The price of copper is unstable but it is considered an important indicator of the global economy. Changes in the price of copper point to higher global growth or an impending recession. In this work, the forecasting of the spot prices of copper from the New York Commodity Exchange is studied using a machine learning method, support vector regression coupled with different model schemas (recursive, direct and hybrid multi-step). Using these techniques, three different time series analyses are built and its (...) performance are compared. The numerical results show that the hybrid direct-recursive obtains the best results. (shrink)

BackgroundComorbidity between diabetes mellitus and depression is highly prevalent. The risk of depression in a person with diabetes is approximately twice that of a person without this disease. Depression has a major impact on patient well-being and control of diabetes. However, despite the availability of effective and specific therapeutic interventions for the treatment of depression in people with diabetes, 50% of patients do not receive psychological treatment due to insufficient and difficult accessibility to psychological therapies in health systems. The use (...) of information and communication technologies has therefore been proposed as a useful tool for the delivery of psychological interventions, but it continues to be a field in which scientific evidence is recent and controversial. This systematic review aims to update the available information on the efficacy of psychological interventions delivered through ICTs to improve depressive symptomatology in patients with diabetes.MethodsA systematic review of the literature was performed following the PRISMA guidelines and using MEDLINE, Embase, PubMed, Web of Science, PsycINFO, Scopus, and Cochrane Library databases to search for randomized clinical trials of eHealth treatments for patients with diabetes and comorbid depression from 1995 through 2020. In addition, studies related to follow-up appointments were identified. Inclusion criteria were as follows: randomized clinical trials ; patients with type 1 and type 2 diabetes; adult population over 18 years of age; presence of depressive symptomatology assessed with standardized instruments; treatments for depression based on established psychotherapeutic techniques and principles; delivered through eHealth technologies. We did not limit severity of depressive symptomatology, delivery setting or comparison group. Two coauthors independently reviewed the publications identified for inclusion and extracted data from the included studies. A third reviewer was involved to discuss discrepancies found. The PEDro scale was used to assess the quality of the RCTs. No meta-analysis of the results was performed. The protocol used for this review is available in PROSPERO.ResultsThe initial search identified 427 relevant scientific publications. After removing duplicates and ineligible citations, a total of 201 articles were analyzed in full text. Ten articles met the criteria of this review and were included, obtaining very good scientific quality after evaluation with the PEDro scale. The main results show that the eHealth psychological intervention for depression in patients with diabetes showed beneficial effects both at the end of treatment and in the short and long term for the improvement of depressive symptomatology. The methodology used was very heterogeneous. However, all studies were based on cognitive-behavioral tools and used standardized assessment instruments to evaluate depressive symptomatology or diagnosis of MDD. Glycemic control was assessed by glycosylated hemoglobin, but no benefits were found in improving glycemic control. Only four studies included psychoeducational content on diabetes and depression, but none used tools to improve or enhance adherence to medical prescriptions or diabetes self-care.ConclusionsICT-based psychological interventions for the treatment of depression in people with diabetes appear to be effective in reducing depressive symptomatology but do not appear to provide significant results with regard to glycemic control. Nonetheless, the scientific evidence reported to date is still very limited and the methodology very diverse. In addition, no studies have implemented these systems in routine clinical practice, and no studies are available on the economic analysis of these interventions. Future research should focus on studying and including new tools to ensure improvements in diabetes outcomes and not only on psychological well-being in order to advance knowledge about these treatments. Economic evaluations should also be undertaken to analyze whether these treatment programs implemented using eHealth technologies are cost-effective. (shrink)

Manuel Castells: un elogio emocional e inofensivo de las movilizaciones de protestaCuatro observaciones preliminares sirven para enmarcar una lectura crítica de la obra reciente de Manuel Castells, Redes de indignación y esperanza. En primer lugar este género de elogio exaltado e inofensivo de las movilizaciones de protesta actuales en el mundo ha dado lugar en muy poco tiempo a una amplia literatura, pero también ha suscitado no pocas críticas, ya que se trata por general de estudios y traba..

