Although gains in generational intelligence test scores have been widely demonstrated around the world, researchers still do not know what has caused them. The cognitive stimulation and nutritional hypotheses summarize the several diverse potential causes that have been considered. This article analyses data for a sample of 499 children tested in 1930 and one equivalent sample of 710 children tested 72 years later, the largest gap ever considered. Both samples comprised children aged between 7 and 11 who were assessed by (...) the Draw-a-Man test in the city of Belo Horizonte, Brazil. Further, one additional sample of 132 children was assessed in 2004 in a rural area very similar in several diverse factors to the 1930 urban sample. The results are consistent with both the cognitive stimulation and the nutritional hypotheses. (shrink)

En diversas religiones o filosofías, sobre todo aquellas de tendencia oriental, el Silencio ha sido un punto de partida para poder entablar un diálogo con lo Sagrado, lo Trascendente, o Dios, y un elemento esencial de la experiencia hierofánica. En este artículo se expone que tres creencias espirituales enraizadas en el mundo oriental: judaísmo, islamismo sufí y taoísmo, convergen en la idea del Silencio como un metalenguaje donde lo Sagrado se manifiesta. A pesar de la divergencia doctrinal que existe entre (...) dichas religiones, el Silencio genera en sus practicantes una experiencia abrumadora ante algo que los trasciende, trastocando lo más íntimo de su ser y que en el lenguaje convencional les es difícil expresar. (shrink)

La relación entre la filosofía y la mística pareciese complicada y que no tendría lugar en las discusiones académicas, especialmente en pleno siglo xxi. Lo anterior es, sin duda, un error, porque han existido importantes filósofos que han incursionado y hablado sobre los misterios de la mística. En este artículo se verá que, a pesar de las diferencias, hay similitudes entre la experiencia mística y la filosofía, puntos de unión y de retroalimentación, especialmente haciendo referencia a la importancia del silencio (...) como un elemento inherente a la experiencia de lo sagrado. El Maestro Eckhart, filósofo y teólogo de la Baja Edad Media, y Martin Heidegger, exponente de la filosofía contemporánea, serán quienes nos hagan ver que la filosofía tiene atisbos de mística, y esta última no está tan alejada de la primera como se ha querido pronunciar axiomáticamente en la modernidad. (shrink)

The current predominant conception of human rights implies that human beings have objective intrinsic value. In this paper, we defend that there is no satisfactory justification of this claim. In spite of the great variety of theories aimed at explaining objective intrinsic value, all of them share one common problematic feature: they pass from a non-evaluative proposition to an evaluative proposition by asserting that a certain entity has intrinsic value in virtue of having certain non-evaluative features. This is a step (...) that cannot be justified. In light of this negative result, we offer a radically different approach to intrinsic value. Our proposal reinterprets the claim that human beings have intrinsic value in terms of a commitment to value human beings intrinsically. This commitment provides both objective practical reasons for, and a rational explanation of, efforts aimed at defending and promoting human rights, without need to appeal to the existence of objective intrinsic value. (shrink)

Journal Name: Semiotica Issue: Ahead of print.

Distance education offers flexibility and accessibility to students with diverse needs and contexts. However, it is crucial to understand the factors that motivate students to choose this educational modality, especially in programs like Public Accounting, which require specific skills. The general objective of this article is to analyze the determinants in the decision to study the Public Accounting Program in a distance or virtual modality at the National Open and Distance University (UNAD). A mixed methodology is employed, supported by authors (...) such as Creswell (2014), combining quantitative and qualitative data, and using the Probit model to identify factors influencing this choice. A significant finding is that tuition cost, the Saber 11 test score and parents' education are significant variables affecting students' decisions, with tuition cost having the greatest influence on the probability of choice. (shrink)

The goal of this research is to know and compare the emotions and reactions to confinement due to the COVID-19 pandemic in children and adolescents with high abilities and community samples. This is a mixed study with an exploratory reach that is descriptive, and which combines survey and qualitative methodologies to examine the emotions and reactions to confinement experiences of children and adolescents aged between 5 and 14 years. An online poll was designed with 46 questions, grouped into three sections: (...) General Data, Reactions to the health contingencies of COVID-19, and Positive and negative emotions. This last section was included the Oros’ positive emotions questionnaire and the scales of the negative effect of the PANAS Schedule positive and negative affect on children and adolescents between 8 and 14 years old. Data were collected online with a convenience sample. Quantitative data were analyzed with the SPSS statistics program and qualitative data with Alceste software. Among the main findings is the fact that there are no significant differences between the groups by ability in terms of reactions and emotions; however, there are differences between age groups and sex. The study discusses the implications for educational intervention in situations like the current pandemic. (shrink)

The theme of Aesthetics in Present Future concerns the new chances the arts have and the deep changes they are undergoing, due to the new media, and the digital world in which we are growingly immersed. That this world is to be understood from an aesthetic point of view, become clear if we think of how much of what we produce, and observe and study is offered through images in particular and perceptual means in general.

