This volume helps us to understand that the current political disorders in Catalonia have deep cultural roots. It focuses on the rise of Catalan cultural, national and linguistic identity in the 20th century. What is happening in Catalonia? What lies behind its political conflicts? Catalan identity has been evolving for centuries, starting in early medieval ages. It is not a modern phenomenon. The emergence of imperial Spain in the 16 c. and the French Ancien Régime in the 17 c. correlates (...) with a decline of Catalan culture, which was politically absorbed by the Spanish state after the conquest of Barcelona in 1714. However, Catalan language and culture flourished again under the stimulus of the European Romantic Nationalism movement. During the first Dictatorship, the Spanish Civil War, and the long Francoist era, Catalan language and culture were repressed, yet refurbished and reconstructed at the same time. This rise of a plural, complex, and non-homogeneous Catalan identity constitutes the subject matter of this volume. National conflicts that emerged later in the Spanish democratic state leant heavily on the life engagement and vital commitment experienced by the entrenched intellectual movements of the twentieth century in Catalonia, Valencian Country and the Balearic Islands. This book reveals the cultural and literary grassroots of these conflicts. (shrink)

The notion of validity fulfils a crucial role in legal theory. In the emerging Web 3.0, Semantic Web languages, legal ontologies, and normative multi-agent systems are designed to cover new regulatory needs. Conceptual models for complex regulatory systems shape the characteristic features of rules, norms, and principles in different ways. This article outlines one of such multilayered governance models, designed for the CAPER platform, and offers a definition of Semantic Web Regulatory Models . It distinguishes between normative-SWRM and institutional-SWRM. It (...) also compares existing principles in privacy by design, linked open data , legal information institutes , and online dispute resolution . The article concludes by proposing the notion of Relational Law to summarize the ethical dimension of SWRM. Ethics are the only regulatory way to constitute a global space, out of the jurisdictional public domain set by national, international, or transnational law, and opposed to the private one. (shrink)

In the legal domain, ontologies enjoy quite some reputation as a way to model normative knowledge about laws and jurisprudence. This paper describes the methodology followed when developing the ontology used by the second version of the prototype Iuriservice, a web-based intelligent FAQ for judicial use. This modeling methodology has had two important requirements: on the one hand, the ontology needed to be extracted from a repository of professional judicial knowledge (containing nearly 800 questions regarding daily practice). Thus, the construction (...) of ontologies of professional judicial knowledge demanded the description of this knowledge as it is perceived by the judge. On the other hand, due to the distributiveness of the environment, there was a need for controlled discussion and traceability of the arguments used in favor or against the introduction of a concept X as part of the domain ontology. This paper presents the Ontology of Professional Judicial Knowledge (OPJK), extracted manually from the selection of relevant terms from judicial practice questions and modeled according to the DILIGENT methodology. We will show that DILIGENT has proved to be a methodology that facilitates the ontology engineering in a distributed environment, although appropriate tool support needs to be developed. (shrink)

This paper discusses the semiotic dimension of patent interpretation. Patent documents are at the same time disclosure of information and a granting of rights. The claim section expresses the granted rights. In this paper, we view the claims as signs that express the granted rights. The semantics to interpret the signs is given by the all-elements rule, as pragmatics. The description and drawings sections of the patent document provide metapragmatics in the form of lexicon and syntax to help the understanding (...) the claims as signs that express the granted rights. This semiotic approach for patent interpretation has important practical consequences to the correct structuring of a patent document. We highlight this contribution through an instance of a patent application in which a claim includes examples of use. Examples are not allowed in the claim text, as examples do not describe the invention, but consist of metapragmatics to better understand the invention. In this way, examples consist of metapragmatics and belong to the description section of the patent, which has the goal to facilitate the understanding of claims. In the patent application used to highlight our semiotics approach for patent interpretation, the examples initially presented in the claims were rephrased in the final granted patent, significantly reducing the scope of the claim. (shrink)

This paper is a contribution to the study of equality-free logic, that is, first-order logic without equality. We mainly devote ourselves to the study of algebraic characterizations of its relation of elementary equivalence by providing some Keisler-Shelah type ultrapower theorems and an Ehrenfeucht-Fraïssé type theorem. We also give characterizations of elementary classes in equality-free logic. As a by-product we characterize the sentences that are logically equivalent to an equality-free one.

