El presente artículo busca señalar la existencia de dos conflictos, al menos, que se presentan en Colombia. El primero es un conflicto directo mayoritariamente sufrido en zonas rurales. El segundo es un tele-conflicto. De su raíz griega es un conflicto que se vive desde lejos (tele). Este último, si bien es virtual, produce efectos reales en los sujetos con un alto poder de decisión, especialmente en zonas urbanas. Con ello se busca señalar el rol de los medios como condición de (...) posibilidad para la existencia del conflicto, pero no sólo debido al uso (abuso) que se pueda dar de ellos para la continuación del conflicto, sino por la misma manera en que es medializado. Para ello se analiza como caso empírico la refrendación de los acuerdos de paz de La Habana entre el estado colombiano y la guerrilla de las FARC-EP. Para ello se hará un análisis fenomenológico de la manera en que los medios interactúan con el sujeto. Con ello se busca observar el rol constitutivo de los medios de la experiencia humana. Con este punto como pivote, se señala la existencia de los dos conflictos previamente nombrados. (shrink)

El presente artículo estudia la manera como se transgreden cánones lingüísticos, gramáticos y literarios en La guaracha del Macho Camacho (1976), novela del puertorriqueño Luis Rafael Sánchez. Tiene por objetivo general demostrar que el lenguaje es un mecanismo de resistencia frente a los grupos hegemónicos, por el cuestionamiento de su posición en la sociedad puertorriqueña. Para lograr tal propósito se plantean tres objetivos secundarios: primero, identificar la contradicción, en el contexto puertorriqueño, entre los valores sociales propuestos por Estados Unidos y (...) aquellos que se gestan en la isla; segundo, explicar su carácter de novela “anti-nacional”, en la medida en que no reproduce un lenguaje único sino que refleja la diglosia propia del hablante callejero y, tercero, advertir la incidencia del concepto de hibridación, según Bajtín, como mecanismo de construcción de un registro lingüístico distinto al de las partes que lo componen. Se concluye, de ese modo, que el texto de Sánchez critica a la clase dominante de lasociedad puertorriqueña envileciéndola, haciéndola tan vulgar como aquellos que se encuentran en sus antípodas, con quienes no tienen diferencias –al menos en el texto– demasiado notables. (shrink)

This work begins with a brief review – from the _physical education_ movement that began in ancient Greece and is deeply rooted in 19th century Europe, to the _somatics_ movement alive today. The review captures primary historical and conceptual references, relevant to the therapeutic-embodied exploratory work. Then, G. Stanghellini’s mental health care model [ 2 ] is reviewed. This model is considered within reflexive self-awareness and spoken dialogue: the main vehicles in relation with alterity and its consequences in the realm (...) of psychotherapeutic encounter and intervention. This will highlight the individual’s bodily movement and inter-corporeal ‘proto-dialogue’ as a prior realm of therapeutic intervention. Next, a brief consideration of E. Strauss work [ 31 ] is presented. This paper’s hypothesis is that bodily qualitative dynamics highlighted by phenomenology are essential for an effective mental health therapeutic intervention. A ‘seed’ of a framework is proposed in this paper; this seed assesses some phenomenological assets of a positive conception of mental health, for which self-awareness education is key to develop skills such as _kinaesthetic intelligence_ and _attunement_ and to educate healthy persons who can promote edifying social relations and environments. (shrink)

Blanco, Carlos. Historia de la neurociencia: el conocimiento del cerebro y la mente desde una perspectiva inter-disciplinar. Madrid: Biblioteca Nueva, 2014. 296 pp.

RESUMEN Desde 1980, C. D. Frith investiga la esquizofrenia, y explica sus síntomas centrales como las alucinaciones, con miras a aclarar cuál es el déficit originario de este trastorno mental. Frith propone una hipótesis centrada en el concepto de conciencia, que ha elaborado como parte del desarrollo científico contemporáneo. En primer lugar, como parte de la aplicación de modelos neurocognitivos de control motor, según los cuales el déficit se atribuye al concepto de copia eferente y su función. En segundo lugar, (...) la actualiza y complementa con evidencia de imagen cerebral de la atenuación de la actividad cortical parietal, como efecto derivado de la copia eferente. En tercer lugar, adiciona el concepto de sentido de agencia, y el componente de cognición social, intentando integrar la experiencia del paciente y la relevancia del ámbito intersubjetivo a su propuesta. Este artículo hace una revisión crítica de la hipótesis de Frith y se divide en cuatro partes: primero, se presenta una síntesis de la evolución de la hipótesis; segundo, se sintetiza su argumentación; tercero, se presentan los principales puntos críticos y, por último, se derivan unas conclusiones generales. ABSTRACT Since 1980, C. D. Frith has been working on schizophrenia, and explaining central symptoms such as hallucinations, in an attempt to clarify the basic deficits of this mental disorder. Frith has put forth a hypothesis based on the concept of consciousness, and has been adjusting it alongside contemporary scientific developments. In first place, it begins with the use of neurocognitive models of motor control, according to which the deficit is attributable to the concept of efferent copy and its function. In second place, he updated the model by including neuroimaging evidence of attenuation in parietal activity, as a consequence of the efferent copy. In third place, he added the concept of sense of agency, and the social cognition component, trying to integrate to his proposal the patient's experience and the relevance of the inter-subjective aspect. The current paper, which critically reviews Frith's hypothesis, it's divided in four parts: First, the hypothesis' evolution is synthesized; second, the main arguments are summarized; third, the main critical points are presented; and, finally, some general conclusions are drawn. (shrink)

Abstract:Analyzes the ways in which the queer Latinx experience is permeated by the processes of political struggle that each nation has gone through since the beginning of Cold War. In this endeavor, the essay considers how such struggles have engendered gestures that link individuals through a kind of kinship—one that needs no words in order to act as a resistance platform. Therefore, the essay traces how queer people in Puerto Rico, Nicaragua, Cuba, Venezuela, and the Ecuadorian diaspora negotiate with power; (...) whether they do it by pushing a political agenda, or by turning to silence in order to deceive their oppressors. (shrink)

