Business Ethics, the Environment & Responsibility, Volume 31, Issue 2, Page 508-523, April 2022.

Estamos tan habituados a que la ciencia describa la realidad mediante ecuaciones de asombrosa eficacia que raramente nos detenemos a pensar en la gentileza que demuestra el mundo prestándose a ello. ¿Por qué la naturaleza obedece reglas matemáticas tan magníficamente precisas? ¿Es genuinamente matemático el mundo, o tan sólo parece serlo la parte que podemos descubrir de él? Estas y otras cuestiones con ellas relacionadas se discuten en el contenido de esta obra, donde se traza el apasionante viaje que ha (...) llevado a la humanidad a explorar el cosmos con la imprescindible ayuda de las herramientas suministradas por el inagotable caudal de la matemática. (shrink)

It is generally assumed that compatibility with special relativity is guaranteed by the invariance of the fundamental equations of quantum physics under Lorentz transformations and the impossibility of transferring energy or information faster than the speed of light. Despite this, various contradictions persist, which make us suspect the solidity of that compatibility. This paper focuses on collapse theories—although they are not the only way of interpreting quantum theory—in order to examine what seems to be insurmountable difficulties we encounter when trying (...) to construct a space–time picture of such typically quantum processes as state vector reduction or the non-separability of entangled systems. The inescapable nature of such difficulties suggests the need to go further in the search for new formulations that surpass our current conceptions of matter and space–time. (shrink)

El anuncio en julio de 2012 de los primeros indicios experimentales sobre la existencia del bosón de Higgs, reavivó el interés del secular debate sobre el significado de conceptos como el vacío y los campos físicos. La evolución de sus interpretaciones revela mutaciones profun- das en el trasfondo filosófco de nuestra visión de la naturaleza. Especialmente por cuanto el controvertido papel de las rupturas de simetría se ha añadido a las discusiones sobre las teorías de unificación y la estructura fundamental (...) de la materia. (shrink)

Exposed in 1948, within his masterpiece on the scope and limits of human knowledge, the epistemological tenets that Bertrand Russell regarded as fundamental elements in the construction of scientific knowledge, are still worthy of a detailed discussion today. Given the excellence of the author, it will not be surprising to see that Russell's gnoseologic postulates, even for the present scientific view, address some of the most controversial questions still to be solved in the theory of knowledge.

La termodinámica, se desarrolló en gran medida bajo el impulso de la Revolución Industrial, que ayudó a afianzar metodológicamente las seculares investigaciones sobre el calor y la temperatura. Como tal desarrollo se produjo a la sombra de la triunfante mecánica clásica —cuyos referentes físicos son notablemente distintos— y a causa de la carencia de herramientas formales adecuadas, durante mucho tiempo se admitió sin discusión que esta ciencia había de limitarse a los sistemas en equilibrio o muy cercanos a él. En (...) el presente artículo se exponen tanto el desarrollo histórico como las premisas intelectuales de semejante opción epistemológica, señalando el cambio de perspectiva ocurrido en la segunda mitad del siglo XX. (shrink)

A lo largo del siglo XX, y en especial a partir del desarrollo de la física cuántica y de la dinámica no lineal, los conceptos de incertidumbre, impredictibilidad e indeterminación han sido fuente de gran confusión, pese a sus distintos significados y aplicaciones. Un somero análisis de las teorías que los emplean permite distinguirlos con suficiente claridad.

El carácter fundamentalmente probabilista de la teoría cuántica cuestionó el realismo como filosofía básica de la ciencia, si bien ciertas interpretaciones instrumentalistas podrían no amenazar por sí solas la existencia de un mundo exterior e independiente de nuestra conciencia. La falta de un valor definido para tales magnitudes antes de la medición alentó la suposición de que tales valores “no existen” antes de la medida. Una reinterpretación de nuestras ideas sobre las magnitudes físicas, considerándolas formalmente representadas por conjuntos de valores (...) en lugar de valores numéricos concretos, ayudaría a disipar toda sombra de irrealidad física. (shrink)

Natural selection is one of the fundamental keys of evolutionary biology, which is as much as saying of almost all life sciences. However, the effort to assess its true meaning has been involved in endless controversies almost from the beginning. The rethinking of natural selection through an abstract scheme with three ingredients - −population, environment and interaction between them− could significantly contribute to clarify this debate.