En el siglo XX y en especial en este momento de transición, algunos artistas han retomado los hechos históricos y en varios casos los horrores de la humanidad para plantearse preguntas sobre el hombre del hoy y del mañana. En el artículo se planteará una reflexión particular, exponiendo la relación entre las artes escénicas y los conflictos humanos, políticos y sociales. Adicionalmente se expondrá la recreación de hechos históricos, temas y personajes, como base para la reflexión y la renovación de (...) la esperanza y de la memoria. (shrink)

La única forma de situarse hoy ante el profesor cristiano es considerarlo como un tesoro escogido por el Señor, que le invita a ejercer un magisterio precioso: el de ser maestros en la fe. Desde esta actitud somos invitados a realizar una mirada crítica a la cultura pero desde una actitud positiva, constructiva. Los datos no apuntan a una gran influencia de la religión en la vida personal de los jóvenes. Parece que en los últimos años los jóvenes se han (...) vuelto más crédulos respecto a los métodos pseudorreligiosos. Este artículo presenta al educador cristiano como un artista que ha aprendido en la mesa de los sacramentos a descubrir y adorar a Dios en aquellos a los que sirve. No es fácil ser transmisor, pero tampoco imposible, y sobre todo es apasionante. (shrink)

The contents of two Egerton manuscripts are analyzed in this paper. One, dating from 1598, is part of the correspondence between Mariana and García de Loaysa. In it, Mariana recommends someone for his friend’s government, refers to some issues of ecclesiastical policy, to his future publications and also expresses his gratitude for a personal favour. The second manuscript, dating from 1599, contains an epitaph written by Mariana after the death of García de Loaysa, which includes biographical details and feelings of (...) a family and personal nature. It amounts to a portrait which is strikingly different from other far more negative ones that history has bequeathed us. (shrink)

This paper aims to inspect the political potential of Kant’s grounding of hope and its content breaks down in three parts. First, I give an account of Kant’s approach to right and hope as a rule for our judgments and actions, shedding light over the shift that Kant’s notion of the Highest Good undergoes from a theological framework to a political one, which makes of individuals the main feature of action. Second, I focus on the intergenerational exercise of imagination inasmuch (...) as it foreshadows the material and symbolic needs of the forthcoming generations, highlighting the key role it plays for addressing the political agency of hope. Moreover, I focus on the capacity of this kind of imagination to resist against the devices and (mis-)informative tendencies that lead human imagination to collapse as the headquarters of critical mental activity. Third, I address the epistemic framework that seems more adequate to continue drawing to hope as a promising tool to build up subjects conscious of the shortcomings of the world and the society they are embedded in. Finally, I display some concluding remarks about the interaction between material structures and culture of emotions as a key issue stemming from this enquiry of Kant’s conceptual legacy about hope. (shrink)

Este artículo está motivado por el problema de la responsabilidad colectiva frente a las acciones cometidas por nuestros antepasados y por la pregunta acerca de la legitimidad de las demandas de perdón. Acudiendo al universo conceptual heredado de Hannah Arendt, en este texto se aboga por el ejercicio de la capacidad de juicio como detonante tanto de la demanda de perdón como de la responsabilidad colectiva. El perdón se presenta así no solo como una categoría moral sino fundamentalmente política, imprescindible (...) para reconciliarse con lo acontecido y mirar al futuro con esperanza. (shrink)

El diálogo entre ética y religión es posible cuando se de la escatología, el sentido mesiánico y la esperanza en religiones, especialmente en el caso de la religión cristiana. Ernst Bloch afirma el enriquecimiento a partir del fenómeno religioso, con todos sus matices. Temas como una moral de advenimiento, el fin de la miseria, el amor a los enemigos, relativizar al "César", la introducción de la ética en la escatología, la comunidad fraterna (La Ciudad de Dios)... todos ellos pueden (...) ayudar a encontrar una ética común a partir del fenómeno religioso. (shrink)

Este artículo presenta cómo el arte y el amor, el arte de amar, hacer del amor un arte y tener corazón de artista es todo un reto para seguir soñando. El sueño se resiste a morir y continúa proyectando sus imágenes en cualquiera de los contextos antropológicos. Es la belleza una posibilidad para la esperanza, para crear, para engendrar de nuevo, para volver sobre lo más puro. Por encima de sueños tan intrascendentales y aburridos como el de la eterna (...) juventud la sociedad nos urge a soñar despiertos en la búsqueda de horizontes respirables, vivibles, globales y justos, donde la utopía de la fraternidad sea un poco menos mítica y se haga carne. Sueños soñados despiertos que hacen construir tras cimentar sobre razones que no tienen miedo al misterio, y que se abren ala obra creadora de Dios. Mucho es el sufrimiento que se observa tras una rápida mirada al mundo, pero mayores son los motivos para la esperanza, porque el hombre sigue soñando capaz de hacer arte y seguir amando. (shrink)