This paper presents an example of a supersimple nonlow theory and characterizes its independence relation.

Research into artificial intelligence has increased significantly in recent years. However, the fundamental question of what intelligence is and how it works remains open to some extent. Traditional definitions of intelligence are broad and lack clarity regarding its nature and mechanisms. The nature of consciousness is another matter that has been widely explored with multiple theories but for which we do not have a final agreed theory, especially in terms of its relation to intelligence. In this work, we present a (...) preliminary theory of the nature of intelligence and its working mechanisms. We contrast it against observations to show that our theory is consistent with observed reality. We also use our theory of intelligence to offer a theory on the nature of consciousness, as well as its relation to human understanding and intent. We then show that our theories can be consistent with the theory of evolution. Similarly, we explore examples of how our theory applies to specific cases to show its consistency across applications. Lastly, we outline how our theory can pave the way towards artificial general intelligence. Our theory is unproven. (shrink)

We study the groups Gal L and Gal KP, and the associated equivalence relations EL and EKP, attached to a first order theory T. An example is given where EL≠ EKP. It is proved that EKP is the composition of EL and the closure of EL. Other examples are given showing this is best possible.

Este artículo muestra que el método adecuado de la disciplina jurídica es un método tópico, debido a la naturaleza práctica de la disciplina. Desde allí arroja luz sobre el problema de las lagunas legales. Al mismo tiempo, sin embargo, se esfuerza en mostrar que no equivale afirmar el carácter tópico de la disciplina y aceptar el activismo judicial que ha introducido la Corte Suprema de Justicia de los Estados Unidos en la interpretación-creación del Derecho Constitucional y que ha llegado al (...) paroxismo en la escuela del uso alternativo del Derecho. (shrink)

Resumen: Se ensaya la tesis de que no habiendo innovación sin tradición, la filosofía opera en un espacio en tensión entre estos dos polos. Se comienza trazando un recorrido por las distintas precomprensiones de la naturaleza y el conocimiento en la Antigüedad y en la Modernidad como esquemas del contraste entre tradición e innovación; a continuación, se acude a Ortega y Gasset y a Heidegger para precisar en qué consiste la innovación en filosofía y para explicitar su conexión con y (...) dependencia de la tradición; por último, se propone explorar la innovación educativa de la filosofía como, siguiendo a Odo Marquard, descarga compensatoria de la sobrecarga innovativa. Palabras clave: innovación, tradición, Ortega y Gasset, Heidegger, Marquard. English title: Philosophy as unloading of innovation overloadAbstract: This paper claims that insofar as there is no innovation without tradition, philosophy operates in a space of tension between those two poles. I begin by sketching different pre-understandings of nature and knowledge in Antiquity and Modernity as schemas of the contrast between tradition and innovation. I then resort to Ortega y Gasset and Heidegger to specify what innovation consists of in philosophy and to explain its connection with and dependence on tradition. I finally propose to understand, following Odo Marquard, educative innovation in philosophy as a compensatory unloading of innovation overload. Keywords: innovation, tradition, Ortega y Gasset, Heidegger, Marquard. (shrink)

Current research on construction of the female body focuses on non-Hispanic women in the United States. The idealized Latina body, however, is rapidly becoming commodified and objectified in global popular culture. Using standardized and open-ended surveys and group and individual interviews, the author examines the negotiation of sociocultural ideals and body image by adolescents at the intersection of gender, race, and beauty. These young women hold racist beauty ideals but are flexible when judging the appearance of real-life women. They perceive (...) two competing or complementary prototypes of beauty, one white and one Latina. This study fills a gap in the literature on beauty and the body by examining a non-U.S. sample that does not fit into the usual Black-white dichotomy of race. (shrink)

We characterize omissibility of a type, or a family of types, in a countable theory in terms of non-existence of a certain tree of formulas. We extend results of L. Newelski on omitting $ non-isolated types. As a consequence we prove that omissibility of a family of $ types is equivalent to omissibility of each countable subfamily.