Using limpid language and citing abundant documentary evidence, the two authors demonstrate two fundamental and closely interconnected theses. The first is that Frege in no wise influenced Husserl in the manner and to the extent believed by many analytic philosophers. The second is that Husserl’s logical ideas were formally, ontologically and cognitively more advanced than Frege’s.

Contents: List of Contributors VII; Roberto Poli: Foreword IX-X; Roberto Poli: The Brentano puzzle: an introduction 1; Dallas Willard: Who needs Brentano? The wasteland of philosophy without its past 15; Claire Ortiz Hill: Introduction to Paul Linke's 'Gottlob Frege as philosopher' 45; Paul F. Linke: Gottlob Frege as philosopher 49; John Blackmore: Franz Brentano and the University of Vienna Philosophical Society 1888-1938 73; Alf Zimmer: On agents and objects: some remarks on Brentanian perception 93; Liliana Albertazzi: Perceptual (...) saliences and nuclei of meaning 113; Jan Srzednicki: Brentano and the thinkable 139; Claire Ortiz Hill: From empirical psychology to phenomenology. Edmund Husserl on the 'Brentano puzzle' 151; Serena Cattaruzza: Brentano and Boltzmann: the Schubladenexperiment 169; Karl Schuhmann: Johannes Daubert's theory of judgement 179; Evelyn Dölling: On Alexius Meinong's theory of signs 199; Robin Rollinger: Linguistic expressions and acts of meaning: comments on Marty's philosophy of language 215-225. (shrink)

This paper explores the proposals of Giorgio Agamben and Roberto Esposito, two of the top representatives of the Italian Thought, around the notion of community and commons. Starting from an analysis of the community based on the munus, the statute of the commons is examined as opposed to the right of property. Next, the discussion around the notion of use of the commons and its difficult reconciliation with the legal apparatus is presented. Finally, the notion of inappropriateness that underpins (...) the Italian study of the commons is studied. (shrink)

Cultural studies, which arose in England and were later moved to the United States, have achieved a strong presence in Latin American social sciences during the last two decades in their local versions, as expressed by authors such as N. Farcía Canclini, R. Ortiz or Jesús M. Barbero. Their pos..

Este artículo aporta al conocimiento de la fonología suprasegmental del Mapudungun (específicamente, del acento), aspecto que ha sido escasamente abordado, en comparación con la fonía segmental de esta lengua. Sus focos principales son determinar cómo se distribuye el acento léxico en el Lafkenche hablado en la localidad de Los Álamos, Octava Región de Chile; y la comparación con el trabajo de Ortiz (2021), el cual se ocupa de este aspecto prosódico en el cordón cordillerano de habla Pewenche. Para ello, (...) se determinaron las sílabas tónicas de palabras monomorfémicas bisilábicas y trisilábicas elicitadas a 6 hablantes adultos bilingües de Mapudungun-español. Los resultados muestran una clara tendencia a emplear una acentuación paroxítona, lo que difiere del habla del cordón cordillerano de habla Pewenche, donde predomina la acentuación oxítona. Esta diferencia puede explicarse por el mayor grado de contacto del Lafkenche con el español. Además, se estableció que la ocurrencia de la sílaba CVC no cumple un rol prominente en la asignación del acento en la zona. (shrink)

La recepción durante el siglo XX se preguntó si la filosofía nietzscheana era a-, im- o anti-política, es decir, si podía ser asimilada por la democracia, o si era antimoderna, elitista y reaccionaria. El italiano Roberto Esposito ha propuesto leerla como formando e informando el paradigma de la biopolítica. Se discuten cuatro lecturas de esa biopolítica: como formadora del paradigma de la inmunidad, como tanatopolítica, como liberal y neoliberal, y como biopolítica afirmativa. Twentieth-century readers wondered if Nietzschean philosophy was (...) apolitical, impolitic, or anti-political; that is, if it could be assimilated by democracy or if it was antimodern, elitist, and reactionary. The Italian philosopher Robert Esposito has proposed reading Nietzsche's philosophy as forming and informing the biopolitical paradigm. Four readings of these biopolitics are discussed: as part of the paradigm of immunity, as thanatopolitics, as liberal and neoliberal, and as affirmative biopolitics. (shrink)