En el marco de los 800 años de la celebración del encuentro de San Francisco y el Sultán, convocado por la Orden Franciscana, el presente artículo pretende indagar sobre la concepción de la imagen del moro en la sociedad colonial y, particularmente reflejados en la serie de 54 cuadros de la vida de san Francisco del Museo de Arte Colonial de San Francisco, Santiago de Chile, confeccionada en el siglo XVII en un taller del Cuzco y cuyo destino fue el (...) Convento homónimo para la formación y contemplación de los religiosos, que nos permite descubrir su representación. El moro representa el signo del individuo o del territorio pagano, en acción o contexto de violencia, pero capaz de la conversión. Estos aspectos son comunes a los prejuicios traídos por los colonizadores, marcados por la larga lucha en la península contra ellos y las políticas de expulsión de esta comunidad desde España. El arte colonial, a su vez, fue un ejercicio de diálogo cultural que adaptó la cultura hispánica a la realidad del nuevo mundo, y, por tanto, permitió la lectura del moro trasladada a las dificultades y éxitos de la evangelización y a la violencia ejercida por los conquistadores. (shrink)

Este artículo presenta descriptivamente el pensamiento social del religioso franciscano y filósofo chileno, fray Pedro Bustos, particularmente en su propuesta del ahorro como solución a la cuestión social chilena en las primeras décadas del siglo XX. La revisión de sus escritos permite encontrarse con un pensamiento basado en autores europeos, pero adaptados al contexto nacional y reforzado por una cercanía personal con el mundo obrero. Desde allí, y en consonancia con el catolicismo social y una antropología integral, interpretaba la cuestión (...) social y el protagonismo de los propios proletarios en su solución, capacitarse y lograr ahorrar, tarea que no era fácil, pues factores culturales, laborales y políticos no la favorecían. Para que esta fuera alcanzada, requería de la subvención de la caridad cristiana. (shrink)

La carta ficticia es el género literario elegido por fray Pedro Bustos, religioso franciscano chileno, para representar la realidad de pobreza material y moral del obrero y su familia y difundir su visión crítica sobre la sociedad, los partidos políticos y la Iglesia en Chile, en las primeras décadas del siglo XX. En ellas es posible encontrar los elementos esenciales del pensamiento social católico, la caracterización de la familia proletaria de Santiago de Chile, el examen de las causas de la (...) malas condiciones morales y económicas de los obreros, y la relación entre abandono de la fe y la crisis social. Su autor las escribió realizando un ejercicio entre una formación filosófica y la experiencia personal nacida de una cercanía personal y pastoral con las clases vulnerables y éstas fueron publicadas en las revistas franciscanas, entre cuyos lectores estaban los laicos adherentes a su espiritualidad a nivel nacional. El rescate de estas es necesario pues al ser considerado un género literario menor puede pasar desapercibida o ignorada en las diversas investigaciones sobre las posturas eclesiales, la realidad chilena y el estado de las clases proletarias. (shrink)

Available in English for the first time, this much-anticipated translation of Enrique Dussel's _Ethics of Liberation_ marks a milestone in ethical discourse. Dussel is one of the world's foremost philosophers. This treatise, originally published in 1998, is his masterwork and a cornerstone of the philosophy of liberation, which he helped to found and develop. Throughout his career, Dussel has sought to open a space for articulating new possibilities for humanity out of, and in light of, the suffering, dignity, and creative (...) drive of those who have been excluded from Western Modernity and neoliberal rationalism. Grounded in engagement with the oppressed, his thinking has figured prominently in philosophy, political theory, and liberation movements around the world. In _Ethics of Liberation_, Dussel provides a comprehensive world history of ethics, demonstrating that our most fundamental moral and ethical traditions did not emerge in ancient Greece and develop through modern European and North American thought. The obscured and ignored origins of Modernity lie outside the Western tradition. _Ethics of Liberation_ is a monumental rethinking of the history, origins, and aims of ethics. It is a critical reorientation of ethical theory. (shrink)