Se ensaya una filosofía de la risa en el doble sentido del genitivo. El objetivo es el habitual en la historia del pensamiento. La opinión común es la de considerar el humor como lo otro del pensamiento. Paradigmáticamente la filosofía, como metafísica, sería la posición intelectual agelasta por antonomasia: el grado cero del humor. Sin embargo, interpretado el genitivo en sentido subjetivo, la risa se muestra como pensamiento y el pensamiento como continuación de la risa mediante el cerebro como músculo (...) cigomático. Pensar y reír amplían la realidad. El sentido del humor revela ser quizá el sentido filosófico genuino. (shrink)

We obtain a chain condition for dividing in an arbitrary theory and a new and shorter proof of a chain condition result of Shelah for simple theories.

If Zarathustra were to descend once again from the mountain, what would he make of the recent religious revival? Would he admit that he had been wrong, that “Deus absconditus” has now reappeared? Does this revival mean that the Enlightenment theory of religion was wrong? In view of the significance of religion, it is necessary to reassess that Enlightenment theory of religion and to inquire into the possible role jf religion in a reconstructed project of modernity. Yet, to overestimate the (...) importance of religion in the modern world can result in two extreme and equally unsatisfactory consequences. An unreconstructed secularism, assuming that the criticism of religion is not yet complete, would postulate again the criticism of religion as the premise and the primary task of critique. (shrink)

I) Metaphysics of evidence, which most conspicuous expression is the Cartesian mathesis universalis, looks for the urgent and necessary, the fundament or foundation of things, which is regarded as independent of the form and accesible whithout asumptions to knowledge: rhetoric is the dispensable qualitas of philosophy. II) Vico¿s way of thinking, in opposition to that view, could be considered as its retorsion: by reveling its hidden presuppositions, refuses them. III) Vico¿s tropology, by proposing the tropical univocity, makes a rhetoric philosophy (...) and a philosophical rhetoric: rhetoric is the indispensable quidditas of philosophy. I) La metafísica de la evidencia, cuya más conspicua expresión es la mathesis universalis cartesiana, busca lo apremiante y necesario, el fundamento o fondo de las cosas, el cual se entiende independiente de la forma y alcanzable por un pensamiento sin supuestos: la retórica es la prescindible qualitas de la filosofía. II) La de Vico, por contra, puede considerarse como una retorsión de esa postura filosófica: al contribuir a desvelar sus supuestos ocultos, los niega. III) La tropología viquiana, al proponer la univocidad de los tropos, hace de la filosofía retórica y de la retórica filosofía: la retórica es la imprescindible quidditas de la filosofía . (shrink)

A Bibliographical and Critical Study of: New Vico Studies, XII, 1994; G. Vico, The Art of Rhetoric, G.A. Pinton & A.W. Shippee trans. - eds., Rodopi, Amsterdam - Atlanta, 1996.

We study local strengthenings of the simplicity condition. In particular, we define and study a local Lascar rank, as well as short, low, supershort and superlow theories. An example of a low, non supershort theory is given.