En primer lugar, el presente artículo analiza la potencialidad que tienen las prácticas artísticas y manifestaciones culturales desarrolladas en zonas periféricas, urbano-marginales de la ciudad de Guayaquil como un mecanismo de integración y cohesión social para prevenir la violencia. Para ello, metodológicamente se propone un abordaje cualitativo de experiencias desarrolladas en este campo por instituciones de cooperación al desarrollo, que trabajan en articulación con la Universidad de las Artes. Se parte entonces de la recopilación de evidencia documentada de ejecución de (...) proyectos, entrevistas y textos académicos, para luego desarrollar un análisis e interpretación de los procesos y resultados alcanzados en esas intervenciones realizadas principalmente en sectores como Isla Trinitaria y barrios del Noroeste de Guayaquil, sitios de alta conflictividad e inseguridad. En segundo lugar, se lleva a cabo un estudio analítico sobre algunos pensadores que tratan el tema de la violencia y de la paz. Estos estudios pueden iluminar y ofrecer herramientas teóricas para la resolución de conflictos. No todo está perdido y sin esperanza, es posible (re) construir y recuperar la armonía perdida. (shrink)

La característica más representativa de la música es su capacidad de generar emoción. Pero ¿por qué la música emociona? En este artículo mostramos los conocimientos actuales de la teoría musical y la neurociencia que intentan explicar las relaciones que existen entre la música y las emociones. En primer lugar, se repasan los conocimientos actuales sobre el procesamiento de los sonidos musicales a nivel cerebral y las posibles explicaciones del origen de la emoción musical, así como la contribución de los distintos (...) parámetros musicales a la generación de emociones, considerando estructuras musicales de nuestro mundo occidental. En segundo lugar, se presenta el canal táctil como un posible canal de transmisión de la emoción musical análogo al canal auditivo, pero con más limitaciones en la discriminación de frecuencias. Este acercamiento se produce desde la profunda fascinación que ejerce la música, con la esperanza de encontrar vías para explicar la transmisión de la emoción musical desde un canal alternativo. (shrink)

Estas líneas están escritas como homenaje a Ricardo Sánchez Ortiz de Urbina, con todo el cariño y con la esperanza de ser acogido con la benevolencia que demanda el ensayo. En todo caso, nunca podré dejar de agradecer a nuestro maestro que me permitiera salir sin brusquedad del encierro al que me había conducido el sujeto gnoseológico, el sujeto de la ciencia, siempre omnipresente en toda investigación. Siguiendo la estela de la matriz fenomenológica configurada por Urbina, entreví en (...) el nivel superior ―el nivel de máxima ambigüedad―, y mediante trasposiciones sucesivas, el origen humano de los celos, que desbordan el simple comportamiento o el mero afecto. Los celos como fondo siempre desbordante en el proceso que nunca concluye de fijación de la identidad humana. Un camino que habían recorrido, con los medios de que disponían, los escritores del Barroco español en el contexto de los conversos hispanos y Miguel de Cervantes como centro. (shrink)

Abstract:Our critics confuse the role normative ethical theory can take in business ethics. We argue that as a practical discipline, business ethics must focus on norms, not the theories from which the norms derive. It is true that our original work is defective, but not in its form, but in its neglect of contemporary advances in feminist ethics.

