In this paper we provide some keys for understanding the cryptic essay “Karl Kraus” by Walter Benjamin. For this purpose, we highlight the Kraus’s importance for the journalistic and political criticism that Benjamin was interested in, we introduce the reader to the three parts of the essay and we make a brief reflection on the construction of the concept of critique in Benjamin based on the work of Kraus.

En el presente trabajo intentaremos demostrar cómo el ejercicio filosófico de Platón se sustenta en la utilización de imágenes. En este sentido partimos de la idea de que las imágenes utilizadas por el filósofo en la República dan forma al contenido del diálogo. A su vez, estas imágenes están en función de la teoría de la Línea expuesta hacia la mitad del diálogo y se articulan en tres ejes según un aspecto de la realidad que se quiere destacar. A estas (...) imágenes las llamaremos impresionistas, realistas o románticas para acudir a la terminología propia de la estética del siglo XIX por ofrecernos rasgos definitorios que nos permitirán identificar los diversos usos de las imágenes en Platón. (shrink)

RESUMEN En este texto proponemos que el fundamento de la teoria mimética de René Girard, que le permitió construir una "antropología fundamental", se puede encontrar en el realismo estético. Expondremos algunas notas características de la relación mimética, para luego poder postular que Girard se opone no solo a la mentira romántica que evita aceptar la mimesis como elemento estructurador del deseo, sino también al falseamiento impresionista que oculta la violencia fundadora de las sociedades. Para esto, analizaremos su teoría de la (...) violencia mimética en dos de sus más importantes libros: Mentira romántica y verdad novelesca y La violencia y lo sagrado, y la expondremos de cara a los conceptos del Romanticismo, el Realismo y el Impresionismo, tomados de la historia del arte y la literatura. Por último, haremos una breve mención a la ausencia de evidencia empírica, como crítica a la antropología fundamental girardiana, para concluir que tal proceder no impide hablar de un realismo en esta teoría. ABSTRACT In this text, we propose that the basis of René Girard's mimetic theory, which allowed him to construct a "fundamental anthropology", can be found in Aesthetic Realism. We will expose some characteristic notes of the mimetic relation, to then be able to postulate that Girard opposes not only the romantic lie, which avoids accepting mimesis as a structuring element of desire but also the impressionistic falsification that hides the founding violence of societies. For this, we will analyze his theory of mimetic violence in two of his most important books, Romantic lie & romanesque truth [Deceit, Desire and the Novel: Selfand Other in Literary Structure] and Violence and the Sacred, and we will expose it facing the concepts of Romanticism, Realism and Impressionism, taken from the history of art and literature. Finally, we will briefly mention the absence of empirical evidence, as a criticism of Girardian fundamental anthropology, to conclude that this does not prevent us from speaking of realism in this theory. (shrink)

The purpose of this study is to train an artificial neural network model for predicting student failure in the academic leveling course of the Escuela Politécnica Nacional of Ecuador, based on academic and socioeconomic information. For this, 1308 higher education students participated, 69.0% of whom failed the academic leveling course; besides, 93.7% of the students self-identified as mestizo, 83.9% came from the province of Pichincha, and 92.4% belonged to general population. As a first approximation, a neural network model was trained (...) with twelve variables containing students’ academic and socioeconomic information. Then, a dimensionality reduction process was performed from which a new neural network was modeled. This dimension reduced model was trained with the variables application score, vulnerability index, regime, gender, and population segment, which were the five variables that explained more than 80% of the first model. The classification accuracy of the dimension reduced model was 0.745, while precision and recall were 0.883 and 0.778, respectively. The area under ROC curve was 0.791. This model could be used as a guide to lead intervention policies so that the failure rate in the academic leveling course would decrease. (shrink)

Resuelta evidente la desigualdad que ha develado la crisis sanitaria a nivel global. Sin embargo, no se trata de una fotografía actual, sino que ha puesto de manifiesto las falencias estructurales del sistema económico político global y, con ello, los devastadores efectos sobre el ser humano en todas sus dimensiones. Las consecuencias de la pandemia no son homogéneas dentro de una misma sociedad. Existen sectores que se han vuelto más ricos y otros más pobres. Las distancias en salud, bienestar y (...) dignidad de los individuos han aumentado y estamos ante una crisis de que esta injusticia se siga calcificando. El ser humano no sólo tiene que sobrevivir sino lograr la fundamental biopsicosocial realización tanto individual como colectiva. Por lo tanto, es imperativo, recuperar al Otro, al necesitado, dentro del discurso y, sobre todo, en la acción política, mirando al Otro como un fin en sí mismo, y no como un medio. Este es el origen y debe volver a ser la finalidad primordial de la política interna y externa de cada gobierno. Para ello, la reflexión filosófica nos proporciona nuevas perspectivas para reestructurar la realidad, cambiando, y mejorando, las escalas de valores y nuestro modo de actuar. La postpandemia nos plantea un único objetivo, el restaurar y reactivar las verdaderas relaciones intersubjetivas, rehumanizando al hombre, es decir, volviendo a la raíz de la esencia de toda sociedad, que no es otra que el ser humano mismo, como un fin en sí mismo. No se podrá lograr de manera inmediata, por lo tanto es fundamental recanalizar todas las herramientas e instituciones políticas hacia y para el bienestar del hombre, sin devastar su entorno, donde la reflexión filosófica es primordial para construir un nuevo mundo. (shrink)

