methods of representations and inferential techniques. I argue that these notions, when properly articulated, could be useful for shedding some light on how scientific reasoning is related to representational structures, concepts, and explanation within scientific practices. I will explore and illustrate these ideas by studying the development of the notion of instantaneous speed (...) during the passage from Galileo’s geometrical physics to analytical mechanics. At the end, I will argue that methods of representations could be considered as constitutive of scientific inference; and I will show how these notions could connect with other similar ideas from contemporary philosophy of science like those of models and model-based reasoning. (shrink)

Volume 32, Issue 6, August 2019, Page 995-999.

Generic statements play a crucial role in concept learning, communication and education. Despite many efforts, the semantics of generics remain a controversial issue, as they do not seem to fit our standard theories of meaning. In this article, we attempt to shed light on this problem by focusing on how these sentences function in reasoning. Drawing on a distinction between property and diagnostic generics, we defend three theses: First, property generics are not about facts but express relations between concepts. Second, (...) generics play an important role in everyday reasoning by interacting with our expectations about the world. Third, diagnostic generics emphasise properties that separate the category in the generics from other categories in the same contrast class. We use the theory of conceptual spaces to advance measures of typicality and diagnosticity capable of modelling different aspects of generics and apply them to the modifier effect and the inverse conjunction fallacy. Finally, we discuss the pragmatics of generics. (shrink)

Over the past few decades, cognitive science has identified several forms of reasoning that make essential use of conceptual knowledge. Despite significant theoretical and empirical progress, there is still no unified framework for understanding how concepts are used in reasoning. This paper argues that the theory of conceptual spaces is capable of filling this gap. Our strategy is to demonstrate how various inference mechanisms which clearly rely on conceptual information—including similarity, typicality, and diagnosticity-based reasoning—can be modeled using principles derived from (...) conceptual spaces. Our first topic analyzes the role of expectations in inductive reasoning and their relation to the structure of our concepts. We examine the relationship between using generic expressions in natural language and common-sense reasoning as a second topic. We propose that the strength of a generic can be described by distances between properties and prototypes in conceptual spaces. Our third topic is category-based induction. We demonstrate that the theory of conceptual spaces can serve as a comprehensive model for this type of reasoning. The final topic is analogy. We review some proposals in this area, present a taxonomy of analogical relations, and show how to model them in terms of distances in conceptual spaces. We also briefly discuss the implications of the model for reasoning with concepts in artificial systems. (shrink)

This article explores the law and ethics of lobbying. The legal discussion examines disclosure regulations, employment restrictions,bribery laws, and anti-fraud provisions as each applies to the lobbying context. The analysis demonstrates that given the social value placed on the First Amendment, federal law generally affords lobbyists wide latitude in determining who, what, when, where, and how to lobby.The article then turns to ethics. Lobbying involves deliberate attempts to effect changes in the law. An argument is advanced that because law implicates (...) the use of force and because law ideally reflects the values of a democratic society, seeking to slant the law to serve a client’s narrow interests cannot provide an adequate ethical end for a lobbyist. On the contrary, a lobbyist has an affirmative moral duty to seek reasonably balanced and just laws. The article examines, refines, and defends this proposition in a number of settings. (shrink)

ABSTRACT Gareth Evans and Sven Rosenkranz have respectively formulated two objections to truth relativism that would show that this view does not cohere with our practice of asserting. I argue that the relativist should answer such objections by appealing to the notion of assessment sensitivity. Since the relativist accounts for this notion by means of a technical truth predicate relating propositions to contexts of assessment, the task left to her turns out to be to make sense of assessment sensitivity by (...) making sense of this predicate. RESUMO Gareth Evans e Sven Rosenkranz formularam, respectivamente, duas objeções ao relativismo da verdade que mostrariam que esta visão não é coerente com nossa prática de afirmar. Defendo que o relativista deve responder a tais objeções apelando à noção de sensibilidade da avaliação. Tendo em mente que o relativista considera essa noção por meio de um predicado de verdade técnica, a tarefa deixada para ele calha de ser dar sentido à sensibilidade da avaliação mediante dar sentido a esse predicado. (shrink)