El carácter fundamentalmente probabilista de la medición de las magnitudes cuánticas, alentó la suposición de que tales valores “no existen” antes de la medida. Una reinterpretación de nuestras ideas sobre las magnitudes físicas, considerándolas formalmente representadas por distribuciones de valores en lugar de valores numéricos concretos, ayudaría a disipar toda sombra de irrealidad física.

The mathematical representation of nature is so important in the scientific research of the world that some authors have defended the existence of an ontological burden in the mathematical formalism used by scientists. According to this view, the use of a certain formalism would entail an implicit commitment to the type of entities that the populate the material world. This paper will analyze (i) whether mathematics carries an unavoidable ontological burden in its application to physics, and (ii) whether this alleged (...) ontological burden compromises in some way the metaphysical realism on which scientific activity is based. To do this, the applicability of mathematics to the physical world will be taken for granted and, based on the different examples presented throughout the text, it will be found that there are no reasons to hold such assumptions. Therefore, the non-existent ontological implications of mathematical formalism do not pose any threat to realistic metaphysics in any of its modalities, such as structural realism. (shrink)

La finitud o infinitud del universo dividió a los antiguos filósofos alimentando un debate entrelazado con las sutilezas del propio concepto de infinito y la plausibilidad de su realización en el mundo físico. Mientras el siglo XIX dio los primeros pasos en el dominio formal del infinito matemático, la cuestión del tamaño del cosmos quedaba abierta en espera de mejor evidencia empírica. Al término del siglo XX los datos observacionales de la cosmología parecen decantarse por un volumen infinito, si bien (...) en muy pocas ocasiones se subrayan los delicados problemas físicos y metafísicos que tal opción comporta. A consecuencia de ello en este artículo se defenderá, desde una posición finitista que rechaza el infinito factual, la imposibilidad de un volumen tridimensional infinito para el cosmos y, por tanto, la necesidad de revisar este aspecto de nuestros actuales modelos cosmológicos. (shrink)

Since the very begining of quantum theory there started a debate on the proper role of space and time in it. Some authors assumed that space and time have their own algebraic operators. On that basis they supposed that quantum particles had “coordinates of position”, even though those coordinates were not possible to determine with infinite precision. Furthermore, time in quantum physics was taken to be on an equal foot, by means of a so-called “Heisenberg’s fourth relation of indeterminacy” concerning (...) time and energy. In this paper, the proper role of space and time in the core of non-relativistic quantum phsysics is analyzed. We will find that, rigorously, that relation for time and energy shows a different root. For the role of space, it will be discussed that there is no “coordinate of position” in the conceptual structure of quantum physics because quantum particles are not point-like objects. (shrink)

ResumenLos abundantes análisis filosóficos sobre la física cuántica no se han visto en general acompa- ñados por una consideración equiparable hacia su prolongación natural en la teoría cuántica de campos. Esta teoría se ha revelado en su versión electromagnética como una de las herramientas predictivas más precisas de la ciencia física. No obstante, sus cimientos conceptuales siguen siendo altamente controvertidos y cabe dudar si una ampliación de su formalismo conducirá a la tan deseada unificación de las fuerzas fundamentales, y por (...) ende, a una comprensión global de las propiedades básicas de la naturaleza.Palabras claveFilosofía de la física, teoría cuántica de campos, unificación de fuerzas, predicciónAbstractThe abundant philosophical analyses on quantum physics have not been generally followed by an equivalent consideration toward their natural continuation in the quantum field theory. This theory is regarded in its electromagnetic version as one of the best predictive tools in physical science. Nevertheless, its conceptual foundations are still surrounded by controversy and it is doubtful if an extension of its formalism will lead us to the unification of the four basic forces, and therefore to a global understanding of the basic properties of nature.KeywordsPhilosophy of physics, quantum field theory, unification of forces, prediction. (shrink)