La filosofía, atendiendo a cierto afán esencialista, se ha visto abocada, a lo largo de su historia, a la conceptualización o definición de términos tan complejos como el arte. Una de las teorías más aceptadas y fundamentadas en relación a esta tarea es aquella que define las obras de arte como formas de expresión. En estos últimos siglos, la expresión se ha consolidado como un concepto estrechamente vinculado a la actividad artística. La llegada de la filosofía analítica y su énfasis (...) en el ámbito lingüístico fomentó el interés por definir el fenómeno expresivo como medio de representación de la realidad. En este contexto, autores como Nelson Goodman y Arthur Danto, concibieron, en sus respectivos pensamientos, a la expresión como proceso de simbolización artístico. Ambos autores, que conjugaron en su obra la metodología analítica y la preocupación estética, contribuyeron a la legitimación de la teoría expresivista. A través de la interrelación de sus teorías se observa cómo Goodman sentó unas bases que serían recogidas y ampliadas posteriormente por Danto, para así conformar uno de los idearios más influyentes y representativos del arte contemporáneo. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:preface In this issue, one cluster of articles presents scholarly and creative work focused on Latin American queer politics. Each article reveals queer challenges—theoretical, aesthetic, political, ideological, libidinal, corporeal—to prevailing logics of heteronormativity and neoliberalism, and to asymmetrical processes of knowledge production and circulation. Rafael de la Dehesa examines how political responses to AIDS in Brazil enabled surprising alliances between NGOs, activists, and the state, which produced radical social (...) change and, at times, engendered exclusion and vulnerability. Christine Keating and Amy Lind’s essay explores indigenous and transfeminist efforts to transform the Ecuadorian constitution, producing new conceptions of both state and family. Constanza Tabbush and Melina Gaona trace the rise and fall of a neighborhood organization in Argentina called Tupac Amaru, which provided a space of encounter for lesbian, non-gender normative, and marginalized women. In a review of recent work on Latin American sexualities, Juan Camilo Galeano Sánchez finds LGBT people across Latin America and the diaspora deploying “queer revolutionary gestures” as a form of resistance to social, political, and economic marginalization. María Amelia Viteri’s commentary examines the intellectual trajectories of a network of queer scholars from across the Americas. The art essay by Tara Daly engages Iquitos artist Christian Bendayán’s visual efforts to queer prevailing conceptions of the Amazon, and tatiana de la tierra’s* poems offer a deep celebration of female eroticism. * We have spelled tatiana de la tierra’s name in lower case in accordance with the wishes of her literary executors. 256Preface Another cluster of essays highlights reproductive rights and race in Mexico, Central America, and the Caribbean. Gabriela Arguedas Ramírez and Lynn M. Morgan study the tactics that right-wing, US-based organizations deploy against sexual and reproductive rights in Mexico and Central America. Jennifer L. Shoaff examines the Dominican cultural construction of the Haitian mother as “beggar-mother,” which shores up ideas of pathological black maternity. Ana-Maurine Lara’s article considers the gendered and sexual logics of anti-blackness, and anti-Haitianism, in the Dominican Republic. The provocation for our cluster on representations of queer identities and politics in Latin America came, broadly, from developments in Latin America in recent decades: the wave of LGBT organizing around issues from same-sex marriage to transgender rights, alongside the continued, if not escalated, violence against trans, travestis, and other queer people in countries throughout the region. More immediately, it came from a symposium on Latin American/Latin@ queer and sexuality studies, cosponsored by the Center for Latin American, Caribbean, and Latino Studies (CLACLS) and the Women, Gender, Sexuality Studies Department at the University of Massachusetts (UMass), Amherst, in March 2013. Several of the papers published here were initially presented at that event and have been complemented and extended by other analytical essays and creative material on similar questions. Based on their familiarity with the debates, Sonia Alvarez, UMass CLACLS Director and professor of political science, and Amy Lind, head of the Department of Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at the University of Cincinnati, offered invaluable input for this issue, and we thank them for their intellectual generosity and collaborative spirit. Three of the articles in the cluster take us inside the complex relations between queer movements and neoliberal institutions, illustrating the distinctive ways these dynamics play out in different national contexts and political configurations. In “NGOs, Governmentality, and the Brazilian Response to AIDS: A Multistranded Genealogy of the Current Crisis,” Rafael de la Dehesa argues that the AIDS crisis served as a “doorway to the state” for marginalized actors, such as sex workers and LGBT activists. These groups pushed for and won a national AIDS program that dramatically reduced rates of mortality and new infections in Brazil in the 1990s through universal access to treatment and a nonstigmatizing approach to prevention. Its success was based, in part, on World Bank Preface 257 loans and, in part, on a participatory model of public-private partnerships characteristic of neoliberal government. De la Dehesa argues that, “Far from encapsulating activism in a seamless web of biopolitical management... nodes of articulation between officials and activists became sites of conflict and productive tension.” However, while the alliances between NGOs... (shrink)

The first systematic collaboration between cognitive scientists and sports psychologists considers the mind–body relationship from the perspective of athletic skill and sports practice. This landmark work is the first systematic collaboration between cognitive scientists and sports psychologists that considers the mind–body relationship from the perspective of athletic skill and sports practice. With twenty-six chapters by leading researchers, the book connects and integrates findings from fields that range from philosophy of mind to sociology of sports. The chapters show not only that (...) sports can tell scientists how the human mind works but also that the scientific study of the human mind can help athletes succeed. Sports psychology research has always focused on the themes, notions, and models of embodied cognition; embodied cognition, in turn, has found striking confirmation of its theoretical claims in the psychological accounts of sports performance and athletic skill. Athletic skill is a legitimate form of intelligence, involving cognitive faculties no less sophisticated and complex than those required by mathematical problem solving. After presenting the key concepts necessary for applying embodied cognition to sports psychology, the book discusses skill disruption ; sensorimotor skill acquisition and how training correlates to the development of cognitive faculties; the intersubjective and social dimension of sports skills, seen in team sports; sports practice in cultural and societal contexts; the notion of “affordance” and its significance for ecological psychology and embodied cognition theory; and the mind's predictive capabilities, which enable anticipation, creativity, improvisation, and imagination in sports performance. Contributors Ana Maria Abreu, Kenneth Aggerholm, Salvatore Maria Aglioti, Jesús Ilundáin-Agurruza, Duarte Araújo, Jürgen Beckmann, Kath Bicknell, Geoffrey P. Bingham, Jens E. Birch, Gunnar Breivik, Noel E. Brick, Massimiliano L. Cappuccio, Thomas H. Carr, Alberto Cei, Anthony Chemero, Wayne Christensen, Lincoln J. Colling, Cassie Comley, Keith Davids, Matt Dicks, Caren Diehl, Karl Erickson, Anna Esposito, Pedro Tiago Esteves, Mirko Farina, Giolo Fele, Denis Francesconi, Shaun Gallagher, Gowrishankar Ganesh, Raúl Sánchez-García, Rob Gray, Denise M. Hill, Daniel D. Hutto, Tsuyoshi Ikegami, Geir Jordet, Adam Kiefer, Michael Kirchhoff, Kevin Krein, Kenneth Liberman, Tadhg E. MacIntyre, Nelson Mauro Maldonato, David L. Mann, Richard S. W. Masters, Patrick McGivern, Doris McIlwain, Michele Merritt, Christopher Mesagno, Vegard Fusche Moe, Barbara Gail Montero, Aidan P. Moran, David Moreau, Hiroki Nakamoto, Alberto Oliverio, David Papineau, Gert-Jan Pepping, Miriam Reiner, Ian Renshaw, Michael A. Riley, Zuzanna Rucinska, Lawrence Shapiro, Paula Silva, Shannon Spaulding, John Sutton, Phillip D. Tomporowski, John Toner, Andrew D. Wilson, Audrey Yap, Qin Zhu, Christopher Madan. (shrink)