This article centers on Hume’s position on the intelligibility of natural philosophy. To that end, the controversy surrounding universal gravitation shall be scrutinized. It is very well-known that Hume sides with the Newtonian experimentalist approach rather than with the Leibnizian demand for intelligibility. However, what is not clear is Hume’s overall position on the intelligibility of natural philosophy. It shall be argued that Hume declines Leibniz’s principle of intelligibility. However, Hume does not eschew intelligibility altogether; his concept of causation itself (...) stipulates mechanical intelligibility. (shrink)

Asumiendo que existe una fecunda relación histórica entre teología y fenomenología, este trabajo se propone señalar la especificidad y novedad de la fenomenología francesa actual, destacando la diferencia entre el modelo teológico del que esta última se nutre respecto del tipo de teología con el que dialoga la fenomenología histórica. En primer lugar, abordaremos la relación entre fenome-nología y teología ofrecida por Edmund Husserl, sosteniendo allí la presencia de una teología positiva, pues Dios es nombrado bajo términos tales como ἐντελέχεια, (...) “idea” y “substancia absoluta”. En segundo lugar, mostraremos el vínculo entre fenomenología y teología propuesto por Jean-Luc Marion a partir de su interpretación del pensamiento de Dionisio Areopagita como “teología pragmática de la ausencia”, tal como aparece en De surcroît. Finalmente, estableceremos un diálogo entre ambas propuestas. Sostendremos que puede hallarse una diferencia fundamental entre ellas. Por un lado, Husserl apela a una teología positiva, pues Dios irrumpe aquí en el horizonte de los Grenzprobleme de la fenomenología. Por el otro lado, afir-maremos que en Marion puede hallarse una apelación a la teología mística como búsqueda de un lenguaje que permita expresar el exceso. (shrink)

McTaggart famously introduced the A- and B-series as rival metaphysical accounts of time. This paper shall reorient the debate over the original distinction. Instead of treating the series as competing theories about the nature of time, it will be argued that they are different viewpoints on a world that is fundamentally physical. To that end, non-reductive physicalism is proposed to reconcile the series.

Traditionally, analytic philosophy has been affiliated with a formalist conception of inference which understands reasoning as a process that exploits syntactic properties of natural language according to a set of formal rules that are insensitive to conceptual content. This chapter discusses an alternative approach that takes semantic properties as the underlying forces driving rational inference. Building on Wilfird Sellars’ notion of material inference and analytic tools from cognitive linguistics, I will show how parts of the inferential structure of natural language (...) can be explained in terms of semantic relations between extra-logical concepts. In the end, I will outline a strategy for explicating some of these inference-types using Peter Gärdenfors’ theory of conceptual spaces. (shrink)

The concept of “revolutionary myth” is the idea of Georges Sorel most influential in the thinking of José Carlos Mariátegui. However, this concept does not work the same way in both authors, mainly because it is applied in each case on markedly different national situations, such as France and Peru in the early twentieth century. For this reason it is important, regardless of the theoretical similarities, expressed as the difference between a general strike myth, linked to European industrial proletariat, and (...) another characterized around the social revolution, linked to the masses of the indigenous peasantry. In both cases we see that such concepts are functional to an extension of the limits of Marxism beyond Stalinism and the III International. (shrink)