The U.S. Supreme Court held 7-2 that an individual harmed by an overt act that is not tortious under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act does not have a civil cause of action under RICO. Therefore, an individual terminated from his job in furtherance of a racketeering conspiracy does not have a civil cause of action, since such termination is not an “independently wrongful” act under RICO.The plaintiff, Robert Beck, was the president, CEO, director, and shareholder of (...) Southeastern Insurance Group. The defendants, including Ronald Prupis, were senior officers and directors of SIG. In 1998, the plaintiff discovered that the defendants were engaged in racketeering. The racketeering activities included refusing to qualify contractors for SIG surety bonds unless they paid fees to SIG; diverting corporate funds for their personal use; and providing regulators, shareholders, and creditors with false financial statements. (shrink)

A primary issue in the field of business and society over the past 25 years has been the relationship between corporate social performance and corporate financial performance. Recently, Griffin and Mahon (1997) presented a table categorizing studies that have investigated this relationship. Motivated by concerns with this table, as well as a desire to account for progress in research in this area, the authors reconstructed it. The authors present a portrait of this relationship that is (a) substantially different from that (...) shown in the Griffin and Mahon table and (b) more consistent with the latest research on the topic. (shrink)

In this paper, I will develop a nontrivial interpretation of Feyerabend's concept of a hidden anomalous fact. Feyerabend's claim is that some anomalous facts will remain hidden in the absence of alternatives to the theories to be tested. The case of Brownian motion is given by Feyerabend to support this claim. The essential scientific difficulty in this case was the justification of correct and relevant descriptions of Brownian motion. These descriptions could not be simply determined from the available observational data. (...) An examination, however, of this case shows that no alternative theory is or historically was thought to be necessary in order to justify descriptions of Brownian motion that "directly" refute thermodynamics. While Feyerabend's appraisal of this case therefore is incorrect, a sense is developed in which successful alternatives lend inductive support to the correctness of refuting experimental descriptions. Crucial though to the explanation of this support is the notion of arguments that show the possibilities for improving experimental fit. (shrink)

I begin by arguing that a consistent general naturalism must be understood in terms of methodological maxims rather than metaphysical doctrines. Some specific maxims are proposed. I then defend a generalized naturalism from the common objection that it is incapable of accounting for the normative aspects of human life, including those of scientific practice itself. Evolutionary naturalism, however, is criticized as being incapable of providing a sufficient explanation of categorical moral norms. Turning to the epistemological norms of science itself, particularly (...) those governing the empirical testing of specific models, I argue that these should be regarded as conditional rather than categorical and that, as such, can be given a naturalistic justification. The justification, however, is more cognitive than evolutionary. The historical development of science is found to be a better place for applying evolutionary ideas. After briefly considering the possibility of a naturalistic understanding of mathematics and logic, I turn to the problem of reconciling scientific realism with an evolutionary picture of scientific development. The solution, I suggest, is to understand scientific knowledge as being “perspectival” rather than absolutely objective. I first argue that scientific observation, whether by humans or instruments, is perspectival. This argument is extended to scientific theorizing which is regarded not as the formulation of universal laws of nature but as the construction of principles to be used in the construction of models to be applied to specific natural systems. The application of models, however, is argued to be not merely opportunistic but constrained by the methodological presumption that we live in a world with a definite causal structure even though we can understand it only from various perspectives. (shrink)

Discourse around assisted colonization focuses on the ecological risks, costs, and uncertainties associated with the practice, as well as on its technical feasibility and alternative approaches to it. Nevertheless, the ethical underpinnings of the case for assisted colonization are claims about the value of species. A complete discussion of assisted colonization needs to include assessment of these claims. For each type of value that species are thought to possess it is necessary to determine whether it is plausible that species possess (...) the type of value and, if so, to what extent their possessing it justifies assisted colonization. I conducted such an assessment for each of the predominant types of value ascribed to species: ecological, instrumental (including option value), existence, and intrinsic value (including interest‐based, objective, and valuer‐dependent intrinsic value). The vast majority of species, including several that have been proposed as candidates for assisted colonization, have much less value than is often presumed. Moreover, with respect to some types of value, assisted colonization would not fully preserve the value of the target species even if it were to keep the target species in existence. Therefore, the case for assisted colonization is significantly weaker and more qualified than its advocates often suppose. There may be exceptional species for which assisted colonization is well justified—and for this reason, case‐by‐case assessment is necessary—but in general the burden of justification generated by the ecological risks associated with assisted colonization is not met by the value potentially preserved by assisted colonization. This suggests that assisted colonization ought to have, at most, a very minor role in the portfolio of ecosystem management practices, even as it pertains to species conservation under conditions of rapid climate change. (shrink)