We think of modern liberalism as the novel product of a world reinvented on a secular basis after 1945. In The Theology of Liberalism, one of the country's most important political theorists argues that we could hardly be more wrong. Eric Nelson contends that the tradition of liberal political philosophy founded by John Rawls is, however unwittingly, the product of ancient theological debates about justice and evil. Once we understand this, he suggests, we can recognize the deep incoherence of (...) various forms of liberal political philosophy that have emerged in Rawls's wake.--. (shrink)

The intuitive distinction between natural and unnatural properties (e.g., green vs. grue) informs our theorizing not only in fundamental physics, but also in non-fundamental domains. This paper develops a reductive account of this broad notion of naturalness that covers non-fundamental properties: for a property to be natural, I propose, is for it to figure in a law of nature. After motivating the account, I defend it from a potential circularity charge. I argue that a suitably broad notion of lawhood can (...) be defined independently of naturalness, if we help ourselves to the notion of a fundamental physical property. I end by showing how the notions of naturalness and lawhood that my account delivers help illuminate a number of other important philosophical notions, like causation, reference/meaning, and rational induction. (shrink)

Presenting a comprehensive portrayal of the reading of Chinese and Buddhist philosophy in early 20th-century German thought, Chinese and Buddhist Philosophy in early Twentieth-Century German Thought examines the implications of these readings for contemporary issues in comparative and intercultural philosophy. Through a series of case studies from the late 19th-century and early 20th-century, Eric Nelson focuses on the reception and uses of Confucianism, Daoism, and Buddhism in German philosophy, covering figures as diverse as Buber, Heidegger, and Misch. He argues (...) that the growing intertextuality between traditions cannot be appropriately interpreted through notions of exclusive identities, closed horizons, or unitary traditions. Providing an account of the context, motivations, and hermeneutical strategies of early twentieth-century European thinkers' interpretation of Asian philosophy, Nelson also throws new light on the question of the relation between Heidegger and Asian philosophy. Reflecting the growing interest in the possibility of intercultural and global philosophy, Chinese and Buddhist Philosophy in early Twentieth-Century German Thought opens up the possibility of a more inclusive intercultural conception of philosophy. - See more at: http://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/chinese-and-buddhist-philosophy-in-early-twentieth-century-german-thoug ht-9781350002562/#sthash.1lY6OTYj.dpuf. (shrink)

One challenge faced by aesthetics is the development of an account able to trace out the continuities and discontinuities between general experience and aesthetic experiences. Regarding this issue, in this paper, I present an enactive model of some raw cognitive dynamics that might drive the progressive emergence of aesthetic experiences from the stream of general experience. The framework is based on specific aspects of John Dewey’s pragmatist philosophy and embodied aesthetic theories, while also taking into account research in ecological psychology, (...) cognitive sciences, and dynamic systems theory. The model focuses on dynamically relevant nodes at the pre-reflective and the reflective side of experience that would work as nested rhythmic constraints at different cognitive timescales with the potential to shunt experiences toward the aesthetic in everyday situations. My proposal constitutes a way to explore aesthetic experiences from an enactive perspective that regards them as transformative events in which cognitive processes entrain and are entrained by changes taking place in the environment, the brain, and the body. (shrink)

Arthur Schopenhauer ranked the several arts in a hierarchy, with literary and dramatic arts at the top, music soaring in a separate even higher heaven, and architecture sinking to the ground under the weight of beams and bricks and mortar.1 The governing principle seems to be some measure of spirituality, with architecture ranking lowest by vice of being grossly material.Nowadays such rankings are taken less seriously. Traditional ideologies and mythologies of the arts are undergoing deconstruction and disvaluation, making way for (...) a neutral comparative study that can reveal a good deal not only about relations among the several arts2 but also about the kinships and contrasts between the arts, the sciences, and other ways that symbols of various kinds participate in the advancement of the understanding.In comparing architecture with the other arts, what may first strike us, despite Schopenhauer, is a close affinity with music: architectural and musical works, unlike paintings or plays or novels, are seldom descriptive or representational. With some interesting exceptions, architectural works do not denote—that is, do not describe, recount, depict, or portray. They mean, if at all, in other ways.On the other hand, and architectural work contrasts with other works of art in scale. A building or park or city3 is not only bigger spatially and temporally than a musical performance or painting—it is bigger even than we are. We cannot take it all in from a single point of view; we must move around and within it to grasp the whole. Moreover, the architectural work is normally fixed in place. Unlike a painting that may be reframed and rehung or a concerto that may be heard in different halls, the architectural work is firmly set in physical and cultural environment that alters slowly. 1. See Bryan Magee, The Philosophy of Schopenhauer , pp. 176-78. Nelson Goodman, emeritus professor of philosophy at Harvard University, is the author of, among other works, The Structure of Appearance, Languages of Art, Ways of Worldmaking, and Of Mind and Other Matters. His previous contributions to Critical Inquiry are “The Status of Style” , “Metaphor as Moonlighting” , “Twisted Tales; or, Story, Study, and Symphony” , “The Telling and the Told” , and “Routes of Reference) Autumn 1981). (shrink)

The acknowledged difficulty and even impossibility of finding a literal paraphrase for most metaphors is offered by [Donald] Davidson1 as evidence that there is nothing to be paraphrased - that a sentence says nothing metaphorically that it does not say literally, but rather functions differently, inviting comparisons and stimulating thought. But paraphrase of many literal sentences also is exceedingly difficult, and indeed we may seriously question whether any sentence can be translated exactly into other words in the same or any (...) other language. Let's agree, though, that literal paraphrase of metaphor is on the whole especially hard. That is easily understood since the metaphorical application of terms has the effect, and usually the purpose, of drawing significant boundaries that cut across ruts worn by habit, of picking out new relevant kinds for which we have no simple and familiar literal descriptions. We must note in passing, though, that the metaphorical application may nevertheless be quite clear. For just as inability to define "desk" is compatible with knowing which articles are desks, so inability to paraphrase a metaphorical term is compatible with knowing what it applies to, And as I have remarked elsewhere,2 whether a man is metaphorically a Don Quixote or a Don Juan is perhaps easier to decide than whether he is literally a schizoid or a paranoiac. · 1. In "What Metaphors Mean," Critical Inquiry 5 : 31-47.· 2. In "Stories upon Stories; or, Reality on Tiers," delivered at the conference Levels of Reality, in Florence, Italy, September 1978. Nelson Goodman, emeritus professor of philosophy at Harvard, has written The Structure of Appearance; Fact, Fiction, and Forecast; Languages of Art: An Approach to a Theory of Symbols; Problems and Projects; and, most recently, Ways of Worldmaking. His contributions to Critical Inquiry include "The Status of Style" , "Twisted Tales; or, Story, Study, and Symphony" , and "The Telling and the Told". (shrink)