The crisis resilience of vital social systems is currently the target of constant development efforts in Finland, as their drifting into crisis would weaken societies’ functional abilities, safety, and security. This is also the case regarding the Finnish health care system. In an attempt to move beyond existing frameworks of crisis imagination, this article takes an unconventional stance by elucidating endogenous crisis dynamics present in the Finnish health care system. Delphi process was conducted for top experts in Finnish health care (...) and crisis management. With a dissensus-seeking orientation, our aim was to fertilize disagreements among panelists to reveal key vulnerabilities in the health system. Despite our efforts to evoke dissensus, the panelists ended up generating a consensus that aims to protect the underlying assumptions of the health system’s knowledge structure. Through inductive analysis of expert discourses, the data was analyzed through our research question “what constitutes a crisis-proof health system and a crisis-prone health system”. What is framed as a strength of the system by our panelists, namely the ability to maintain legitimacy, improve efficiency, and guarantee continuity, can still have questionable implications that are left ungrasped. A system’s theory approach illustrates how such effects can develop and escalate beyond the reach of social interventions, and thus be predisposed to cause objectionable yet concealed social crises. The discussion illustrates how these endogenous crisis dynamics could be seen to materialize in real-life cases. (shrink)

En las últimas dos décadas, la relación directa o indirecta de Kierkegaard con la nueva fenomenologíase ha vuelto un tópico de creciente interés. Haciendo eco de este ánimo, en este artículo pretendo leerdos niveles del pensamiento de Kierkegaard a partir de las directrices generales de la nuevafenomenología. El primer estadio refiere al carácter descentrado del sujeto kierkegaardiano frente aDios, modulación que se entrelaza con una inversión de la intencionalidad husserliana. Por otro lado,el segundo escalón apunta a la intersubjetividad, en tanto (...) el reconocimiento de y la responsabilidadhacia los otros. El objetivo es mostrar que Kierkegaard contribuye al proyecto de la nuevafenomenología no sólo como un crítico más de la metafísica moderna, sino también como proveedorde categorías reconstructivas del individuo y la comunidad. (shrink)

In this paper, I aim to show the evolution of Kierkegaard’s views on the state scattered in his Papers. To do this, I will carry out an analysis divided into chronological periods, and I will characterize each period in terms of its main features. The goal is to give a comprehensive account of Kierkegaard as a champion of the monarchical and authoritative state, who loses his patience and attacks the established order only when he thinks that Christianity’s truth is at (...) the greatest risk. This interpretation contrasts both with a mere despotic Kierkegaard and with a more liberal one. (shrink)

La investigación que se presenta tiene como objetivo el análisis teórico de los cruces entre la filosofía y el Daseinsanalyse de Binswanger en la producción temprana de Michel Foucault en la década del cincuenta. Se pretende realizar un análisis teórico de los argumentos en los que se apoyan una serie de postulados valorativos y críticas a la psicología y al psicoanálisis. A su vez, estos argumentos derivan del análisis de la antropología binswangeriana. Los postulados existenciales sobre la enfermedad mental, la (...) reelaboración de críticas filosóficas de principios del siglo XX a la psicología naturalista, el problema de las relaciones entre la facticidad, la existencia concreta y la expresión histórica de la libertad, son algunos de los tópicos que se abordan. (shrink)

“Michel Foucault and the Tragic Structure. An Early Nietzschean Reading of Tragedy”. The purpose of this article is to investigate the statute of the tragic in Michel Foucault’s early texts, especially in the original preface of Histoire de la folie à l’age classique. It will be argued that in his early reading of Nietzsche, Foucault elaborates the concept of tragic structure to give foundation, in epistemic sense, to the historical experiences of madness. Subsequently, we will trace the different formulations on (...) tragic in Foucault’s early texts. The concept of tragic appears on these texts as a term to identify the negativity and of the oblivion in the field of the psychological knowledge. Finally, we will explain how Foucault re-elaborates Nietzsche’s concept of the tragic to expose an underlying determination to the history. The battle between the dionysian and apollonian elements defines the status of this experience. (shrink)