Let ‘semantic relevance’ be the thesis that the wide semantic properties of representational mental states (like beliefs and desires) are causally relevant to behavior. A popular way of arguing for semantic relevance runs as follows: start with a sufficient counterfactual condition for causal or explanatory relevance, and show that wide semantic properties meet it with respect to behavior (e.g., Loewer & Lepore (1987,1989), Rescorla (2014), Yablo (2003)).This paper discusses an in‐principle limitation of this strategy: even the most sophisticated counterfactual criteria (...) systematically misclassify irrelevant properties as relevant when they stand in certain kinds of modal co‐variation or ‘entanglement’ relations to genuinely relevant properties. This entanglement problem, I argue, is more general and more serious than proponents of the counterfactual strategy have recognized: it threatens recent interventionist arguments for semantic relevance, and is not easily solved by appeal to proportionality or naturalness. I end by suggesting that proponents of semantic relevance may need to shift their attention from patterns of counterfactuals to the lawful psychological generalizations that explain them. (shrink)

Este artículo se inscribe en la discusión sobre el productivismo académico y aporta una propuesta para una vida buena en la academia. Se entiende el productivismo académico como la orientación de las labores académicas limitada a la rentabilidad y a los resultados tangibles que lleva a su instrumentalización, automatización, y a distintos perjuicios éticos, sociales, de salud, entre otros. También, entendemos la vida buena en la academia como un estado de equilibrio entre las fuerzas y necesidades de quienes la componen, (...) equilibrio disponible a actualizarse constantemente. Se exponen los perjuicios que acarrea el productivismo académico, a propósito del cual se presenta una propuesta para favorecer la vida buena en la academia, retomando las perspectivas de la buena artesanía, el disfrute, la resonancia y el cuidado propio, de los otros y del mundo. (shrink)

This paper presents a pilot study that explores instances of objectless awareness during sleep: conscious experiences had during sleep that prima facie lack an object of awareness. This state of objectless awareness during sleep has been widely described by Indian contemplative traditions and has been characterised as a state of consciousness-as-such; while in it, there is nothing to be aware of, one is _merely_ conscious (cf. Evans-Wentz, 1960 ; Fremantle, 2001 ; Ponlop, 2006 ). While this phenomenon has received different (...) names in the literature, such as ‘witnessing-sleep’ and ‘clear light sleep’ among others, the specific phenomenological profile of this state has not yet been rigorously studied. This paper aims at presenting a preliminary investigation of objectless consciousness during sleep using a novel tool in qualitative research that can guide future research. Five participants experiencing objectless consciousness during sleep were interviewed following the _Micro-phenomenological Interview_ technique (MPI; Petitmengin, 2005, 2006 ). All participants reported an experience they had during sleep in which there was no scenery and no dream. This period labelled as ‘No Scenery/Void’ was either preceded by the dissolution of a lucid dream or by other forms of conscious mentation. The analysis of the results advances four experiential dimensions during this state of void, namely (1) Perception of absence, (2) Self-perception, (3) Perception of emotions, and (4) Perception of awareness. While the results are primarily explorative, they refer to themes found in the literature to describe objectless sleep and point at potential avenues of research. The results from this study are taken as indications to guide future operationalisations of this phenomenon. (shrink)

In recent years, character traits in general and virtue-related concepts in particular have been of considerable interest to philosophers, psychological researchers, and practitioners in the business ethics field. Three approaches to character traits can be used to incorporate ethics into organizations: virtues, character strengths, and competencies. The aim of this article is to clarify the concept of character traits, or virtues, and provide a unified operational version of it for incorporation into management. To this end, we first discuss the analogy (...) among virtues, character strengths, and competencies. Then, we propose a list of moral competencies that can be implemented in competency-based human resource management. (shrink)

Recent years have seen a heightened focus on the study of minimal forms of awareness during sleep to advance the study of consciousness and understand what makes a state conscious. This focus draws on an increased interest in anecdotical descriptions made by classic Indian philosophical traditions about unusual forms of awareness during sleep. For instance, in the so-called state of witnessing-sleep or luminosity sleep, one is said to reach a state that goes beyond ordinary dreaming and abide in a state (...) of just awareness, a state in which one is not aware of anything else other than one’s own awareness. Moreover, for these traditions, this state is taken to be the essence or background of consciousness. Reports on such a state opens the door to exciting new lines of research in the study of consciousness, such as inquiry into the so-called “objectless” awareness during sleep—states of awareness that lack an ordinary object of awareness. In this two-staged research project, we attempted to find the phenomenological blueprints of such forms of awareness during sleep in 18 participants by conducting phenomenological interviews, informed by a novel tool in qualitative research, the micro-phenomenological interview (MPI) method. Following a phenomenological analysis, we isolated a similar phase across 12 reported experiences labelled as ‘nothingness phase’ since it described what participants took to be an experience of ‘nothingness’. his common phase was characterised by minimal sense of self—a bodiless self, yet experienced as being ‘somewhere’—, the presence of non-modal sensations, relatively pleasant emotions, an absence of visual experience, wide and unfocused attention, and an awareness of the state as it unfolded. (shrink)