Uncovers the truth behind the ideas, struggles, and eventually success of Black and Puerto Rican Nationalists regarding key feminist issues of the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s While most people believe that the movement to secure voluntary reproductive control for women centered solely on abortion rights, for many women abortion was not the only, or even primary, focus. Jennifer Nelson tells the story of the feminist struggle for legal abortion and reproductive rights in the 1960s, 1970s, and early 1980s through (...) the particular contributions of women of color. She explores the relationship between second-wave feminists, who were concerned with a woman's right to choose, Black and Puerto Rican Nationalists, who were concerned that Black and Puerto Rican women have as many children as possible “for the revolution,” and women of color themselves, who negotiated between them. Contrary to popular belief, Nelson shows that women of color were able to successfully remake the mainstream women's liberation and abortion rights movements by appropriating select aspects of Black Nationalist politics—including addressing sterilization abuse, access to affordable childcare and healthcare, and ways to raise children out of poverty—for feminist discourse. (shrink)

It is commonly thought that that the best system account of lawhood ((Mill (1843), Ramsey (1978)[fp. 1928], Lewis (1973)) makes available a nice explanation for why laws are ‘distinctively appropriate targets of scientific inquiry’ (Hall, 2015). The explanation takes the following general form: laws are especially valuable for agents like us because they efficiently encode a lot of valuable (non-nomic) information in a tractable format. The goal of this paper is to challenge this style of explanation: I argue that the (...) general principle it presupposes is in conflict with our best account of practical rationality. After considering and rejecting a number of proposals for dissolving the tension, I conclude that BSA proponents may need to scale back the explanatory ambitions of their theory; in particular, they may need to give up the hope of non-circular explanations of the value of nomic information. I end by outlining some challenges for the humean world-view that results after this shift. (shrink)

Obviously, subject is what is said, style is how. A little less obviously, that formula is full of faults. Architecture and nonobjective painting and most of music have no subject. Their style cannot be a matter of how they say something, for they do not literally say anything; they do other things, they mean in other ways. Although most literary works say something, they usually do other things, too; and some of the ways they do some of these things are (...) aspects of style. Moreover, the what of one sort of doing may be part of the how of another. Indeed, even where the only function in question is saying, we shall have to recognize that some notable features of style are features of the matter rather than the manner of the saying. In more ways than one, subject is involved in style. For this and other reasons, I cannot subscribe to the received opinion that style depends upon an artist's conscious choice among alternatives. And I think we shall also have to recognize that not all differences in ways of writing or painting or composing or performing are differences in style. Nelson Goodman, professor of philosophy at Harvard University, has written The Structure of Appearance; Fact, Fiction and Forecast; Languages of Art: An Approach to a Theory of Symbols; Problems and Projects; and numerous articles. Logic and Art: Essays in Honor of Nelson Goodman was published in 1972. His contributions to Critical Inquiry include "Metaphor as Moonlighting" , "Twisted Tales; or, Story, Study, and Symphony" , and "The Telling and the Told". (shrink)

This book is a philosophical exploration of the theoretical causes behind the collapse of classical cybernetics. Alcibiades Malapi-Nelson advances the idea that the cybernetic understanding of the nature of a machine entails ontological and epistemological consequences that create both material and theoretical conundrums. He proposes that, given our current state of materials, research, and practices, there might be a way for cybernetics to flourish. The book starts with a historical treatment of cybernetics, and proceeds with a philosophical explanation of (...) its collapse-emphasizing the work of Turing, Ashby and von Neumann-and connects it with the emerging technologies carrying its signature. The transhumanist metaphysics of both cybernetics and NBIC is then unveiled. Finally, avenues of research that may allow these technologies to circumvent the cybernetic fate are indicated. It is advanced that emerging technologies ultimately entail an affirmation of humanity. (shrink)

Peppered throughout with previously unreported, and sometimes incendiary, higher education anecdotes, Nelson is at his flame-throwing best.The book calls on ...

As a continuation of the work of the third author in [5], we make further observations on the features of Galois cohomology in the general model theoretic context. We make explicit the connection between forms of definable groups and first cohomology sets with coefficients in a suitable automorphism group. We then use a method of twisting cohomology (inspired by Serre’s algebraic twisting) to describe arbitrary fibres in cohomology sequences—yielding a useful “finiteness” result on cohomology sets.Applied to the special case of (...) differential fields and Kolchin’s constrained cohomology, we complete results from [3] by proving that the first constrained cohomology set of a differential algebraic group over a bounded, differentially large, field is countable. (shrink)

I offer a phenomenological description of undocumented immigrant reason, provisionally understood as a sort of historical reason grounded on undocumented immigrant life. That is, the categories of undocumented immigrant reason are resources for undocumented immigrant existence and are inscribed in the historical memory of immigration (they are shared and communal), accessed by immigrants in stories, anecdotes, and interpersonal trauma. Abstracting from personal experience, testimony, popular culture, and elsewhere, I propose a fragmentary list of these categories of undocumented immigrant reason, a (...) list that includes journeying, crossing/nepantla, uncertainty/zozobra, nostalgia, and return. These categories, which structure undocumented immigrant reason, are reflected in beliefs and attitudes about migration, belonging, the contingency of life, the centrality of memory, and the meaning of death. Constitutive of immigrant rationality are beliefs and ways of being that lend meaning to immigrant life, including those beliefs and ways of being that place immigrants in closer proximity to fundamental human truths. (shrink)