Este texto recoge parte de las reflexiones y del desarrollo del capítulo 5 del libro La barbarie que no vimos: Fotografía y memoria en Colombia. Aquí algunas preguntas que se intentan responder en este ensayo: ¿son las tecnologías las únicas responsables de la imposibilidad de ejercer una contemplación activa frente al infortunio de los demás? A propósito de la Parábola del Buen Samaritano, ¿este habría sido reemplazado por el espectador distante o implicado? ¿Qué sucede cuando ese espectador, de tanto ver (...) naufragios, termina fatigado? ¿Y de tanta fatiga, se vuelve indiferente? ¿Qué significa ser espectadores de naufragios en una época en la que la catástrofe no es ocasionada exclusivamente por fuerzas naturales sino por los propios seres humanos? ¿Es posible hallar hoy alguna orilla segura para reconocernos distanciados y salvados de las catástrofes ajenas? (shrink)

I examine an intuitive property of folk-psychological explanations I call self-sufficiency. I argue that individualism cannot honor this property and work toward distilling an account of psychological explanation that does honor it, given some fairly standard assumptions. In doing so, my preference for an Externalist individuation of intentional state will emerge unambiguously. The assumptions I rely on are fairly standard but not uncontroversial. Yet not always do I attempt to defend them from objections. My goal is an account of folk (...) psychology consistent with our every-day practices rather than the deduction of an idealized psychology from first principles. I conclude with some applications offered as evidence that the goal was achieved. (shrink)

Controversy has reigned for some time over the biological connection between DNA methylation and cancer. For this reason, the methylation mechanism responsible for increased cancer risk has received greater attention in recent years. Tumor suppressor genes are often hypermethylated resulting in gene silencing. Although some have questioned this interpretation of the link between methylation and cancer, it appears that both hypermethylation and hypomethylation events can create epigenetic changes that can contribute to cancer development. Recent studies have shown that the methyltransferases (...) DNMT1 and DNMT3b cooperatively maintain DNA methylation and gene silencing in human cancer cells. Disruption of the human DNMT3b only slightly reduces the overall global DNA methylation; however, demethylation was markedly potentiated when both DNMT1 and DNMT3b were simultaneously deleted. The results to these experiments provide compelling evidence towards a role for DNA methylation in cancer. This review discusses the current understanding of cancer‐epigenetic information and highlights recent studies that connect the methylation machinery and chromatin remodelling with cancer susceptibility. BioEssays 25:1071–1084, 2003. © 2003 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. (shrink)

El texto Meditaciones metafísicas de René Descartes (1943) ha sido considerado el primero en el cual se realiza la fundamentación del concepto de sujeto moderno y de la comprensión del hombre como tal. En diálogo con él, exploramos la dimensión dialógica de la meditación con el fin de revisar el planteamiento cartesiano, a la luz de nuestro horizonte contemporáneo, para dejarnos decir algo por él. De este modo pueden hacerse visibles nuestras maneras de comprender las subjetividades hoy, permitiéndonos cuestionar tanto (...) la estructura que sustenta la concepción del sujeto, como la problemática de la identidad que le es sucedánea, dejándonos ver su singularidad en el modo actual y actuante de nuestro ser en el mundo. (shrink)

The study analyses how the corporate rhetoric of sustainability has developed in Finland during 1985-2005. The dataset consisting of the disclosures of four leading Finnish companies has been analyzed through discourse analytic methods. The findings question whether the ever-increasing popularity of sustainability-related concepts actually means that society is moving forward on the road towards sustainability.