Background: In the last decades, there have been important developments in the scientific and technological areas of healthcare. On certain occasions this provokes conflict between the patients' rights and the values of healthcare professionals which brings about, within this clinical relationship, the problem of conscientious objection. Aims: To learn the opinions that the Nurses of the Madrid Autonomous Community have regarding conscientious objection. Research design: Cross-cutting descriptive study. Participants and research context: The nurses of 9 hospitals and 12 Health Centers (...) in the Madrid Autonomous Community. The study was done by means of an auto completed anonymous questionnaire. The variables studied were social-demographical and their opinions about conscientious objections. Ethical considerations: The study was approved by the Ethical Community of Clinical Research of the University Hospital Príncipe de Asturias. Participants were assured of maximum confidentiality and anonymity. Findings: A total of 421 nurses answered the questionnaire. In total, 55.6% of the nurses confirmed they were religious believers, and 64.3% declared having poor knowledge regarding conscientious objection. The matters that caused the greatest objections were voluntary abortions, genetic embryo selection, refusal of blood transfusions, and therapy refusal. Discussion: Different authors state that the most significant cases of conscientious objections for health professionals are those regarding carrying out or assisting in abortions, euthanasia, the practice of assisted reproduction and, finally, the prescription and dispensing of the morning-after pill. In our study, the most significant cases in which the nurses would declare conscientious objections would be the refusal to accept treatment, the selection of embryos after genetic diagnosis preimplantation, the patient’s refusal to receive blood transfusions due to religious reasons and pregnant women’s request for voluntary abortions within the first 14 weeks. Conclusion: Nurses’ religious beliefs influence their opinions regarding conscientious objection. The nurses who declare themselves as religious believers object in a higher percentage than those without religious beliefs. (shrink)

Most areas of philosopher Edmund Husserl’s thought have been explored, but his views on logic, mathematics, and semantics have been largely ignored. These essays offer an alternative to discussions of the philosophy of contemporary mathematics. The book covers areas of disagreement between Husserl and Gottlob Frege, the father of analytical philosophy, and explores new perspectives seen in their work.

Frank Jackson and Robert Pargetter propose a method for synchronizing clocks at rest at distant points of an inertial system in Euclidean space, which, they claim, does not depend on Einstein's signalling method and provides a basis for denying the conventionality of distant simultaneity. I am afraid, however, that the new method presupposes that the simultaneity of distant events relatively to the chosen inertial system has been already determined by Einstein's or some other method. Jackson and Pargetter describe their method (...) as follows: Let UA, UB be clocks at A, B, respectively. Let XY be an axis perpendicular to AB, passing through C, the midpoint of AB. Take a rigid straight rod A′B′ with midpoint C′ and length equal to the length AB. Move A′B′ with uniform velocity such that C′ travels along XY towards C, and A′B′ is perpendicular to XY ; then if the reading … on UA just when A′ coincides with A is the same as the reading … on UB just when B′ coincides with B, clocks UA and UB will be synchronous.. (shrink)

This paper argues that some of the misunderstandings surrounding the meaning and function of the concept of human dignity in bioethics arise from a lack of distinction between two different roles that this notion plays: one as an overarching policy principle, and the other as a moral standard of patient care. While the former is a very general concept which fulfils a foundational and a guiding role of the normative framework governing biomedical issues, the latter reflects a much more concrete (...) and context-specific understanding of the patient as a “person”. The importance of dignity as a policy principle will be described by appealing to the distinction between principles and rules as developed by some legal philosophers. The value of dignity as a standard of patient care will be illustrated with the help of concrete examples and by drawing on the taxonomies of dignity proposed by Jonathan Mann and other scholars. The overall scope of the article is to highlight this double and complementary role of human dignity in bioethics. (shrink)

The interpretation of propositions in Lukasiewicz's infinite-valued calculus as answers in Ulam's game with lies--the Boolean case corresponding to the traditional Twenty Questions game--gives added interest to the completeness theorem. The literature contains several different proofs, but they invariably require technical prerequisites from such areas as model-theory, algebraic geometry, or the theory of ordered groups. The aim of this paper is to provide a self-contained proof, only requiring the rudiments of algebra and convexity in finite-dimensional vector spaces.

