The Purpose in Life Test is a measure of purpose in life widely used in many cultures and countries; however, cross-cultural assessments are scarce. The present study aimed to evaluate the cross-cultural measurement invariance of the PIL in the general population of seven Latin American countries. A total of 4306 people participated, selected by non-probabilistic convenience sampling, where Uruguay has the highest mean age ; while Ecuador has the lowest mean age. Furthermore, in each country, there is a higher proportion (...) of women than men. Using Multi-Group Confirmatory Factor Analysis, the factorial structure does not show evidence of invariance among the included countries. However, based on the Multi-Group Factor Analysis Alignment, there is evidence that a three-dimensional structure of the PIL is the same in the participating countries. Results based on item response theory indicate that most PIL items can significantly differentiate responses according to the level of life purpose. In addition, people with low life purpose will tend to choose the lower response alternatives on the PIL; while people with higher life purpose will choose higher response alternatives. The findings indicate that the PIL has the potential to increase knowledge about how people conceive and experience their purpose in life in different countries. (shrink)

Ofrezco una reflexión sobre la virtud, entendida como clave del crecimiento humano, tanto en su faceta más genérica o filosófica como en su vertiente transcendente y cristiana. Primero, clarifico la pluralidad y la coordinación de las antropologías y de la ética de cara a una comprensión de la virtud como realización de valores. El resto de este ensayo se centra en las virtudes de la confianza, la esperanza y el amor. La unidad de éstas culmina en su específica dimensión cristiana. (...) Por fin, situados en esta antropología teológica de las virtudes, abordamos la racionalidad y la operatividad inherentes a dicha vivencia unitaria de la virtud en tres de sus más destacados aspectos. (shrink)

There is a gap between the most abstract approach of Philosophy of language and the empirical information of language sciences. An intermediate level of abstraction and a bridge between Philosophy of language and language sciences is precisely Philosophy of languages. How can we come forward in philosophizing on language, if we are not able to philosophize on particular languages?. Language is nothing but the interrelated sum of languages. Philosophy of languages set out from the fact that every language has a (...) philosophical identity. Therefore, we should be much more conscious of the great relevance of every particular language for philosophical speech. A language is not a neutral tool for deep thinking. The core of a language is its Philosophy, a philosophicalperspective. Thus, a language has to give an implicit general orientation to whatever speech that is performed or written with its syntactic rules and concepts. A language is the framework, the atmosphere, the environment of every deep thinking (Philosophy or Theology). It is the deepest root of every deep thought. All of that can be analyzed in basic concepts like “to be” or “essence”. (shrink)

Tocar los porqués últimos de la técnica, filosofar sobre ella, requiere un concepto radical de la misma, así como un autoexamen de la filosofía hacia sus propias "técnicas". Desde tal radicalidad estudiamos sobre la técnica: su surgimiento a partir de los límites humanos y su historicidad ; sus raíces en el ser y las transformaciones de éste ; su construcción racional ; sus géneros, técnicas del ser y técnicas del tener ; y su último alcance, en cuanto a las posibles (...) raíces ateas en la técnica. (shrink)

Este artigo revisa a idéia de filosofia “medieval” and põe ênfase na variedade de significados daquela palavra. O autor crê que necessitamos de uma nova terminologia para aquele período da história do pensamento e sugere, por razões históricas, as expressões “United Age” e “Formation Age”. Em todo o artigo prevalece uma tentativa de compreender a natureza da atividade filosófica e da história da filosofia.

The article reviews research between 1999 and 2013 with the aim of knowing the epistemological foundations of research on distributed leadership, with special interest in education studies. We conclude it is an area in developing, with potential, but its empirical foundations are weak and methodological strategies are not always explicit, making it difficult to evaluate their findings somewhat. With respect to the theoretical basis, much of the research finds their sustenance in Engeström’s activity theory and Hutchins’s distributed cognition. The importance (...) of distributed leadership studies is its growing influence in the administration of colleges and universities, making these studies, a major political issue. El artículo revisa investigaciones entre los años 1999 y 2013 con el objetivo de conocer las bases epistemológicas de la investigación en liderazgo distribuido, con especial interés en estudios de educación. Se concluye que es un campo en formación, con potencial, pero que sus bases empíricas son débiles y sus estrategias metodológicas no siempre están explícitas, lo que dificulta un poco evaluar sus descubrimientos. Con respecto a las bases teóricas, gran parte de las investigaciones encuentran su sustento en la teoría de la actividad de Engeström y la teoría de la cognición distribuida de Hutchins. La importancia de los estudios de liderazgo distribuido es su creciente influencia en la administración de colegios y universidades, lo que hace de estos estudios un tema de gran relevancia política. (shrink)