El artículo analiza, desde la historia social con perspectiva de género, un problema nodal del largo conflicto magisterial de 1919 en Mendoza. Se abordan los dispositivos preventivos y reactivos ejercidos durante las tres acciones directas declaradas por Maestros Unidos y las dos huelgas generales pronunciadas por la Federación Obrera Provincial en solidaridad con el sindicato docente. La temprana eclosión de acciones colectivas desplegadas por mujeres, niños, niñas y varones adultos, signó con singular profundidad las posiciones antagónicas asumidas por el Estado. (...) Problemática que nos empuja a establecer un nexo con los estudios que centran la mirada en las respuestas y estrategias elaboradas desde el ámbito estatal y paraestatal para tramitar la cuestión social y obrera. A partir de la conjunción de ambos nudos historiográficos, reparamos sobre las formas de represión y las prácticas de sujeción efectivamente desplegadas durante el extenso conflicto. Abordamos la conformación de la Liga Patriótica Argentina seccional Mendoza, los vínculos establecidos con funcionarios e instituciones estatales y la estrategia ofensiva en su búsqueda por restituir el orden institucional educativo y los sentidos tradicionales de domesticidad que pesaban sobre mujeres e infancias. Por último, nos focalizamos en la implementación progresiva de dispositivos específicos de marcación negativa y hostigamiento que se ejercitaron de modo generizado sobre las maestras sindicalizadas y sus aliados, y que culminaron en abierta represión estatal –legal e ilegal- durante los momentos más confrontativos de huelga general. (shrink)

El presente estudio tiene por objetivo demostrar lo siguiente: que no es posible comprender suficientemente, al menos en un aspecto, el método de ejecución(Methode der Ausführung) de la Fenomenología del espíritu como “la exposición del saber que aparece” (die Darstellung des erscheinenden Wissens), si es que no se comprende la relación que tiene dicho método de ejecución con la temática del auto-engaño. Este objetivo se lleva a cabo de la siguiente manera: 1) se propone el tipo de relación que se (...) busca establecer entre el concepto de “auto-engaño” y el método de ejecución, 2) se presentan las notas que les corresponden a ambos y 3) se argumenta en orden a demostrar que el método de ejecución no se puede comprender rectamente sino en relación con la temática del auto-engaño. (shrink)

El artículo recorre el problema de las analogías y diferencias entre la prisión y la escuela, un tema agitado desde la década de 1980 en el seno del Movimiento Pedagógico Colombiano, a la luz de ciertas apropiaciones del libro Vigilar y castigar de Michel Foucault. En la segunda parte el texto recoge la tesis foucaultiana sobre el “fracaso de la prisión” y propone analizar este “fracaso” en el caso de la escuela moderna, a partir de análisis desarrollados en el marco (...) de los trabajos del Grupo de Historia de la Práctica Pedagógica en Colombia. (shrink)

Dada la especie de clausura al que las historias de las ideas en Colombia han llevado al expediente sobre las relaciones entre positivismos y tradicionalismos, y ante la necesidad de construir unos criterios de reconocimiento del "positivismo", creo necesario hacer un trabajo preliminar de reproblematización de esas relaciones en el nivel global, utilizando los aportes de historiadores y filósofos europeos y colombianos, a lo que dedicaré las páginas siguientes. Lo que sorprende en la literatura más reciente sobre las relaciones entre (...) tradicionalismos y positivismos es el señalamiento de una serie de singulares parentescos, contra lo que hemos pensado habitualmente. Quisiera entonces pasar revista a esos parentescos, para luego extraer algunas conclusiones que permitan reorientar nuestras investigaciones. [Fragmento]. (shrink)

In this squib, I evaluate the contradiction analysis (Abrusán in Natural Language Semantics 19(3):257–321, 2011, in Weak island semantics, 2014 ) and the necessary infelicity analysis (Oshima in Washio et al. (eds.), New frontiers in artificial intelligence, 2007 ; Schwarz and Simonenko in Natural Language Semantics 26(3–4):253–279, 2018b ) of factive islands in light of a pattern that has not been previously discussed in the literature: questions about propositions. I argue that while the necessary infelicity approach can straightforwardly explain the (...) acceptability of this kind of question, the contradiction account undergenerates, since it wrongly predicts their ungrammaticality. I claim that this prediction follows from the assumption that the domain of quantification contains contraries. Therefore, the main contribution of this squib is the observation that such an assumption cannot play an explanatory role in accounting for factive islands. (shrink)