En este libro un equipo formado por especialistas españoles y extranjeros pasa revista a los principales aspectos del conocimiento del mundo físico. Los autores combinan la perspectiva científica con la filosófica, en un esfuerzo de diálogo interdisciplinar que quiere estar a la altura de los tiempos. Reflejan la variedad de puntos de vista de los cultivadores de la filosofía de la naturaleza, aunque com¬parten la misma fe en el futuro de la disciplina y en el papel que le corresponde para (...) corregir los desequilibrios de la cultura contemporánea. (shrink)

En esta obra monumental de Jesper Lützen sobre la mecánica de Heinrich Hertz encontramos una magnífica exposición de la vida y obra de este insigne físico germano. Un interesante relato de las influencias intelectuales que modelaron su pensamiento científico, culmina con un exhaustivo análisis de la reformulación de la mecánica clásica que Hertz planteó poco antes de su prematuro fallecimiento.

Detecting sensitive information considering privacy is a relevant issue on Online Social Networks (OSNs). It is often difficult for users to manage the privacy associated with their posts on social networks taking into account all the possible consequences. The aim of this work is to provide information about the sensitivity of the content of a publication when a user is going to share it in OSN. For this purpose, we developed a privacy-assistant agent that detects sensitive information. Based on this (...) information, the agent provides a message through a nudge mechanism warning about the possible risks of sharing the message. To avoid being annoying, the agent also considers the user’s previous behaviour (e.g. if he previously ignored certain nudges) and adapts the messages it sends to give more relevance to those categories that are more important to the user from the point of view of the privacy risk. This agent was integrated into the social network Pesedia. We analysed the performance of different models to detect a set of sensitive categories (i.e. location, medical, drug/alcohol, emotion, personal attacks, stereotyping, family and association details, personal details and personally identifiable information) in a dataset of tweets in Spanish. The model that obtained the best results (i.e. F1 and accuracy) and that was finally integrated into the privacy-assistant agent was transformer-based. (shrink)

A reassessment of the political and religious aspects of Philip of Spain’s reign in England and of the kingdom’s integration into the Spanish Monarchy.

En este trabajo se argumenta que no es posible contar objetos reales. Aunque a primera vista esta tesis pueda resultar desconcertante, o un simple ejercicio de «arte conceptual», las razones que la apoyan son fundadas y muy naturales. Se examinan algunas consecuencias importantes de dicha tesis y se ponen en conexión con diversos planteamientos de H. Putnam, P. Unger y E. Sosa.

Este artículo es una crítica a la Observación General n.º 1 (2014) del Comité de Naciones Unidas sobre los derechos de las personas con discapacidad, relativa a la interpretación correcta del artículo 12 de la Convención de Naciones Unidas sobre las personas con discapacidad.Con esta Observación, el Comité asume una ideología sobre los derechos de las personas con discapacidad que no es comúnmente aceptada. Esta ideología se basa en las tres tesis siguientes: 1) se apoya el “modelo social” de la (...) discapacidad frente al tradicional “modelo medico”; 2) no se considera a la discapacidad un mal (o un daño) o, incluso, se afirma su valor positivo a través de la noción de “diversidad funcional”; y 3) se tratan conjuntamente todas las formas de discapacidad, en particular no se distingue, para interpretar el art. 12 de la Convención, entre la discapacidad mental y otros tipos de discapacidad. De acuerdo con el Comité, se trataría de un “cambio de paradigma” exigido por el respeto a la dignidad de las personas con discapacidad. En el texto se critican estas tesis y la concepción de la dignidad subyacente. En opinión del autor, no cabe prescindir del concepto biomédico de enfermedad y discapacidad, es necesario tratar de forma diferente a las discapacidades mentales de otras que no suelen conllevar incapacidad para tomar decisiones, la enfermedad o la discapacidad sí cabe entenderla como un mal o un daño (que debe ser superado) pero no entraña un desprecio moral para el enfermo o el discapacitado y, finalmente, es un error reducir la dignidad a la autonomía personal. (shrink)