Comentamos aquí una obra de arte, la ¿Apoteosis de Santo Tomás¿ desde un amplio marco de reflexión. Sin duda, al contemplar, todos partimos de un horizonte intelectual y emocional. Intentamos hacerlo consciente, desarrollarlo, matizarlo, examinarlo. El horizonte de contemplación estética late y vivifica como un corazón, con independencia de lo que examinemos.

Este artículo revisa aportes recientes en el campo de las ciencias cognitivas en relación al diseño del hábitat construido. Primeramente se describen los principales paradigmas teóricos que han animado el debate sobre cognición y conducta humanas durante las últimas décadas, para luego examinar las posibles aplicaciones de estas teorías en la arquitectura y el urbanismo, particularmente en torno a la capacidad de orientarnos y movernos en el medio construido.

The Next Release Problem (NRP) is a combinatorial optimization problem that aims to find a subset of software requirements to be delivered in the next software release, which maximize the satisfaction of a list of clients and minimize the effort required by developers to implement them. Previous studies have applied various metaheuristics, mostly genetic algorithms. Estimation of Distribution Algorithms (EDA), based on probabilistic modelling, have been proved to obtain good results in problems where genetic algorithms struggle. In this paper we (...) propose to adapt three EDAs to tackle the multi-objective NRP in a fast and effective way. Results show that EDAs can be applicable to solve the NRP with rather good quality of solutions. Furthermore, we prove that their execution time can be significantly reduced using a per-iteration solution subset selection method while maintaining the overall quality of the solutions obtained, and they perform the best when limiting the search time as in an interactive tool that requires fast responsiveness. The experimental framework, code and datasets have been made public in a code repository. (shrink)

Health has an important role in the achievement of a good quality of life. Many public policies intended to enhance individual and population health. Amartya Sen’s Capability Approach (CA) offers a framework to assess well-being, as well as interventions seeking to increase it. There are, however, important practical challenges that must be faced before applying CA to concrete situations, such as health. One of these challenges is defining whether it is functioning or a capability that is the feature to be (...) assessed. Moreover, some aspects of freedom that are relevant for CA are frequently neglected, such as agency. These aspects must be considered when performing a health assessment using the CA as a framework. A health assessment using the CA as a framework should include indicators based on the achieved dimension (health functioning), resources and conversion factors (health capability), and freedom to achieve (agency). (shrink)

This paper examines employees’ reactions to Corporate Social Responsibility programs at the attitudinal level. The results presented are drawn from an in-depth study of two Chilean construction firms that have well-established CSR programs. Grounded theory was applied to the data prior to the construction of the conceptual framework. The analysis shows that the implementation of CSR programs generates two types of attitudes in employees: attitudes toward the organization and attitudes toward society. These two broad types of attitudes can then be (...) broken down into four different categories : acceptance of the new role of the organization, identification with the organization, importance attached to the work performed and a sense of social justice. In turn, each of these categories is a grouping of many different concepts, some of which have at first sight little to do with CSR. Finally, the analysis reveals an attitudinal employee typology: the committed worker, the indifferent worker, and the dissident worker. (shrink)

Most research studying the corporate social performance –corporate financial performance link has utilized developed country samples. Also, this literature has generally focused on a wide variety of industries, ignoring the fact that certain sectors – such as controversial industries – have graver social and environmental issues. Hence, a gap exists in this tradition when it comes to emerging markets and controversial industries. This paper attempts to fill this void by providing preliminary evidence and insight on the matter. Based on an (...) exploration in six Latin American countries and five controversial industries, we find a negative bidirectional association between CSP and CFP. These results tend to contradict the mainstream conclusion of a positive bidirectional link, suggesting that institutional and market-level forces play a major role in shaping this relationship. (shrink)

Business Ethics: A European Review, EarlyView.