This paper explores various notions of aesthetic affordance recently developed through embodied, situated and enactive approaches to aesthetic experience by Maria Brincker and Shaun Gallagher, and the similarities and differences between them and the idea of affective affordance put forward by Joel Krueger and Giovanna Colombetti. This discussion is a way to try to offer some answers to the question of what aesthetic affordances particularly afford compared to affective affordances. I will focus on the affordances that we perceive during various (...) aesthetic experiences in which we find ourselves more moved by the object, event or person(s) causing the experience than we had anticipated. I will argue that these experiences emerge as opportunities to carry out an active exploration of aspects of the narrative self that we feel is related to features of the experience; and that one particular brain network likely to be involved in these experiences – i.e. the default network – might help us to understand how these experiences meaningfully change our relationship with ourselves and with the social context of which we are a part. (shrink)

En este artículo nos proponemos, por un lado, examinar cómo las tecnologías del yo podrían ayudar a la persona en la consecución de ciertos principios que forjen el carácter ético de la acción, en el escenario público-político; y, por otro, analizar las posibilidades del ser humano en la conquista de sí mismo mediante la articulación de los componentes antropológicos, epistemológicos y tecnológicos que conducen a la superación de los efectos devastadores de las superficialidad noética y existencial. Se trata, entonces, de (...) orientar las tecnologías del yo hacia la conquista de la libertad interior y el cuidado de sí mismo en el espacio público-político. En este sentido, la pregunta guía de esta investigación documental puede enunciarse en los siguientes términos: ¿En qué condiciones las tecnologías del yo, entendidas como ejercicio del cuidado de sí mismo, podrán articularse para ampliar la libertad interior del ser humano contemporáneo en el espacio público-político? Así pues, la tesis que orienta este escrito es que para contrarrestar los efectos aniquiladores de la superficialidad noética y existencial es necesario la ejercitación de las tecnologías del yo, para la construcción y formación de un sujeto de verdad y de acción en el escenario público-político, que sea capaz de lograr la conquista de la libertad interior. (shrink)

En este artículo exponemos los presupuestos que permiten una reflexión crítica sobre la esfera pública desde una perspectiva marxista. Hemos partido de la consideración del contexto de discusión reciente sobre las ideas políticas de Marx y de la relevancia del concepto de esfera pública para mostrar la importancia de algunos de sus conceptos críticos para la filosofía política. El texto es producto de una investigación dedicada a la elaboración de un marco conceptual que persigue el desarrollo de un análisis crítico (...) de la esfera pública en la actualidad y en el que se ha establecido que algunas cuestiones claves, vinculadas a los conceptos de lenguaje y experiencia, se encontraban presentes en la obra de Marx. En este sentido, el texto presenta una novedosa reflexión al tratar la actualidad del pensamiento de Marx desde el análisis de un problema político contemporáneo que permite poner en evidencia las implicaciones críticas y radicales que poseen sus fundamentos filosófico-críticos para los discursos y las instituciones políticas contemporáneas como la esfera pública. (shrink)

Se revisan las prácticas fotográficas en los territorios asociados a la producción y sus consecuencias en el Chile contemporáneo, incluyendo cómo se hizo la selección y categorización del campo para construir un cuerpo de estudio con 28 casos. Con este se opera un análisis crítico, actualizándolo dentro de la discusión que ubica a la fotografía tensada entre la producción de «obra» y la de «documentos», y se recurre a las «poéticas de la fotografía del paisaje» propuestas por Santos Zunzunegui. Así (...) se hace evidente cómo la veladura del hecho estético sobre la fotografía deja ver, debajo de ella, el dolor irritante de la destrucción del paisaje, y los trabajos seleccionados devienen ora obras, ora documentos, para atraer la mirada y, al ser mirados, evidenciar el daño humano sobre el paisaje. (shrink)