In this paper we examine the meaning of the idea of human rights in the works of Kant and Habermas. As a starting point of this examination we take Rorty's Oxford Amnesty Lecture of 1993. In this lecture Rorty claims, among other things, that a Kantian foundationalist approach to human rights is outmoded. It is better to neglect the question concerning our nature as human beings and substitute it for the question what we can make of ourselves. Kant's account of (...) the equal respect that is due to every person, tends to forget that outside our circle of post-Enlightenment European culture most people do not understand why rational agency is a sufficient condition for membership in a moral community. The borders of our moral community are often enough the borders of our family, group or society and do not include every human being. This restriction of the moral community poses a serious challenge to Kantian moral and political theory. On the basis of an analysis of the idea of human rights and the principle of popular sovereignty in the works of Kant and Habermas we try to show that the main claim of both authors is not so much a claim to knowledge about the nature of human beings, but a claim to the counterfactual conditions of a system of rights. As legal subjects we cannot claim a right to equal liberty for ourselves and people like us and deny it to everyone outside the borders of our moral community. As legal subjects we may no longer choose the medium or the language in which we can actualize our autonomy. Every system of rights presupposes certain counterfactual conditions, among which a right to equal liberties, and a certain performative meaning. (shrink)

This paper constitutes my first attempt publicly to comment on Nancy Cartwright’s philosophy of science. That I have not done this earlier is primarily due to the great similarities in our views on topics where our interests overlap.2 But Cartwright’s work also covers topics I have never seriously considered, such as the use of linear models in economics and the measurement problem in quantum mechanics. Even the subject of probabilistic causation, to which I once contributed, is not one I now (...) feel confident in examining in any detail. I will concentrate, therefore, on her views regarding the nature of scientific theories, laws, models, and causality in general – topics at the forefront of my own current thinking. More specifically still, I will focus on the picture of classical mechanics she presents in The Dappled World (1999). (shrink)

The potential for dual use of research in the life sciences to be misused for harm raises a range of problems for the scientific community and policy makers. Various legal and ethical strategies are being implemented to reduce the threat of the misuse of research and knowledge in the life sciences by establishing a culture of responsible conduct.

Nurturing Creativity in the Classroom is a groundbreaking collection of essays by leading scholars, who examine and respond to the tension that many educators face in valuing student creativity but believing that they cannot support it given the curricular constraints of the classroom. Is it possible for teachers to nurture creative development and expression without drifting into curricular chaos? Do curricular constraints necessarily lead to choosing conformity over creativity? This book combines the perspectives of top educators and psychologists to generate (...) practical advice for considering and addressing the challenges of supporting creativity within the classroom. It is unique in its balance of practical recommendations for nurturing creativity and thoughtful appreciation of curricular constraints. This approach helps ensure that the insights and advice found in this collection will take root in educators' practice, rather than being construed as yet another demand placed on their overflowing plate of responsibilities. (shrink)

ExcerptI. Introduction The German political philosopher Carl Schmitt belongs to the class of political theorists, who maintain a tradition of separating the political from the moral.1 Drawing on the standard interpretation of Machiavelli2 and following the thinking of Hobbes,3 Schmitt makes two central claims that define his political theorization. The first claim is that the sovereign should possess “the monopoly to decide” what constitutes public order and security; the second claim is the use of the “friend-enemy” metaphor to characterize the (...) political.4 If the two claims are taken together, the logical corollary is that, on the…. (shrink)

When valuing any a esthetic manifestation of art, including contemporary Colombian Literature, it is necessary to discuss the concept of literary art which lays at the heart of any proposal. Such proposal allows us to find the causes of the loss of its universal character and its docility in relation to modern tendecies which suggest that ther is a shallow treatment of related topics. Therefore, based on four authoritative texts I attempt to define degree of universality that nacional (colombian) literature (...) has reached. (shrink)

Consider a physical system for which a mathematically rigorous geometric quantization procedure exists. Now subject the system to a finite set of irreducible first class (bosonic) constraints. It is shown that there is a mathematically rigorous BRST quantization of the constrained system whose cohomology at ghost number zero recovers the constrained quantum states. Moreover this space of constrained states has a well-defined Hilbert space structure inherited from that of the original system. Treatments of these ideas in the physics literature are (...) more general but suffer from having states with infinite or zero "norms" and thus are not admissible as states. Also BRST operators for many systems require regularization to be well-defined. In our more restricted context, we show that our treatment does not suffer from any of these difficulties. (shrink)

The focus of these remarks is on the impact that Personal Knowledge and Philosophical Investigations had in shaping Bill Poteat’s philosophical voice. Of the two works, I claim that, for good or ill, it was Personal Knowledge that had the more profound influence on Poteat. Of course, both sources had profound influence. What makes Personal Knowledge more profound is that his use of it, at least in those early years, was more indirect than his direct and explicit use of Wittgenstein’s (...) ideas. Following Bill’s lead, there is much thatPolanyians can learn from Wittgenstein and vice versa. (shrink)