Three ethics program components, a code of ethics, ethics training initiatives and ethics-oriented performance appraisal content, were examined for their relationship to ethical intent using a sample of 525 employees from the Spanish financial services industry. As expected, all three components contributed to the prediction of ethical intent. Importantly, clusters of employees who reported experiencing distinct combinations of the program components were identified and compared for their level of ethical intent. Employees who perceived all three components to be strongly implemented (...) reported significantly higher levels of ethical intent relative to those who viewed the components as either all weakly implemented or not present. Combinations including training initiatives plus one other element had a similar impact to the fully implemented approach. Contrary to expectations, ethics-oriented performance appraisal content did not relate more strongly to ethical intent than codes of ethics. (shrink)

Despite the diagnostic relevance of thought insertion for disorders such as schizophrenia, the debates about its aetiology are far from resolved. This paper claims that in paying exclusive attention to the perceptual and cognitive impairments leading to delusional experiences in general, current deficit approaches overlook the role that affective disturbances might play in giving rise to cases of thought insertion. In the context of psychosis, affective impairments are often characterized as a consequence of the stress and anxiety caused by delusional (...) episodes. However, here I explore some of the conceptual and empirical reasons to think that affective problems might in fact play a crucial doxastic role in the aetiology of thought insertion. Finally, I conclude by proposing a way of integrating the main insights of my analysis with the current ‘two-factor’ deficit approach to thought insertion and I explore the potential adaptive role that some delusions might have within this framework. (shrink)

Delusions are a heterogenous transdiagnostic phenomenon with a higher prevalence in schizophrenia. One of the most fundamental debates surrounding the philosophical understanding of delusions concerns the question about the type of mental state in which reports that we label as delusional are grounded, namely, the typology problem. The formulation of potential answers for this problem seems to have important repercussions for experimental research in clinical psychiatry and the development of psychotherapeutic tools for the treatment of delusions in clinical psychology. Problematically, (...) such alternatives are scattered in the literature, making it difficult to follow the current development and state of the target discussion. This paper offers an updated critical examination of the alternatives to the typology problem currently available in the literature. After clarifying the two main philosophical views underlying the dominant formulation of the debate (interpretivism and functionalism), we follow the usual distinction between doxastic (the idea that delusions are a type of belief) and anti-doxastic views. We then introduce two new sub-distinctions; on the doxastic camp, we distinguish between revisionist and non-revisionist proposals; on the anti-doxastic camp, we distinguish between commonsensical and non-commonsensical anti-doxasticisms. After analyzing the main claims of each view, we conclude with some of the most fundamental challenges that remain open within the discussion. This article is categorized under: Philosophy > Foundations of Cognitive Science Philosophy > Consciousness Philosophy > Psychological Capacities Neuroscience > Cognition. (shrink)

La Comisión Mujeres y Ciencia del Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (CSIC) fue creada en 2002 como comisión asesora de la Presidencia para temas de género. En sus diez años de funcionamiento, la comisión ha contribuido a mejorar la carrera científica de las mujeres investigadoras del CSIC y a aumentar la visibilidad de los resultados de sus investigaciones. En este trabajo se resumen los orígenes y objetivos de esta comisión, así como las actividades realizadas desde 2002, y se analiza la (...) historia de la plantilla investigadora en ese periodo. Se recogen, también, los cambios producidos desde 2005 en la legislación española y europea en materia de igualdad de género. Al analizar específicamente los datos de la situación de las mujeres en 2003 y en 2012 desagregados por áreas de conocimiento, se muestra un avance en la proporción de mujeres en casi todas las áreas pero se está aún lejos del objetivo de paridad. El déficit en la presencia de mujeres es mayor en ciertas áreas y en el nivel profesional más alto, por lo que siguen siendo necesarias medidas activas para promover la igualdad, lo que a su vez contribuirá a la excelencia en las actividades científicas del CSIC. (shrink)

This paper explores the antecedents of intra-organizational social capital from a comprehensive perspective that integrates leadership as the main antecedent. To be precise, we propose that intra-organizational social capital is a direct consequence of an organizational ethical and community context to which leadership in the servant dimension plays a transcendental role. Indeed, since the seminal work of Greenleaf the servant leadership concept has been widespread among business academics and professionals for the value it brings to the organization not only in (...) ethical but also in excellence terms. Among the recent styles and theories on leadership up to date, servant leadership fits perfectly an organizational ethical context both at the organizational or group level, acting in addition as a main promoter of that context. Furthermore, servant leadership is linked to the cultivation of helpful, altruistic and servant attitudes among the employees which are useful elements in the generation of social capital inside the organization. A model then for understanding the causes of intra-organizational social capital with a focus on servant leadership is here elaborated from which conclusions and implications for Management will be delineated. (shrink)