The standard view in current philosophy of creativity says that being creative has two requirements: being novel and being valuable. The standard view on creativity has recently become an object of critical scrutiny. Hills and Bird have specifically proposed to remove the value requirement from the definition, as it is not clear that creative objects are necessarily valuable or creative people necessarily praiseworthy. In this paper, I argue against Hills and Bird, since eliminating the element of value from the explanation (...) of creativity hinders the understanding of the role that creative products play in actual epistemic practices, which are fundamentally normative. More specifically, I argue that the terms ‘creativity’ and ‘creative’ function as thick epistemic concepts when employed by competent epistemic agents in practice, that is, these concepts have both a descriptive and an evaluative content that cannot be disentangled from one another. Accordingly, I suggest that philosophers should prefer thick accounts over thin accounts of creativity. A thick account of creativity is one that endorses the standard view at its basis, but further develops it in two ways: by stressing the entanglement of the value and novelty requirements; by permitting to encompass a range of domain-specific characterizations of such entanglement for different epistemic situations. In order to take the first steps in the development of such a thick account of creativity, I look at the domain of scientific practices as a case in point, and try to spell out what the thickness of creative instances typically entails here. Namely, I identify the worthy novelty of creative models and methods with their potential to clarify a tradition, with fruitfulness, and with the fulfilment of exploratory aims. (shrink)

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

Predictions concerning the end of the world have proven less reliable than your broker’s recommendations or your fondest hopes. Whether you await the end fearfully or eagerly, you may rest assured that it will never come—not because the world is everlasting but because it has already ended, if indeed it ever began. But we need not mourn, for the world is indeed well lost, and with it the stultifying stereotypes of absolutism: the absurd notions of science as the effort to (...) discover a unique, prepackaged, but unfortunately undiscoverable reality, and of truth as agreement with that inaccessible reality. All notions of pure givenness and unconditional necessity and of a single correct perspective and system of categories are lost as well.If there is no such thing as the world, what are we living in? The answer might be “A world” or, better, “Several worlds.” For to deny that there is any such thing as the world is no more to deny that there are worlds than to deny that there is any such thing as the number between two and seven is to deny that there are numbers between two and seven. The task of describing the world is as futile as the task of describing the number between two and seven.The world is lost once we appreciate a curious feature of certain pairs of seemingly contradictory statements: if either is true, both are. Although “The earth is in motion” and “The earth is at rest” apparently contradict each other, both are true. But from a contradiction, every statement follows. So unless we are prepared to acknowledge the truth of every statement, the appearance of contradiction in cases like these must somehow be dispelled. Nelson Goodman is professor emeritus of philosophy at Harvard University. He has written Of Mind and Other Matters, Ways of Worldmaking, Problems and Projects, Languages of Art, The Structure of Appearance, and Fact, Fiction, and Forecast. His most recent contribution to Critical Inquiry is “How Buildings Mean” . Catherine Z. Elgin is associate professor of philosophy at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. She is the author of With Reference to Reference and is currently writing a book entitled Philosophy without Foundations. (shrink)

In _The Priority of Prudence_, Daniel Mark Nelson proposes a reappropriation of a moral perspective that focuses on the cardinal virtues of courage, temperance, justice, and prudence. The study aims to recover and rehabilitate the virtue of prudence as a way of resuming a moral conversation that has been stalemated for too long. Nelson's main source for reviving the virtue of prudence is St. Thomas Aquinas's account of the cardinal virtues in the _Summa Theologica_. A primary problem with (...) using Aquinas as a source for reviving an ethics of virtue centered on prudence is that he is commonly perceived as the most prominent figure in the conflicting natural-law tradition. According to Nelson's reinterpretation, however, Aquinas teaches that moral understanding depends first and foremost on prudence working in accord with other cardinal virtues and that natural law functions to explain moral reasoning rather than to guide it. This study serves to advance the debate about the contemporary relevance of an ethics of virtue by way of its significantly more detailed explication of prudence. Nelson makes important connections between influential reinterpretations of the ethical theory of Aquinas that have been published during the last thirty years and widespread interest in an ethics of virtue that has been expressed by Alasdair Maclntyre, Stanley Hauerwas, William Sullivan, Robert Bellah, and others. _The Priority of Prudence _represents a significant contribution to the scholarly literature both in the study of Aquinas and in the debate on the ethics of virtue. (shrink)

Yet while all features of reality are dependent upon discourse, are there perhaps some features of discourse that are independent of reality the differences, for example, between the ways two discourses may say exactly the same thing? The old and ugly notion of synonomy rattles a warning here: Can there ever be two different discourses that say exactly the same thing in different ways, or does every difference between discourses make a difference in what is said? Luckily, we can pass (...) over that general question here. We are concerned only with the specific question whether organization into referential chains and levels is purely conventional, independent of everything beyond discourse. And the plain answer is that such organization of discourse participates notably in the organization of a reality. A label in any nonnull application, literal or metaphorical, marks off entities of a certain kind, and even where the denotation is null, the label marks off labels of a certain kind that apply to that label. Just such marking off or selection of entities and relevant kinds makes them such as distinguished from the results of alternative organizations.Nelson Goodman, emeritus professor of philosophy at Harvard University and the author of, among other works, The Structure of Appearance, Ways of Worldmaking, and Problems and Projects, is currently working on projects in the performing arts and on a new collection of essays. His previous contributions to Critical Inquiry are "The Status of Style' , "Metaphor as Moonlighting" , "Twisted Tales; or, Story, Study, and Symphony" , and "The Telling and the Told". (shrink)