The politics of nativism directed at Catholic immigrants in 19th-century America offer a fruitful comparative perspective through which to analyze the discourse and the politics of Islam in contemporary Europe. Anti-Catholic nativism constituted a peculiar North American version of the larger and more generalized phenomenon of anti-immigrant populist xenophobic politics which one finds in many countries and in different historical contexts. What is usually designated as Islamo-phobia in contemporary Europe, however, manifests striking resemblances with the original phenomenon of American nativism (...) that emerged in the middle of the 19th century in the United States. In both cases one finds the fusion of anti-immigrant xenophobic attitudes, perennial inter-religious prejudices, and an ideological construct setting a particular religious-civilizational complex in essential opposition to Western modernity. Although an anti-Muslim discourse emerged also in the United States after 11 September, it had primarily a geo-political dimension connected with the ‘war on terror’ and with American global imperial policies. But it lacked the domestic anti-immigrant populist as well as the modern secularist anti-Muslim dimensions. This explains why xenophobic anti-Muslim nativism has been much weaker in the United States than in Europe. (shrink)

Este artículo examina la moralidad de la interrupción del embarazo por razones médicas a la luz de la propuesta legislativa presentada en el año 2010 por los senadores Matthei y Rossi . Con esta finalidad, el autor distingue entre las patologías que afectan a la madre y aquellas que afectan al feto. A su vez, en el último caso se distinguen dos significados de la inviabilidad fetal: uno restringido y otro amplio. A juicio del autor, cada caso exige un análisis (...) moral diferente cuya solución no es homogénea. This article examines the morality of the interruption of pregnancy for medical reasons in light of the legislative proposal in 2010 by Senators Matthei and Rossi . To this end, the author distinguishes between diseases affecting the mother and those that affect the fetus. In turn, in the latter case the two meanings are distinguished fetus was not viable: restricted one and one broad. To the author, each case requires a different moral analysis whose solution is not homogeneous. (shrink)

As well as Vico was the first and most persistent to understand myth as a contemporary phenomenon that, far of being in conflict with reason, is originally the instrument for escaping the loneliness of man against the mutism of a meaningless nature, Hans Blumenberg has been in our age who has spoken most forcefully for the rationality of mythical thought, doing it with arguments that the author finds very similar to Vico¿s ones. "Absolutism of reality", "absolute metaphor" and "principle of (...) insufficient reason", the three main elements, according to this reading, of Blumenberg¿s work, share with Vico the same metaphorical sensibility. (shrink)

RESUMEN El objetivo de este trabajo es mostrar que la relación de Rorty con la tradición filosófica presenta muchos más matices de los que su reputación podría hacer creer. Se confrontan dos hechos: de un lado, el propósito rortiano de superar la tradición; de otro, la necesidad de la tradición para mantener la conversación, interés principal de la filosofía para Rorty. Por tanto, la relación de Rorty con la tradición es ambigua. Ahora bien, esa ambigüedad puede verse como no contradictoria: (...) Rorty no pretendió tanto ofrecer una argumentación alternativa a la de la tradición cuanto una alternativa a la argumentación de la tradición. Así, más que romper con la tradición, Rorty, a su modo, le da una oportunidad. ABSTRACT The aim of this paper is to show that Rorty’s relationship with philosophical tradition has more nuances of meaning than his reputation might suggest. Two opposite facts are considered: on the one hand, Rorty’s intention to overcome tradition; on the other hand, the fact that there cannot be conversation, the main interest of philosophy for Rorty, without tradition. Rorty’s relationship to the philosophical tradition is, thus, ambiguous. Nevertheless, this ambiguity can be seen as not inconsistent. One reason might explain this fact: rather than an alternative argumentation to the traditional one, Rorty offered an alternative to the traditional argumentation. Therefore it makes more sense to read Rorty as giving the tradition a break rather than breaking with the tradition. (shrink)

