Fibromyalgia is a chronic pain syndrome characterized by dysfunctional processing of nociceptive stimulation. Neuroimaging studies have pointed out that pain-related network functioning seems to be altered in these patients. It is thought that this clinical symptomatology may be maintained or even strengthened because of an enhanced expectancy for painful stimuli or its forthcoming appearance. However, neural electrophysiological correlates associated with such attentional mechanisms have been scarcely explored. In the current study, expectancy processes of upcoming laser stimulation (painful and non-painful) and (...) its further processing were explored by event-related potentials (ERPs). Nineteen fibromyalgia patients and twenty healthy control volunteers took part in the experiment. Behavioral measures (reaction times and subjective pain perception) were also collected. We manipulated the pain/no pain expectancy through an S1–S2 paradigm (cue-target). S1 (image: triangle or square) predicted the S2 appearance (laser stimulation: warmth or pinprick sensation). Laser stimuli were delivered using a CO2 laser device. Temporal and spatial principal component analyses were employed to define and quantify the ERP component reliability. Statistical analyses revealed the existence of an abnormal pattern of pain expectancy in patients with fibromyalgia. Specifically, our results showed attenuated amplitudes at posterior lCNV component in anticipation of painful stimulation that was not found in healthy participants. In contrast, although larger P2 amplitudes to painful compared to innocuous events were shown, patients did not show any amplitude change in this laser-evoked response as a function of pain predictive cues (as occurred in the healthy control group). Additionally, analyses of the subjective perception of pain and reaction time indicated that laser stimuli preceded by pain cues were rated as more painful than those signaling non-pain expectancy and were associated with faster responses. Differences between groups were not found. The present findings suggest the presence of dysfunction in pain expectation mechanisms in fibromyalgia that eventually may make it difficult for patients to correctly interpret signs that prevent pain symptoms. Furthermore, the abnormal pattern in pain expectancy displayed by fibromyalgia patients could result in ineffective pain coping strategies. Understanding the neural correlates of pain processing and its modulatory factors is crucial to identify treatments for chronic pain syndromes. (shrink)

La figura de Roberto Navarrete Troncoso fue parte fundamental del Teatro de la Universidad de Concepción, porque contribuyó desde la escena -como actor, director y dramaturgo- en el desarrollo artístico de un elenco que fue motor importante del crecimiento cultural de la ciudad, pero también del país. El artículo se propone levantar su obra del olvido. Para ello analiza Su día gris desde el comentario dramatológico. Se afirma que la obra está en sintonía con una vertiente de la dramaturgia (...) chilena de comienzos de 1960, en que los dramaturgos escenifican la crisis de la vida y valores de una clase media citadina. (shrink)

Nuestro trabajo se propone presentar el pensamiento paulino trabajado por Alain Badiou en San Pablo: La fundación del universalismo. Intentaremos clarificar las posiciones que toma Badiou en torno a la figura del apóstol. Consideramos que, explicitando las lecturas del autor en cuestión, es posible tejer puentes para la discusión en el campo de la teología política. Entendemos la lectura de Badiou como una lectura filosófica política, que busca dialogar con una comunidad política. Pablo, en Badiou, es presentado como «un (...) teórico antifilosófico de la universalidad» y el fundador del universalismo cristiano. A partir de esta interpretación la tarea de Badiou es buscar lo universal en lo particular. (shrink)