Virtuosity in music performance is often associated with fast, precise, and efficient sound-producing movements. The generation of such highly skilled movements involves complex joint and muscle control by the central nervous system, and depends on the ability to anticipate, segment, and coarticulate motor elements, all within the biomechanical constraints of the human body. When successful, such motor skill should lead to what we characterize as fluency in musical performance. Detecting typical features of fluency could be very useful for technology-enhanced learning (...) systems, assisting and supporting students during their individual practice sessions by giving feedback and helping them to adopt sustainable movement patterns. In this study, we propose to assess fluency in musical performance as the ability to smoothly and efficiently coordinate while accurately performing slow, transitionary, and rapid movements. To this end, the movements of three cello players and three drummers at different levels of skill were recorded with an optical motion capture system, while a wireless electromyogrphy (EMG) system recorded the corresponding muscle activity from relevant landmarks. We analyze the kinematic and coarticulation characteristics of these recordings separately and then propose a combined model of fluency in musical performance predicting music sophistication. Results suggest movements from expert performers' are characterized by consistently smooth strokes and scaling of muscle phasic coactivation. The explored model of fluency as function of movement smoothness and coarticulation patterns was shown to be limited by the sample size but serves as a proof of concept. Results from this study show the potential of a technology-enhanced objective measure of fluency in musical performance, which could lead to improved practices for aspiring musicians, instructors, and researchers. (shrink)

BackgroundInformed consent is a key element of ethical clinical research. Addicted population may be at risk for impaired consent capacity. However, very little research has focused on their comprehension of consent forms. The aim of this study is to assess the capacity of addicted individuals to provide consent to research.Methods53 subjects with DSM-5 diagnoses of a Substance Use Disorder and 50 non psychiatric comparison subjects participated in the survey from December 2014 to March 2015. This cross-sectional study was carried out (...) at a community-based Outpatient Treatment Center and at an urban-located Health Centre in Spain. A binary judgment of capacity/incapacity was made guided by the MacArthur Competence Assessment Tool for Clinical Research and a clinical interview. Demographics and clinical characteristics were assessed by cases notes and the Mini-Mental State Examination, the Global Assessment Functional Scale and the Clinical Global Impression Scale.ResultsNPCs performed the best on the MacCAT–CR, and patients with SUD had the worst performance, particularly on the Understanding and Appreciation subscales. 32.7 % SUD people lacked research-related decisional capacity. There were no statistically significant differences between the groups in terms of capacity to consent to research.ConclusionsThe findings of our study provide evidence that a large proportion of individuals with SUD had decisional capacity for consent to research. It is therefore inappropriate to draw conclusions about capacity to make research decisions on the basis of a SUD diagnosis. In the absence of advanced cognitive impairment, acute withdrawal or intoxication, we should assume that addicted persons possess decision-making capacity. Thus, the view that people with SUD would ipso facto lose decision-making power for research consent is flawed and stigmatizing. (shrink)

RESUMEN El objetivo de este artículo de reflexión teórica es establecer un dialogo entre las ciencias sociales hoy en crisis y los aportes que encontramos en la cosmovisión me-soamericana para el diseño de una nueva matriz epistémica más ecológica y menos agresiva con la vida. En la primera parte se rastrea epistémicamente la genealogía de la cosificación de la naturaleza y de la vida que ha puesto en crisis el proyecto de la modernidad y las ciencias sociales, a partir de (...) la experiencia de la colonialidad, el ser como identidad y las matemáticas. En un segundo momento se cuestiona el eurocentrismo de las ciencias sociales y se defiende el diálogo con las otras epistemologías silenciadas por la razón occidental. De esta forma se exploran algunos aportes ontológicos de la epistemología mesoamericana para el diseño de nuevas relaciones sociales menos agresivas con la naturaleza y la vida. Finalmente se plantea favorecer los diálogos interpistémicos entre las distintas civilizaciones y culturas del mundo para abrir y repensar las ciencias sociales. ABSTRACT The objective of this article of theoretical reflection is to establish a dialogue between the social sciences, today in crisis, and the contributions found in the Me-soamerican worldview, to design a new epistemic matrix, more ecological, and less aggressive with life. In the first part, the genealogy of the reification of nature and life, that has put the project of modernity and social sciences in crisis, from the experience of coloniality, being as identity, and mathematics, is epistemically traced. In a second moment, the eurocentrism of the social sciences is questioned, and dialogue with other epistemologies, silenced by western reason, is defended. In this way, some ontological contributions of the Mesoamerican cosmovision are explored, to create new social relationships, less aggressive with nature and life. Finally, to favor the inter-epistemic dialogues between the different civilizations and cultures of the world is put forward, as a way to open and rethink social sciences. (shrink)

The current literature shows great interest in the issue of gender diversity on boards of directors. Some studies have hypothesized a direct relationship between diversity and the value of the firm, but not many examine the intermediate mechanisms that may exert an influence on such relationships. We employ two stages of GMM estimation methodology to exhibit evidences of the relationship between gender diversity and compensation of top managers in the Spanish context. Results show that gender diversity positively affects the effectiveness (...) of boards—in terms of composition, structure, size and functioning—influencing a proper design of top managers compensation linked to company performance. Evidences suggest that legislative actions aimed at increasing the presence of women on boards of directors are justified not only for ethical reasons, but also for reasons of economic efficiency. (shrink)

A new approach to landscape ecology involves the application of the eco-field hypothesis and the General Theory of Resources. In this study, we describe the putative eco-field of bark beetles as a spatial configuration with a specific meaning-carrier for every organism-resource interaction. Bark beetles are insects with key roles in matter and energy cycles in coniferous forests, which cause significant changes to forestry landscapes when outbreaks occur. Bark beetles are guided towards host trees by the recognition of semiotic signals using (...) a specific eco-field. These signals mainly comprise a group of scents, which are called the odourtope. Their interactions with other organisms occur by sharing relevant information from the eco-field networks in the forest ecosystem. The eco-field networks modulate the expansion of the realized semiotic niche of the bark beetle towards the potential semiotic niche. Moreover, the niche construction process can be initiated by interchanging signals among species living in the same place, where these signals allow the exploitation of the required resources. If different organisms are interdependent on signals in eco-field networks, then this process may result in the establishment of mutualistic relationships. This is an example of how evolutionary processes are initiated by the recognition of signals in a network of eco-fields. (shrink)