At a time when it is critically important to preserve natural resources and reduce the amount of man-made pollution, this article explores other potentials for materialism in today’s market economies. Based on a two-year ethnography in Poland, we learn from simplifiers who denounce current materialism—while remaining inside the market—about what materialism could potentially become. Our study shows that materialism can take on other less studied but more eco-friendly expressions. In particular, we highlight an alternate expression of materialism, which we call (...) “appreciative materialism”. Appreciative materialism still ascribes a great deal of importance to objects in the lives of consumers but does so through the voluntary non-possession and/or non-accumulation of these objects, as well as a caring ethics that extends to non-humans. These findings call not only for the refinement of scales to measure materialism but also for a revision of the role of materialism in our lives. They suggest that, in order to trigger more sustainable practices, policymakers and managers should put greater emphasis on appreciative materialism. (shrink)

After the end of their time as a caregiver, former caregivers have needs and feelings that have been subject to little study to date. The aim of the study is to determine and analyse the feelings, perceptions and practices of former caregivers in the reconstruction of their daily lives. This is a qualitative study based on the Grounded Theory developed by Charmaz. The study involved 14 former caregivers who had cared for their relative for more than 2 years and who (...) had stopped caring for them more than 2 years previously. Fourteen in-depth interviews were conducted and data were collected over 13 months between 2015 and 2017. Data were analysed using the Grounded Theory Method. In addition, this study was approved by the ethics committee of the Institut Universitari d’Investigació en Atenció Primària Jordi Gol. The former caregiver experiences a transition, which begins in the days before the death of their relative and may continue for more than 3 years. Three critical moments in the post-caring transition were found: the post-caring emptiness; the end of the period as a caregiver; and the movement towards a new life. Family and professional support is needed during this transition. Former caregivers experience a transition in the rebuilding of their daily lives; furthermore, former caregivers may be a source of support for other caregivers, which is linked to positive mental health factors. Healthcare organisations need to acknowledge the emotional, psychosocial and psychological health of former caregivers. (shrink)

This paper introduces the concept of business-related conspiracy theories. Drawing on Aristotelian virtue ethics and undertaking a narratological and ethical analysis of 28 BrCTs found online, I emphasize that BrCTs are narratives with structures rooted in other latent macro- and meta-narratives, including centuries-old myths. In particular, I reconstruct the fictional world of BrCTs – one in which CSR and social contracts have failed – before identifying eight different types of actors as which people can morally situate themselves in their relationships (...) with business. Finally, I elaborate on the actors’ performances and their use of external and legitimate forces to end the story. The paper concludes with a discussion of potential future research to help combat BrCTs, as well as a call for the critical study of political CSR. (shrink)

Theory of Mind (ToM) is one of the most relevant concepts in the field of social cognition, particularly in the case of Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD). Literature showing that individuals with ASD display deficits in ToM is extensive and robust. However, some related issues deserve more research: the heterogeneous profile of ToM abilities in children with ASD and the association between different levels of ToM development and social, pragmatic, and adaptive behaviors in everyday life. The first objective of this study (...) was to identify profiles of children with ASD without intellectual disability (ID), based on explicit and applied ToM knowledge, and compare these profiles with a group of children with typical development (TD). A second objective was to determine differences in symptom severity, adaptive/social behavior, and pragmatic abilities between the profiles identified. Fifty-two children with a clinical diagnosis of ASD without ID and 37 children with TD performed neuropsychological ToM tasks and two vocabulary and memory tests. In addition, all of their mothers completed different questionnaires about applied ToM abilities, severity of ASD symptoms, adaptive/social skills, and pragmatic competence. Two subgroups were identified in the cluster analysis carried out with explicit and applied ToM indicators. The “Lower ToM abilities” profile obtained significantly lower scores than the “Higher ToM abilities” profile on all the ToM measures. Furthermore, the analysis of covariance, controlling for vocabulary and working memory (ANCOVAs), showed statistically significant differences in applied ToM abilities between the two groups of children with ASD without ID and the group with TD. However, only the group with “Higher ToM abilities” achieved similar performance to the TD group on the verbal task of explicit ToM knowledge. Finally, the “Lower ToM abilities” cluster obtained significantly higher scores on autism symptoms (social and communication domains) and lower scores on adaptive behavior and pragmatic skills than the cluster with “Higher ToM abilities”. Taken together, these findings have implications for understanding the heterogeneity in ToM skills in children with ASD without ID, and their differential impact on social, communicative, and adaptive behaviors. (shrink)