In this study, we used the framework of institutional anomie theory The future of anomie theory, Northeastern University Press, Boston, 1997) to examine the relationship between supervisors’ ethics and their personal value orientation, including achievement and pecuniary materialism. We further investigated whether these individual-level associations were moderated by societal factors consisting of income inequality, government efficiency, foreign competition, and technological advancement. Hierarchical linear modeling was used to analyze data of 16,464 supervisors from 42 nations obtained from the 2010–2014 wave of (...) the World Values Survey. Results showed that strong achievement value orientation was positively related to willingness to justify ethically suspect behaviors; government efficiency and technological advancement, respectively, had negative and positive moderating effects on this relationship. On the other hand, foreign competition had a positive moderating effect on the association between pecuniary materialism and ethicality. (shrink)

Desde la convivencia de "distintos" se construye lo político dimensión antagónica, sustancialmente trágica, ineludible campo de hostilidad en las sociedades humanas. Sobre estas consideraciones, reflexionamos sobre el asunto de la sociología que hacemos, sobre cómo construimos y leemos nuestras real..

Urban Digital Twins (UDTs) have become the new buzzword for researchers, planners, policymakers, and industry experts when it comes to designing, planning, and managing sustainable and efficient cities. It encapsulates the last iteration of the technocratic and ultra-efficient, post-modernist vision of smart cities. However, while more applications branded as UDTs appear around the world, its conceptualization remains ambiguous. Beyond being technically prescriptive about what UDTs are, this article focuses on their aspects of interaction and operationalization in connection to people in (...) cities, and how enhanced by metaverse ideas they can deepen societal divides by offering divergent urban experiences based on different stakeholder preferences. Therefore, firstly this article repositions the term UDTs by comparing existing concrete and located applications that have a focus on interaction and participation, including some that may be closer to the concept of UDT than is commonly assumed. Based on the components found separately in the different studied cases, it is possible to hypothesize about possible future, more advanced realizations of UDTs. This enables us to contrast their positive and negative societal impacts. While the development of new immersive interactive digital worlds can improve planning using collective knowledge for more inclusive and diverse cities, they pose significant risks not only the common ones regarding privacy, transparency, or fairness, but also social fragmentation based on urban digital multiplicities. The potential benefits and challenges of integrating this multiplicity of UDTs into participatory urban governance emphasize the need for human-centric approaches to promote socio-technical frameworks able to mitigate risks as social division. (shrink)

Recently, the construct ‘lucid dreamless sleep’ has been proposed to explain the state of ‘clear light’ described by Tibetan Buddhist traditions, a special state of consciousness during deep sleep in which we’re told to be able to recognise the nature or essence of our mind (Padmasambhava & Gyatrul 2008; Ponlop 2006; Wangyal 1998). To explain the sort of awareness experienced during this state, some authors have appealed to the sort of lucidity acquired during lucid dreaming and suggested a link between (...) both phenomena (Thompson 2014, 2015; Windt 2015a; Windt et al. 2016). Whilst these authors appeal to a non-conceptually mediated form of lucidity, which doesn’t consist of reflective awareness and propositional thought, the question as to whether the state of clear light should be considered a lucid state similar to lucid dreaming still arises. I argue that the concept ‘lucidity’ used to describe this sort of state is imprecise and that two theoretical notions of lucidity should be distinguished. The first one, which I call the technical notion, requires the recognition of the hallucinatory character of my current experience. The second, the broader notion, involves the seeming recognition of being directly acquainted with the phenomenal character of my experience. I spell out these two notions of lucidity and argue that only the latter could apply to the state of clear light sleep. (shrink)

I offer a phenomenological description of undocumented immigrant reason, provisionally understood as a sort of historical reason grounded on undocumented immigrant life. That is, the categories of undocumented immigrant reason are resources for undocumented immigrant existence and are inscribed in the historical memory of immigration (they are shared and communal), accessed by immigrants in stories, anecdotes, and interpersonal trauma. Abstracting from personal experience, testimony, popular culture, and elsewhere, I propose a fragmentary list of these categories of undocumented immigrant reason, a (...) list that includes journeying, crossing/nepantla, uncertainty/zozobra, nostalgia, and return. These categories, which structure undocumented immigrant reason, are reflected in beliefs and attitudes about migration, belonging, the contingency of life, the centrality of memory, and the meaning of death. Constitutive of immigrant rationality are beliefs and ways of being that lend meaning to immigrant life, including those beliefs and ways of being that place immigrants in closer proximity to fundamental human truths. (shrink)