The focus of this paper is Mexican historicism. It has three objectives: first, to introduce English-speaking readers to the nature and history of Mexican historicism; second, to defend Mexican historicism against the charges of relativism usually raised against historicism in general and “Mexican” philosophy in particular; and third, to argue for what I call the transcendental, or alternatively, “liberatory,” nature of Mexican historicism—a nature with philosophical and political consequences. The hope is that by making the clarifications and determinations made here, (...) the tradition of Mexican philosophy, of which Mexican historicism is a key moment, may find its place in the increasingly pluralistic US philosophical landscape. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Hume's Missing Shade of Blue Re-viewed John 0. Nelson It is obviously important for Hume's purposes in the Treatise to maintain that simple ideas are always founded in precedent, resembling impressions;1 andhe explicitly, overandover, doesso, evensometimes being so carried away by this first principle ofhis science of man (T 7) or so careless as to say that not just all simple ideas but all ideas are founded in (...) precedent, resembling impressions. At the same time, as often noted, Hume explicitly maintains that it is possible for there to be a simple idea having no precedent, corresponding impression. He argues: There is however one contradictory phaenomenon, which may prove, that 'tis not absolutely impossible for ideas to go before their correspondent impressions... Suppose... a person to have enjoyed his sight for thirty years, and to have become perfectly well acquainted with colours of all kinds, excepting one particular shade of blue... Let all the different shades of that colour, except that single one, beplac'd before him... Now Iask, whether 'tis possible for him, from his own imagination, to supply this deficiency, and raise up to himselfthe idea ofthat particular shade, tho' it had never been conveyed to him by his senses? I believe there arefew but will be ofopinion that he can; and this may serve as a proof, that the simple ideas are not always derived from the correspondent impressions. (T 5) Nowjust prior to this concession (as Cummins calls it ), Hume has said that the full examination ofthis question [the causal relationship between ideas and impression] is the subject of the present treatise; and therefore we shall here content ourselves with establishing one general proposition, That all our simple ideas in their first appearance are deriv'd from simple impressions, which are correspondent to them, and which they exactly represent. (T 4) Volume XV Number 2 353 JOHN O. NELSON And just after the same concession, that a simple idea may be raised up which does not have a prior, correspondent impression, Hume says that it still remains true, that all our simple ideas proceed either mediately or immediately, from their correspondent impressions (T 7). Thus we have Hume explicitly asserting, it seems, both that all simple ideas have precedent correspondent impressions and that they do not. But this, on the face ofit, is an arrant contradiction! Can Hume have Homerically nodded? We have been quoting from the Treatise, but Hume makes the very same contradictory-seeming claims in the Enquiryl A thinker of Hume's acumen might nod for a page or two's quarter hour but not for all of nine years! Moreover, in both places Hume refers to the phenomenon of the impression-less idea ofblue as a contradictory phenomenon, indicating clearly enough that he was himself aware of there seeming to be an inconsistency here in his contentions. What can possibly be going on? Is Hume deliberately being paradoxical? Perhaps trying, for sensation's sake, to shock the reader and so increase sales of his work, as some commentators in the past might have wished to say? But this would be at the expense ofhis own contentions and principles and not the reader's, and not even Hume's bitterest foes and most malicious critics — so far as I know — have ever proposed that Hume would, figuratively speaking, like Oedipus, gouge out his own eyes, even in order to increase sales of the Treatise, nor does it make the slightest sense to think he would. The mystery deepens when we remember that Hume has said, in defining the program of the Treatise, that his intention is to establish the one general proposition that all our simple ideas in their first appearance are deriv'd from simple impressions, which are correspondentto them (T4). What astrange way, we want to exclaim, to show that all our simple ideas are derived from correspondent simple impressions by almost immediately afterwards arguing that it is possible to have an idea that has had no correspondent, precedent impression! Such an egregious nonsequitur mightbe expected ofan absolutely incompetent beginner in philosophy, but we are speaking of David Hume, generally recognized as the profoundest and most acute of... (shrink)

Most interpretations of Quantum Mechanics alternative to Copenhagen interpretation try to avoid the dualistic flavor of the latter. One of the basic goals of the former is to avoid the ad hoc introduction of observers and observations as an inevitable presupposition of physics. Non-Copenhagen interpretations usually trust in decoherence as a necessary mechanism to obtain a well-defined, observer-free transition from a unitary quantum description of the universe to classicality. Even though decoherence does not solve the problem of the definite outcomes, (...) it helps to explain why we do not observe superpositions and, according to Zurek’s existential interpretation, why a specific preferred basis emerges through system–environment interactions. The aim of this paper is to show why such interpretation ends up begging the question and provides little progress in understanding the quantum-to-classical transition; the ultimate reason being that preferred bases always correlate to human observation. Benefitting from the technical discussion, some remarks will be offered in the last section regarding the role of classical observations as a necessary condition to make workable the formalism of Quantum Mechanics and scientific activity itself. (shrink)

In seiner Auseinandersetzung mit Eberhard behauptet Kant, Kritizismus sei die eigentliche Apologie von Leibniz. Diese Äußerung darf nicht einfach als sarkastisch abgetan werden. Kant kann dies insofern ernsthaft denken und behaupten, da für ihn die Transzendentalphilosophie die wesentliche philosophische Bedeutung des leibnizschen Gedankens aufhebt, liegt doch schon in Leibniz ein kritizistischer Kern, welcher wiedergewonnen werden kann. Man sieht hier nur einen Aspekt dieser historischen Transformation von Leibniz im kantischen Gedanken, und zwar: die explizite Behauptung Kants, das Konzept der prästabilierten Harmonie (...) werde in der Theorie der reflektierenden Urteilskraft und im Begriff der Zweckmäßigkeit kritisch aufgehoben. Dazu muss man jedoch vorher den Grundzug des kritischen Unterschieds zwischen Kant und der leibniz-wolffschen Philosophie durch eine Diskussion über die Bedeutung des Begriffs des Transzendentalen erläutern. (shrink)