La legitimación del sufrimiento de las mujeres como voluntad de Dios ha sido una realidad expresada en muchas instancias, entre ellas, los contextos de guerra donde la violencia sexual contra las mujeres se utiliza como arma de guerra. En este horizonte, este artículo busca proponer una lectura feminista de la cruz de Cristo, buscando contrastar la violencia ejercida contra el cuerpo de las mujeres con la teoría de la expiación de nuestros pecados por la cruz de Cristo. Se parte de (...) la experiencia de las mujeres en el contexto de guerra colombiano para, en un sgundo momento, interpretar esa realidad con los datos de la reflexión cristológica feminista de varias autoras que han abierto caminos para la recuperación de la dignidad y valor de las mujeres. Todo esto nos permite concluir en el inaplazable compromiso de una relectura feminista de la cruz para favorecer la paz y la justicia para todos y, por supuesto, para las mujeres víctimas de tanta y tan variada violencia. (shrink)

This article explores the motives underlying corporate responses to the COVID-19 pandemic. The analysis begins with Thomas Dunfee’s Statement of Minimum Moral Obligation (SMMO), which specifies, more precisely than any other contribution to the business ethics canon, the level of corporate beneficence required during a pandemic. The analysis then turns to Milton Friedman’s neoliberal understanding of human nature, critically contrasting it with the notion of stoic virtue that informs the works of Adam Smith. Friedman contends that beneficence should play no (...) role in corporate settings. Smith, by contrast, emphasizes the need for prudence, beneficence and self-command in all human endeavours. The article then uses these competing frameworks to reflect on a published survey of 145 corporate responses to COVID-19. In many of these responses, the benefit to a non-financial stakeholder is clear, while the financial consequence to the firm remains nebulous. This supports the contention that during a pandemic, beneficence provides a more complete explanation of many corporate actions than the profit motive alone. The article contests Friedman’s Chicago School profit imperative and goes beyond Dunfee’s SMMO by endorsing the more full-throated embrace of beneficence and stoic virtue found in the works of Smith. (shrink)

A través del presente ejercicio investigativo y hermenéutico se busca proponer la beneficencia como principio articulador entre la Teología Moral de la Persona, la Bioética y las Prácticas Biomédicas, con el fin de salvaguardar al ser humano de forma integral y desde el ámbito interdisciplinar, frente a la manipulación y menoscabo de la persona en su: dignidad, status antropológico, verdad ontológica y trascendente, lo cual nos lleva a proponer alternativas, dadas las nuevas circunstancias por las que atraviesa la humanidad; y (...) es aquí donde adquiere resonancia proponer la Beneficencia como principio articulador entre estas tres ciencias, dado que ella, como principio, está en los tres saberes de forma implícita y explícita y, las cuales, por su misma esencia, tienen puntos de convergencia como son: la determinación de su carácter moral, su estatuto de servicio, la salvaguarda de la riqueza de la vida, el reconocimiento y respeto por la dignidad humana, el reconocimiento de la multidimensionalidad del ser, y el cuidado que requiere toda persona humana en su fragilidad y vulnerabilidad. Además de lo anterior se cuenta con un abordaje teórico sobre la bioética como saber interdisciplinar; los principios de la bioética y la relación de la teología moral de la persona con la bioética. El presente ejercicio investigativo fue llevado a cabo en un lapso de dos años. (shrink)

This article explores the strategic management of government affairs in companies active in the EU. The article relies on a unique large-N dataset on the functioning and staffing of EU government affairs. The analysis shows that companies delegate government affairs functions to in-house managers with specific competences, who stay in office for long periods and who have an extensive knowledge of the core competences of the company, thanks to their educational background and work experience in the private sector. These findings (...) suggest that how companies strategically manage and staff government affairs in Brussels rests on the distinct structure of business–government relations in the EU, which are based on the exchange of technical information and the establishment of credibility and long-run trust arrangements. (shrink)