This article examines the primacy of real-world bodily experience for understanding the human mind. I defend the idea that the peculiarities of the living human brain and body, and the bodily experiences they sustain, are essential ingredients of human sense-making and conceptual systems. Conceptual systems are created, brought forth, understood and sustained, through very specific cognitive mechanisms ultimately grounded in bodily experience. They don't have a transcendental abstract logic independent of the species-specific bodily features. To defend this position, I focus (...) on a case study: the fundamental concept of time flow. Using tools of cognitive linguistics, I analyse the foundations of this concept, as it is manifested naturally in everyday language. I show that there is a precise conceptual metaphor whose inferential structure gives an account of a huge variety of linguistic expressions, semantic contents, and unconscious spontaneous gestures: Time Events Are Things In Space. I discuss various special cases of this conceptual metaphor. This mapping grounds its source domain in specific spatial bodily experiences and projects its inferential structure onto a target domain making inferences in that domain possible. This mechanism allows us to unconsciously, effortlessly, and precisely understand expressions such as ‘the year 2000 is approaching’ or ‘the days ahead of us’. The general form of the mapping seems to be universal. The analysis raises important issues which demand a deeper and richer understanding of cognition and the mind: a view that sees the mind as fully embodied. In order to avoid misunderstandings with a general notion of ‘embodiment’ which has become fashionable in contemporary cognitive science, I describe what I mean by ‘full embodiment’: an embodied-oriented approach that has an explicit commitment to all of cognition, not just to low-level aspects of cognition such as sensory-motor activity or locomotion . I take embodiment to be a living phenomenon in which the primacy of bodily grounded experience is inherently part of the very subject matter of the study of the mind. (shrink)

Revision operation is the consistent expansion of a theory by a new belief-representing sentence. We consider that in a paraconsistent setting this desideratum can be accomplished in at least three distinct ways: the output of a revision operation should be either non-trivial or non-contradictory (in general or relative to the new belief). In this paper those distinctions will be explored in the constructive level by showing how the remainder sets could be refined, capturing the key concepts of paraconsistency in a (...) dynamical scenario. These are preliminaries results of a wider project on Paraconsistent Belief Change conduced by the authors. (shrink)

Traditional cognitive science is Cartesian in the sense that it takes as fundamental the distinction between the mental and the physical, the mind and the world. This leads to the claim that cognition is representational and best explained using models derived from AI and computational theory. The authors depart radically from this model.

Philanthropic venture capital (PhVC) is a financing option available for social enterprises that, like traditional venture capital, provides capital and value-added services to portfolio organizations. Differently from venture capital, PhVC has an ethical dimension as it aims at maximizing the social return on the investment. This article examines the deal structuring phase of PhVC investments in terms of instrument used (from equity to grant), valuation, and covenants included in the contractual agreement. By content analyzing a set of semistructured interviews and (...) thereafter surveying the entire population of PhVC funds that are active in Europe and in the United States, findings indicate that the non-distribution constraint holding for non-profit social enterprises is an effective tool to align the interests of both investor and investee. This makes the investor behaving as a steward rather than as a principal. Conversely, while backing non-profit social ventures, philanthropic venture capitalists structure their deal similarly as traditional venture capital, as the absence of the non-distribution constraint makes such investments subject to moral hazard risk both in terms of perks and stealing and social impact focus. (shrink)

Neste artigo fazemos uma discussão conceitual acerca da ferramenta de escolha por nós apresentada no trabalho “Solving Normative Conflicts using Preference Relations”, isto é, explicitamos a racionalidade subjacente a tal ferramenta, bem como as consequências práticas de sua aceitação.

Plato’s “Apology of Socrates” is a masterpiece of the philosophical literature. The question remains as to how much it has been influenced by earlier works, e.g. of Gorgias of Leontinoi and Euripides. Nevertheless, comparative studies on Hippolytus’ defense in Euripides’ tragedy of the same name, on Gorgias’ “Defense of Palamedes” and on Plato’s “Apology” do not exist. The short paper gives an introduction into the status quaestionis.