AQUINO, Orlando Fernandez; PUENTES, Roberto Valdéz. Trabalho didático na Universidade: estratégias de formação. Campinas: Alínea, 2011. 146p. Um dos mais novos trabalhos publicados pelos professores Orlando Fernández Aquino e Roberto Valdéz Puentes intitula-se Trabalho Didático na Universidade: estratégias de formação e apresenta como proposta a estratégia de trabalho metodológico para formação do docente universitário no contexto do desenvolvimento em serviço. O trabalho metodológico é, segundo os autores, além de um processo dinâmico e complexo, processo que pode (...) ser utilizado com outras finalidades tais como: a gestão estratégica do processo de ensino-aprendizagem-pesquisa e a elevação da qualidade da formação dos futuros profissionais e dos profissionais em serviço. [...] Na introdução, os autores destacam a importância da atuação docente na Universidade e apresentam a visão atual a respeito da educação superior e suas instituições. Destacam a inserção das instituições de educação superior na sociedade do conhecimento. O esgotamento do paradigma predominante impede de ver o global e o essencial. Em seu lugar, ganha força o conhecimento interdisciplinar e politransdisciplinar; surge um novo paradigma sociocultural, pós-moderno que busca a organização do saber e a democratização do conhecimento por meio de uma reforma do pensamento. Citam ainda o amparo do trabalho metodológico para os processos de gestão universitária; ensino aprendizagem; pesquisa; produção científica e extensão universitária. Segundo os autores, “sem instituições de educação superior e de pesquisa capazes de formar um corpo crítico de profissionais, qualificado e culto, a sociedade moderna não poderá garantir um desenvolvimento autêntico e sustentável”. Data de registro:29/04/2012 Data de aceite:08/02/2013. (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)

Decision theorists have attempted to accommodate several violations of decision theory’s axiomatic requirements by modifying how agents’ choice options are individuated and formally represented. In recent years, prominent authors have worried that these modifications threaten to trivialize decision theory, make the theory unfalsifiable, impose overdemanding requirements on decision theorists, and hamper decision theory’s internal coherence. In this paper, I draw on leading descriptive and normative works in contemporary decision theory to address these prominent concerns. In doing so, I articulate and (...) assess several different criteria for individuating and formally representing agents’ choice options. (shrink)

Este volumen colectivo se suma al 150 aniversario del fallecimiento de Arthur Schopenhauer, cuyo pensamiento tiene una enorme vigencia siglo y medio después, acaso entre otras muchas cosas por haber querido tender puentes entre categorías occidentales y orientales −una suerte de Buda de Occidente−, al no desdeñar ninguna tradición y oficiar como buen escanciador de autores clásicos e inmisericorde crítico del academicismo carpetovetónico. Este autor figura de manera inequívoca entre los grandes pensadores del ayer con proyección para el mañana. (...) Fue a la par un tábano punzante contra la vulgaridad pública y un promotor de la paideia de la excelencia. El Encuentro internacional celebrado en el Instituto de Filosofía del CSIC propició que se publiquen aquí las contribuciones aportadas por especialistas alemanes, italianos y españoles. La Colección de Clásicos europeos (que dirige Roberto R. Aramayo) pretende rescatar del olvido algunos textos fundamentales para comprender mejor nuestro presente, al poner en valor la impronta que han legado a Europa y al mundo determinados pensadores europeos. Como complemento a esa colección de textos, este volumen sobre Schopenhauer inaugura la serie de Diálogos con Clásicos europeos, que quisiera cumplir en castellano un papel similar al jugado por los Companions filosóficos de Cambridge. Conviene seguir dialogando con ciertos autores que forman parte del entramado de nuestro acervo cultural, pues no en vano el diálogo es condición sine qua non del filosofar. (shrink)

Journal of Social Philosophy, EarlyView.

A note on the interpretation of some seeming shadows in Japanese paintings.

Size-from-shadow arguments requires tinkering in many a case as the geometry of the situation is often not determinate. I then make a remark about the availability of indications about size in perceptual content.

Proper n-valued ukasiewicz algebras are obtained by adding some binary operators, fulfilling some simple equations, to the fundamental operations of n-valued ukasiewicz algebras. They are the s-algebras corresponding to an axiomatization of ukasiewicz n-valued propositional calculus that is an extention of the intuitionistic calculus.