Algunas de las preguntas fundamentales de la filosofía del arte son: 1) ¿Qué es una obra de arte?, 2) ¿Qué es Arte?, 3) ¿Qué es el arte? Responderlas es determinar el sentido del arte. Este tipo de preguntas están planteadas bajo la fórmula ¿Qué es X?, es decir, preguntas en las cuales en lo simple esta lo complejo, preguntas en donde lo simple no quiere decir que sean sencillas; son preguntas que traen dentro de si su naturaleza y carácter metafísico-ontológico-gnoseológico, (...) y hasta axiológico. No es el propósito de este trabajo hacer frente o resolver estos problemas, sino proporcionar una aproximación al concepto de “obra de arte” en la época actual y como podría entenderse en relación a ciertos problemas ontológicos y epistemológicos actuales. -/- [Extended Version of: Vélez León, Paulo (2006). «Aproximaciones a la ¿obra de arte?». En Políticas al borde. Una investigación sobre el arte contemporáneo cuencano en los discursos políticos actuales, editado por Paulo Vélez León y Hernán Pacucuru. Cuenca: Universidad de Cuenca/Bienal Internacional de Cuenca, 2006, pp. 1-12]. (shrink)

This book defends a relational theory of the passage of time. The realist view of passage developed in this book differs from the robust, substantivalist position. According to relationism, passage is nothing over and above the succession of events, one thing coming after another. Causally related events are temporally arranged as they happen one after another along observers’ worldlines. There is no unique global passage but a multiplicity of local passages of time. After setting out this positive argument for relationism, (...) the author deals with five common objections to it: (a) triviality of deflationary passage, (b) a-directionality of passage, (c) the impossibility of experiencing passage, (d) fictionalism about passage, and (e) the incompatibility of passage with perduring objects. (shrink)

Eternalism is the view that all times are equally real. The relativity of simultaneity in special relativity backs this up. There is no cosmically extended, self-existing ‘now.’ This leads to a tricky problem. What makes statements about the present true? I shall approach the problem along the lines of perspectival realism and argue that the choice of the perspective does. To corroborate this point, the Lorentz transformations of special relativity are compared to the structurally similar equations of the Doppler effect. (...) The ‘now’ is perspectivally real in the same way as a particular electromagnetic spectrum frequency. I also argue that the ontology of time licensed by perspectival realism is more credible in this context than its current alternative, the fragmentalist interpretation of special relativity. (shrink)

Con ocasión del 80 aniversario de la Universidad Iberoamericana y de su Departamento de Filosofía hemos querido recuperar y comentar uno de los dos primeros libros que se publicaron en lo que entonces se llamaba Centro Cultural Universitario. El libro que nos ocupa es fiel testimonio de la época en que fue publicado. Las conferencias del padre jesuita Ledit son ejemplo de la manera de entender la historia moderna y contemporánea de muchos pensadores católicos preconciliares. La cristiandad medieval había realizado (...) una síntesis con el pensamiento griego. La modernidad fue la paulatina separación de esta filosofía perenne abierta a la trascendencia, con el resultado de una razón soberbia y orgullosa de su finitud; una de sus consecuencias fueron los sistemas totalitarios de la primera mitad del siglo xx, los cuales en su confrontación llevaron al estallido de la Segunda Guerra Mundial. (shrink)

Artikkelissa puolustetaan syy-seuraussuhteen ajallista yksisuuntaisuutta. Positiivinen argumentti perustuu ajanluontoisten tapahtumien ennen–jälkeen-suhteen pysyvyyteen. Olennaiset vastaväitteet, jotka perustuvat samanaikaiseen kausaliteettiin, antikausaaliseen fysiikan filosofiaan ja luonnonlakien symmetrisyyteen, otetaan huomioon. Johtopäätöksenä todetaan, että malliesimerkit kausaliteetista ilmentävät syyn ja seurauksen epäsymmetriaa. Syy alkaa ennen sen seurausta, vaikka ne ovat osittain samanaikaisia.