The standard view in current philosophy of creativity says that being creative has two requirements: being novel and being valuable. The standard view on creativity has recently become an object of critical scrutiny. Hills and Bird have specifically proposed to remove the value requirement from the definition, as it is not clear that creative objects are necessarily valuable or creative people necessarily praiseworthy. In this paper, I argue against Hills and Bird, since eliminating the element of value from the explanation (...) of creativity hinders the understanding of the role that creative products play in actual epistemic practices, which are fundamentally normative. More specifically, I argue that the terms ‘creativity’ and ‘creative’ function as thick epistemic concepts when employed by competent epistemic agents in practice, that is, these concepts have both a descriptive and an evaluative content that cannot be disentangled from one another. Accordingly, I suggest that philosophers should prefer thick accounts over thin accounts of creativity. A thick account of creativity is one that endorses the standard view at its basis, but further develops it in two ways: by stressing the entanglement of the value and novelty requirements; by permitting to encompass a range of domain-specific characterizations of such entanglement for different epistemic situations. In order to take the first steps in the development of such a thick account of creativity, I look at the domain of scientific practices as a case in point, and try to spell out what the thickness of creative instances typically entails here. Namely, I identify the worthy novelty of creative models and methods with their potential to clarify a tradition, with fruitfulness, and with the fulfilment of exploratory aims. (shrink)

Critical thinking is a complex, dynamic process formed by attitudes and strategic skills, with the aim of achieving a specific goal or objective. The attitudes, including the critical thinking attitudes, constitute an important part of the idea of good care, of the good professional. It could be said that they become a virtue of the nursing profession. In this context, the ethics of virtue is a theoretical framework that becomes essential for analyse the critical thinking concept in nursing care and (...) nursing science. Because the ethics of virtue consider how cultivating virtues are necessary to understand and justify the decisions and guide the actions. Based on selective analysis of the descriptive and empirical literature that addresses conceptual review of critical thinking, we conducted an analysis of this topic in the settings of clinical practice, training and research from the virtue ethical framework. Following JBI critical appraisal checklist for text and opinion papers, we argue the need for critical thinking as an essential element for true excellence in care and that it should be encouraged among professionals. The importance of developing critical thinking skills in education is well substantiated; however, greater efforts are required to implement educational strategies directed at developing critical thinking in students and professionals undergoing training, along with measures that demonstrate their success. Lastly, we show that critical thinking constitutes a fundamental component in the research process, and can improve research competencies in nursing. We conclude that future research and actions must go further in the search for new evidence and open new horizons, to ensure a positive effect on clinical practice, patient health, student education and the growth of nursing science. (shrink)

The focus of this paper is Mexican historicism. It has three objectives: first, to introduce English-speaking readers to the nature and history of Mexican historicism; second, to defend Mexican historicism against the charges of relativism usually raised against historicism in general and “Mexican” philosophy in particular; and third, to argue for what I call the transcendental, or alternatively, “liberatory,” nature of Mexican historicism—a nature with philosophical and political consequences. The hope is that by making the clarifications and determinations made here, (...) the tradition of Mexican philosophy, of which Mexican historicism is a key moment, may find its place in the increasingly pluralistic US philosophical landscape. (shrink)

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to lay out an approach to addressing the problem of privacy protection in the global digital environment based on the importance that information has to improve users’ informational self-determination. Following this reasoning, this paper focuses on the suitable way to provide user with the correct amount of information they may need to maintain a desirable grade of autonomy as far as their privacy protection is concerned and decide whether or not to put their (...) personal data on the internet. Design/methodology/approach The authors arrive at this point in their analysis by qualitative discourse analysis of the most relevant scientific papers and dossiers relating to privacy protection. Findings The goal of this paper is twofold. The first is to illustrate the importance of privacy by default and informed consent working together to protect information and communication technology users’ privacy. The second goal is to develop a suitable way to administrate the mentioned “informed consent” to users. Originality/value To fulfil this purpose, the authors present a new concept of informed consent: active “informed consent” or “Opt-in” model by layers. “Opt-in” regimens have already been used with cookies but never with 2.0 applications, as, for instance, social network sites. (shrink)