This article contains a case study of some innovative early fourteenth-century conceptions of the temporal structure of substantial change. An important tenet of thirteenth-century scholastic hylomorphism is that substantial change is an instantaneous process. In contrast, three early fourteenth-century Aristotelian commentators, first Walter Burley and then John Buridan and Albert of Saxony, progressively develop a view on which substantial change is linked to temporal duration. This process culminated, in Buridan and Albert of Saxony, with the explicit recognition of the temporally (...) extended nature of some (if not most) instances of substantial change. This article sheds light on this neglected episode in the history of late medieval hylomorphism taking as its point of departure these commentators’ discussions of the issue of minima naturalia, i.e., the issue of the lowest possible limit of any division of substantial forms coming about through the potentially infinite division of the matter they inform. In short: is there a piece of matter so small that no substantial form can possibly inhere in it? (shrink)

In this article, we have the purpose of giving start to the description ofmanuscripts that contain the philosophical work bequeathed by the Benedictine FriarGaspar da Madre de Deus (1715–1800). The work received the title Philosophiaplatonica seu cursus philosophicus, rationalem, naturalem et transnaturalemphilosophiam, sive Logicam, Physicam et Metaphysicam, complectens. After briefremarks on the life and work of Friar Gaspar da Madre de Deus and a summary reportof the state of the art with regard to the research on his thought, we offer (...) a descriptionof the first part of his philosophical course, namely, his “Logic” or “RationalPhilosophy”. In the sequence, the article brings the Latin version of the Preface to theReader of the Philosophia platonica and a translation of it into Portuguese, as well as adetailed Table of Contents containing all divisions and subdivisions of the “RationalPhilosophy”, based on a study of the original manuscript. By so doing, we launch aseries of studies on the work of Friar Gaspar, which should eventually lead to thecritical edition of the first part of his Cursus and to a transcription of his Philosophianaturalis. (shrink)

Free Trade Reimagined begins with a sustained criticism of the heart of the emerging world economy, the theory and practice of free trade. Roberto Mangabeira Unger does not, however, defend protectionism against free trade. Instead, he attacks and revises the terms on which the traditional debate between free traders and protectionists has been joined. Unger's intervention in this major contemporary debate serves as a point of departure for a proposal to rethink the basic ideas with which we explain economic (...) activity. He suggests, by example as well as by theory, a way of understanding contemporary economies that is both more realistic and more revealing of hidden possibilities for transformation than are the established forms of economics. One message of the book is that we need not choose between accepting and rejecting globalization; we can have a different globalization. Traditional free trade doctrine rests on shaky empirical and theoretical ground. Unger takes a new approach to show when international trade is likely to be useful or harmful to the socially inclusive economic growth that every nation wants. Another message is that the movement of people and ideas is more important than the movement of things and money, and that freedom to change the institutions defining a market economy is just as important as freedom to exchange goods on the basis of those institutions. Free Trade Reimagined ranges broadly within and outside economics. Presenting technical issues in plain language, it appeals to the general reader. It puts a disciplined imagination in the service of rebellion against the dictatorship of no alternatives that characterizes life and thought today. (shrink)

This intervention concerns the different statute of abstraction in Marx's work. By means of a critical confrontation with Chris Arthur's work, Finelli presents his thesis of the presence of a double theory and fuction of abstraction in Marx's work. In the early Marx, until the German Ideology, abstraction is, in accordance with the traditional meaning of this term, a product of the mind, an unreal spectre. More exactly, it consists in negating the common essence belonging to labouring humanity and projecting (...) it, as alienated universal, into the idea of philosophy, into the state of politics and into the money of the market. In the later Marx, the nature of abstraction is, rather than mental, practical. It is directly related to the quantity without quality of capitalist labour, and it is the product of the systemic connection of machines to labour-power. In contrast to Arthur, Finelli maintains that practical abstraction in the Marx of Capital is not located in the zone of exchange and the market, where there is the mediation of money. On the contrary, it is located in the zone of production, which, for Marx, is a social ensemble not mediated by money but by relations of technological domination. (shrink)

Surprise has been characterized has an emotional reaction to an upset belief having a heuristic role and playing a criterial role for belief ascription. The discussion of cases of diachronic and synchronic violations of coherence suggests that surprise plays an epistemic role and provides subjects with some sort of phenomenological access to their subpersonal doxastic states. Lack of surprise seems not to have the same epistemic power. A distinction between belief and expectation is introduced in order to account for some (...) aspects of surprise: expectations are construed as volatile representations that tie belief to action. In the cases in which action is not involved, general, “ideological,” expectations are generate in strict connection with the context and with the possibilities of action. (shrink)