A group of philosophers suggests that a sense of mineness intrinsically contained in the phenomenal structure of all conscious experiences is a necessary condition for a subject to become aware of himself as the subject of his experiences i.e. self-awareness. On this view, consciousness necessarily entails phenomenal self-awareness. This paper argues that cases of delusions of thought insertion undermine this claim and that such a phenomenal feature plays little role in accounting for the most minimal type of self-awareness entailed by (...) phenomenal consciousness. First, I clarify the main view endorsing this claim i.e. the Self-Presentational View of Consciousness and formulate the challenge from thought insertion. After, I offer a systematic evaluation of all the strategies used by the advocates of this view to deal with this challenge. Finally, I conclude that most of these strategies are unsatisfactory for they rest in unwarranted premises, imprecisions about the agentive nature of cognitive experiences, and especially, lack of distinction between the different ways in which subjects can become aware of their own thoughts. (shrink)

The concept of mental privacy can be defined as the principle that subjects should have control over the access to their own neural data and to the information about the mental processes and states that can be obtained by analyzing it. Our aim is to contribute to the current debate on mental privacy by identifying the main positions, articulating key assumptions and addressing central arguments. First, we map the different positions found in current literature. We distinguish between those who dismiss (...) concerns about mental privacy and those who endorse them. In this latter group, we establish a further disagreement between conservative and liberal strategies to protect mental privacy. Then, we address the first discussion by articulating and criticizing different skeptical views on mental privacy. Finally, we try to identify what are the unique features of neural data and examine how they may be connected to the ways in which neurotechnological mindreading could put mental privacy at risk. We suggest that even if neural data is unique, it may not require new strategies to protect people from its misuse. However, identifying the special features and risks of neurotechnological mind-reading is necessary for the second discussion on mental privacy to properly take off. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to review some implications of the work of the Frankfurt School theorist Franz Neumann, the author of Behemoth. The Structure and Practice of National Socialism (1942). Against the conception of National Socialism as a form of «state capitalism» (F. Pollock, M. Horkheimer), Neumann argues that German fascism should be read as a form of «totalitarian monopoly capitalism», that preserves the primacy of economic relations and threatens essential components of the modern idea of State. Neumann’s (...) study provides important insights into the current relationship between power, law and sovereignty. (shrink)

En el campo de la psicología ecológica, la noción de affordance refiere a la percepción de oportunidades para la acción en los objetos del entorno. Problemáticamente, la falta de unidad conceptual parece dominar la caracterización del fenómeno haciendo que su significado varíe drásticamente dependiendo del autor que hace uso de ella. Este artículo ofrece una exégesis sistemática al trabajo original de J.J. Gibson enfocándose en la pregunta sobre qué son las affordances y cuáles son sus componentes fundamentales. Finalmente, se propone (...) una clasificación que permitirá categorizar diversas alternativas contemporáneas del concepto según la forma en la cual entienden la relación entre tales componentes. (shrink)

Some nineteenth-century liberals declare that the "principle of freedom", which articulates the form of State they propose, requires the complement of other principles. This revisionist claim leads us to wonder about the way in which this principle has been understood and what has been its field of individual, social and political interference. The inquiry leads us to establish a connection between the principle of freedom and the struggle to overcome the regime of authority typical of the Ancien Régime and, specifically, (...) with the universal possibility of being able to exercise an economic activity beyond "corporate" tutelage or vassalage. In this way, the principle of liberty is linked to the new economic regime, markedly modern, which tries to find its own laws, beyond the administrative aspect, through the new analytical field inaugurated by the new political economy of the eighteenth-century économistes. The principle of freedom is confused, then, with laissez faire, but this maxim does not mean, at first, to defend the rule of possessive individualism, but is equivalent to the possibility of restricting the interference of discretionary and arbitrary political power in people's lives. However, despite being the principle of freedom, thus understood, the mainstay of the configuration of modern subjectivity and the root of the expansion of personality, it gives rise to certain antisocial behaviors that a good part of the same liberals will try to remedy through the regulatory action of other principles. In summary, by means of various sources that have been concerned with delimiting the meaning of liberal principles, which respond to different periods and ideologically opposed schools, we attempt to define the principle of freedom and, in turn, to show the positive and negative consequences that different interpreters have attributed to its application. (shrink)