Management of different types of partnerships plays a decisive role in company performance. Complex business ventures, such as those created to serve low-income populations, usually include both cross- and same-sector partnerships. However, the initial diversity featured in these alliance portfolios diminishes as companies take their ventures up to scale. This article develops theoretical propositions about the evolution and configuration patterns of portfolios that include both cross- and same-sector partnerships. Two longitudinal case studies serve to illustrate the theoretical framework developed for (...) alliance portfolios that include both types of partnerships. Companies that create such portfolios adopt partnership strategies that follow paths also identified in the evolution of portfolios only made up of partnerships with other private firms: i.e., an evolution from adapting to shaping and exploiting strategies. (shrink)

Slippery slope arguments (SSAs) are used in a wide range of philosophical debates, but are often dismissed as empirically ill-founded and logically fallacious. In particular, leading authors put forward a meta-SSA which points to instances of empirically ill-founded and logically fallacious SSAs and to the alleged existence of a slippery slope leading to such SSAs to demonstrate that people should avoid using SSAs altogether. In this paper, I examine these prominent calls against using SSAs and argue that such calls do (...) not withstand scrutiny. I then identify several types of mechanisms leading to slippery slopes in real-life contexts to demonstrate that both the strength of SSAs and the justifiability of using SSAs are best assessed on a case-by-case basis. This result does not exempt the proponents of SSAs from the task of vindicating their use of SSAs. However, if correct, it undermines the often-made claim that people should avoid using SSAs altogether. (shrink)

Desde fines de los 90, y siguiendo una década de severos planes de ajuste estructural, América Latina fue surcada por numerosas experiencias de revueltas populares. Estas revueltas trajeron consigo masivas manifestaciones colectivas, altos niveles de agresión física y verbal contra políticos, jueces y funcionarios públicos, en general. Las protestas incluyeron, por ejemplo, la organización de ¿piquetes¿ destinados a bloquear el tráfico en las rutas principales, con el objeto de exigir empleo, comida, o el otorgamiento de subsidios; tanto como ruidosas manifestaciones (...) (i.e., ¿cacerolazos¿). Estas agresiones a las autoridades públicas alcanzaron el domicilio y las propiedades de los últimos, tato como los edificios públicos en los que trabajaban (la sede del gobierno, las legislaturas, los tribunales). Entre otros resultados, dichas protestas forzaron la renuncia del presidente Raúl Cubas, en Paraguay, en 1999;la del presidente Alberto Fujimori, en Perú, en el 2000; la del presidente Jail Mahuuad, en Ecuador, en el 2000 (tanto como la remoción del presidente Abdala Bucaram, en 1996); la del presidente Sánchez de Lozada en Bolivia, en el 2002; y la del presidente Bertrand Aristide, en Haití, en el 2004. En la Argentina, estas protestas culminaron con una profunda crisis que incluyó el mandato de cinco presidentes distintos en menos de dos semanas. Por supuesto, esta manifestaciones fueron promovidas, en cada caso, a partir de circunstancias parcialmente diversas. Algunas fueron seguramente más legítimas que otras; algunas fueron más ¿espontáneas¿ o ¿genuinas¿ que otras; algunas resultaron más poderosas y duraderas que otras. De todos modos, la presencia de todas estas variaciones no deberían impedirnos que reconozcamos las similitudes que vincularon a estos acontecimientos, que aluden al tipo de crisis que se encuentra afectando a muchos órdenes legales contemporáneos. (shrink)