Luhmann’s theory has been commonly considered as a radical overcoming of the traditional philosophy. The interpreters often refer to the non-ontological background of the theory as the criticism of the conscience's centrality, the emphasis in conflict and distinction and the influence of sciences as cybernetic, biology and mathematics. In the present paper we try to demonstrate that there is also an important philosophical heritage in the Luhmann’s sociological work: the Hegelian heritage. We refer to four main points: the congruence of (...) being and thought; the being as the unity of unity/distinction; the rationality as auto-reference and the congruence between theory and society. The focus of our analysis is on the complications of the system theory when it tries to eliminate the idea of spirit. La teoría de Luhmann ha sido considerada comúnmente como una radical superación de la filosofía tradicional. Los interpretes se refieren frecuentemente a los antecedentes no ontológicos de esta, como la crítica a la centralidad de la conciencia, el énfasis en el conflicto y la distinción y la influencia de ciencias como la cibernética, la biología y las matemáticas. En el presente artículo se intenta demostrar que existe también otra importante herencia en la obra sociológica de Luhmann: la herencia hegeliana. Los principales puntos analizados son: la congruencia entre ser y pensamiento; el ser como unidad de unidad/distinción; la racionalidad como auto-referencia y la congruencia entre teoría y sociedad. El enfoque de nuestro análisis radica en las dificultades de la teoría de sistemas al intentar eliminar la idea de espíritu. (shrink)

Estudio desde las distintas perspectivas de comprensión de las políticas de vigilancia y control social de la vida al enfocar la actual pandemia. Se enfatiza que todas esas políticas se aplican hoy mediante las TIC, extendiendo el dominio digital sobre el mundo offline y transformando la pandemia en tecnopandemia. Así resultan todas ellas, biopolítica, teoría de la excepción y psicopolítica, conceptualmente superadas por la tecnopolítica. La tecnopolítica es la forma político-social de la vida onlife, la práctica de un poder infodémico, (...) que utiliza tecno-personas, que no son ni individuos ni tampoco sujetos políticos, para controlar y someter la vida offlife. (shrink)

Mexico's southeastern Maya movement offers one of the most advanced proposals in the construction of a theoretical and practical world alternative. It comes from the rain forest people's deepest convictions, simultaneously synthesizing western beliefs and ideas with those characteristic of the long struggles of resistance by the poor, discriminated and excluded of the earth. The many voices that spoke out at the Intercontinental Meeting for Humanity and against Neoliberalism, held in Chiapas from 27 July to 3 August 1996, reinforced the (...) Zapatista Army of National Liberation's (EZLN) blueprint for universal democracy with justice, freedom, pluralism and dignity for all human beings, and joined in the emergence of a new way of thinking, feeling and acting. The originality of the theory of the Rain Forest is to be found in linking utopia, as a construct of the possible based on reality, with the construction of power derived from civil society. It is also a creative and historic movement that responds to the challenges of the 21st century with hope for the survival of humanity in dignity and justice. (shrink)

El artículo trata sobre el objeto de las matemáticas, sobre si éste existe en la realidad o no. El artículo adopta una perspectiva intemporal y, por ello, incoa un diálogo entre físicos o matemáticos contemporáneos y algunas de las reflexiones clásicas sobre el tema. Entre estas últimas, incluye la platónica, la aristotélica, la empirista y la kantiana. Por otra parte, trae a colación la distinción clásica entre via inventionis y via demonstrationis en orden a distinguir las verdades matemáticas, los principios (...) en que ellas pueden resolverse y la forma concreta en que esos principios pueden ser relacionados para construir una demostración. Esto puede arrojar luces sobre por qué las verdades matemáticas pueden ser percibidas por los matemáticos como eternas, aunque los modos de demostrarlas o los contextos puedan ampliarse o variar.---“On Mathematics’ Reality”. The paper deals with the object of mathematics, and tries to show if it is real or not. It is written from an intended timeless point of view, and because of that it opens a dialogue between contemporary physicists or mathemat ics and classic ref lect ion on the mat ter. Among those reflections, it embraces the Platonic, Aristotelian, empiricist and Kantian. Moreover, it considers the classic distinction between via inventionis and via demonstrationis, in order to distinguish between mathematical truths, the principles or axioms in which they can be resolved and the concrete ways in which those principles can be interwoven for the construction of a demonstration. This can enlighten the problem of why mathematical truths are perceived by mathematicians as eternal, while the ways through which or the contexts in which they are demonstrated can be amplified or modified. (shrink)