This article presents the main theoretical approaches to the religious phenomenon: functionalism, constructivism, civil religion, invisible religion, diffused religion, rational choice, vicarious religion, and so on. It is difficult to accumulate empirical data that in general are considered too weak. The state of the art of sociology of religion seems promising because of the presence of new generations of sociologists who are deeply involved in their work. For the future a specific theory on migration mobility is necessary. Another necessity is (...) a wider development of qualitative analysis for a better knowledge of religious dynamics. (shrink)

Journal of International Political Theory, Ahead of Print. Since the end of the Cold War, a number of authors have affirmed the relevance of Carl Schmitt’s concept of Großraum for contemporary international politics. This article reviews those claims and argues that Großraum has little to offer in analytical terms to enhance our understanding of the international political situation in this early twenty-first century. Those authors who wish to revive Großraum for the sake of their theoretical work overlook vitally important components (...) of this concept. Furthermore, their claims fail to meet the criteria of Reinhart Koselleck’s structural iterability. (shrink)

Este trabajo tiene como objetivo presentar la cuestión de las habitualidades en la fenomenología de Husserl para pensar la génesis de la reflexión en nuestro mundo actual. En un primer momento, y principalmente a partir de libros primero y segundo de las Ideas relativas a una fenomenología pura y una filosofía fenomenológica, se revisarán el concepto de yo en Husserl en dos de sus dimensiones principa-les: el yo como polo idéntico de las vivencias y el yo como substrato de las (...) habitualidades. Después realizaremos un análisis sobre la génesis de las habitualidades y su repercusión en el concepto de yo puro. Por último se ejemplificará esta cuestión en el caso de la reflexión, especialmente en el caso de una posible génesis negativa de la reflexión en forma de reflexi-vidad ritual o hiperreflexividad. Con ello se quiere establecer una línea de conexión entre la subjetividad trascendental y nuestro mundo concreto, así como entre la fenomenología y la psicopatología.The aim of this work is to present the question regarding to the habitualities in Husserl´s Phenomenology in order to think the genesis of reflection in our present world. In a first stage, and specially acording to the first and second book of Ideas [...] the concept of "I" will be considered in its two main dimen-sions: the I as identical pole of the lived-experiences and the "I" as substratum of habitualities. Afterwards, I will perfom an analysis on the genesis of the habitualities and its consecuences in the in the concept of pure I. In the last part this question will be ejemplied though the case of reflection in the form of a Ritual Reflectivity or Hypereflectivity. Whitin I would like to suggest the link conection be-tween the trascendental subjectivity and our concrete world, and the phenomenology and psychopathology relationship as well. (shrink)

La question de l'articulation du général et du particulier n'a pas qu'une dimension épistémologique, elle commande aussi la résolution du problème du rapport entre théorie et pratique éclairée, et ceci dans la mesure où la pratique s'exerce toujours sur des processus ou des phénomènes individués. Après avoir réalisé un examen critique de trois tentatives de réponse à cette question — l'approche positiviste traditionnelle, celle fondée sur la notion de « modèle » et celle, weberienne, qui fait appel aux « types (...) idéaux » —, nous envisageons cette articulation comme rapport particulier entre concepts théoriques — portant sur des déterminations ou objets abstraits-formels —, et concepts empiriques — portant sur celles de la singularité des objets concrets —. Cette solution méthodologique est présentée via la construction d'un concept exemplaire, celui de « formation sociale », et l'analyse de son fonctionnement dans l'étude d'un cas concret, à savoir les sociétés latino-américaines.The articulation of the general and the particular is not a question merely of epistemology. It also comprises a relation between theory and enlightened practice to the extent that processes and individualized phenomena always take place in practice. In this paper we examine critically three approaches to this question of articulation: that of traditional positivism, that based on the notion of "model" and that of Weberian "ideal types". We propose that this articulation is a particular relation between theoretical concepts relating to formal abstract objects or determinations and empirical concepts relating to particular determinations of concrete objects. We illustrate this methodological solution with the concept of "social formation" examining the sense in which it applies to the concrete case of Latin American societies. (shrink)