Both the commonsensical and leading theoretical accounts of entrepreneurship, democracy, and solidarity fail to describe adequately entrepreneurial, democratic, and solidarity?building practices. These accounts are inadequate because they assume a faulty description of human being. In this article we develop an interpretation of entrepreneurship, democratic action, and solidarity?building that relies on understanding human beings as neither primarily thinking nor desiring but as skillful beings. Western human beings are at their best when they are engaged in producing large?scale cultural or historical changes (...) in the way people and things are dealt with. The three domains of human activity where these historical changes are most clearly accomplished are entrepreneurship, democratic action, and solidarity. Section I, guided by a roughly Kuhnian notion of holding on to an anomaly until it re?gestalts the way we see things, offers a general interpretation of how skillful human beings open up new worlds by changing their shared background practices in three ways: reconfiguring, which makes a marginal practice central; cross?appropriation, in which one domain of practices takes over useful practices from another domain; and articulating, whereby dispersed or confused practices are brought into clearer focus. An entrepreneur creates a product which reconfigures the practices. This interpretation of entrepreneurial skills is contrasted with current accounts that overlook ehtrepreneurship to concentrate on instrumental or theoretical models of business activities. Section II claims that the most exemplary kind of political action in a liberal democracy is that of political action groups. Such groups produce a change in a nation's background practices through a kind of speaking that leads to massive cross?appropriation. We describe Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD) and suggest that it both satisfies the requirements for genuine democratic action that we have established in our examination of other views and lacks their disadvantages. We conclude that the relatively detached action suggested by current theories of liberal democracy fail to do justice to democratic practice. The final section argues that those who claim that a single highest value or procedure provides a source of solidarity that satisfies all the competing interests in a multi?cultural nation always arrive at a solidarity that is too thin to provide for the serious sort of commitments that one would be willing to die for. We propose that solidarity in multi?cultural states implies commitment to a set of thick values, and that when one realizes that these thick values construct one's identity one is willing to die for them. While political action concerns itself with ordering values, solidarity involves the cultivation of them in such a way that no ordering of them matters. But solidarity is not to be understood as a subjective feeling. It is rather the experience of a group identity, a ?we?, that sees things and deals with things in terms of shared concerns. This ?we? comes to recognize itself when the actions it engages in transform it. The paradigmatic action that transforms such a ?we? occurs when a culture figure articulates some forgotten concern or value. As in the cases of entrepreneurship and democratic action, a culture figure cultivates solidarity by changing the background practices in a historical manner. It is concluded that traditional theoretical accounts, by overlooking the primacy of involved skillful activities and the importance of background change, fail to capture the source, the function, and the point of entrepreneurship, liberal democracy, and solidarity. (shrink)

The article deals with the lines along which manifold senses of horizonedness emerge and their reference to potentiality as a starting-point. The first section examines Gurwitsch's analyses of field-potentialities and margin-potentialities in the light of distinctions drawn by Husserl in terms of latency and patency. It is contended that Husserl's concept of latency encompasses both modes of potentiality. The second section shows how the world- horizon functions as a background- horizon and alternation- horizon conceived of as the two fundamental modes (...) of non-thematic consciousness. In this respect, an attempt is made to link this theme with Gurwitsch's description of the acquisition of the character of positional index as a worldly existent. The third section is concerned with how potentiality develops into an all-encompassing domain that can be anticipated as an ideal totality and into a pregiven ground, and outlines an approach to the complementarity of this threefold characterization. This development falls out of Gurwitsch's framework for the analysis of horizonedness. The article concludes with a characterization of the encasement-of-one-in-another of horizons. Reasons are suggested for the application of some ideas of Gurwitsch on thematic transformation to this sequence of levels. (shrink)

This is Dr. Roberto Assagioli's second book on the psychological system he formulated known as Psychosynthesis. It continues where his first book left off and delves into the important process of willing as a psychological function based on a higher self rather on guilt or determination as in the Victorian concept of the will.

Over the last decade, several European countries and the Council of Europe itself have strongly supported the use of advance directives as a means of protecting patients’ autonomy, and adopted specific norms to regulate this matter. However, it remains unclear under which conditions those regulations should apply to people who are placed in correctional settings. The issue is becoming more significant due to the increasing numbers of inmates of old age or at risk of suffering from mental disorders, all of (...) whom might benefit from using advance directives. At the same time, the closed nature of prisons and the disparate power relationships that characterise them mean that great caution must be exercised to prevent care being withdrawn or withheld from inmates who actually want to receive it. This paper explores the issue of prisoners’ advance directives in the European context, starting with the position enshrined in international and European law that prisoners retain all their human rights, except the right to liberty, and are therefore entitled to self-determination regarding health care decisions. (shrink)

It is well known that Francis of Marchia and William of Ockham joined Michael of Cesena's rebellion against the pope, together escaping from Avignon and signing documents supporting Cesena's defence of Franciscan poverty. The relationship between the works of the two thinkers, on the other hand, is the subject of ongoing investigation. After discussing Francis' rejection in his Commentary on the Sentences of Ockham's theory of quantity, this paper shows how Francis' Improbatio became a source for Ockham's Opus Nonaginta Dierum. (...) Building on Offler's ground-breaking critical edition of the latter work, it is argued that Ockham made extensive use of Francis' Improbatio, even though on several points he felt it necessary to reformulate the arguments of his confrère or even to substantially modify his positions. The two Franciscan theologians differed deeply both in their basic philosophical commitments and in their methodological attitude. These differences emerged even when they were—so to speak—fighting on the same front. (shrink)

The book addresses the question of the alleged Heracliteanism of the Sceptic philosopher Aenesidemus of Cnossus.