Richard Taylor apresenta abordagens interessantes de quatro tópicos importantes da metafísica, entre outros; a saber: o problema da mente-corpo, a relação entre determinismo e liberdade, a natureza do tempo e a existência de Deus. Taylor defende teses com relação a esses tópicos e, ao argumentar a favor delas, mostra-nos também as teorias tradicionais concorrentes. Isso faz desse livro uma ótima introdução argumentativa a alguns dos grandes problemas da metafísica. Exporei a seguir, resumidamente, o que se encontra nessa obra, fazendo-o a (...) partir da tradução brasileira de Álvaro Cabral, há muito esgotada. (shrink)

La siguiente reseña explora el libro más reciente del historiador Tomás Pérez Vejo, el cual se adentra en un relato de nación construido a partir de los acervos pictóricos. El imaginario visual que se construye desde las exposiciones y críticas de pintura marca un ciclo crístico de nacimientos, tormentos, liberaciones y resurrecciones, cuyo interés primordial es su poderosa impronta en la historia oficial nacional y en cómo esta permea aún el presente.

First English translation of two important works by the major revolutionary figure, Amilcar Cabral.

Since Darwin, Biology has been framed on the idea of evolution by natural selection, which has profoundly influenced the scientific and philosophical comprehension of biological phenomena and of our place in Nature. This book argues that contemporary biology should progress towards and revolve around an even more fundamental idea, that of autonomy. Biological autonomy describes living organisms as organised systems, which are able to self-produce and self-maintain as integrated entities, to establish their own goals and norms, and to promote the (...) conditions of their existence through their interactions with the environment. Topics covered in this book include organisation and biological emergence, organisms, agency, levels of autonomy, cognition, and a look at the historical dimension of autonomy. The current development of scientific investigations on autonomous organisation calls for a theoretical and philosophical analysis. This can contribute to the elaboration of an original understanding of life - including human life - on Earth, opening new perspectives and enabling fecund interactions with other existing theories and approaches. This book takes up the challenge. (shrink)

Since Darwin it is widely accepted that natural selection (NS) is the most important mechanism to explain how biological organisms—in their amazing variety—evolve and, therefore, also how the complexity of certain natural systems can increase over time, creating ever new functions or functional structures/relationships. Nevertheless, the way in which NS is conceived within Darwinian Theory already requires an open, wide enough, functional domain where selective forces may act. And, as the present paper will try to show, this becomes even more (...) evident if one looks into the problem of origins. If there was a time when NS was not operating (as it is quite reasonable to assume), where did that initial functional diversity, necessary to trigger off the process, come from? Self-organization processes may be part of the answer, as many authors have claimed in recent years, but surely not the complete one. We will argue here that a special type of self-maintaining organization, arising from the interplay among a set of different endogenously produced constraints (pre-enzymatic catalysts and primitive compartments included), is required for the appearance of functional diversity in the first place. Starting from that point, NS can progressively lead to new (and, at times, also more complex) organizations that, in turn, provide wider functional variety to be selected for, enlarging in this way the range of action and consequences of the mechanism of NS, in a kind of mutually enhancing effect. (shrink)

We explore the intimate connection between spacetime geometry and electrodynamics. This link is already implicit in the constitutive relations between the field strengths and excitations, which are an essential part of the axiomatic structure of electromagnetism, clearly formulated via integration theory and differential forms. We review the foundations of classical electromagnetism based on charge and magnetic flux conservation, the Lorentz force and the constitutive relations. These relations introduce the conformal part of the metric and allow the study of electrodynamics for (...) specific spacetime geometries. At the foundational level, we discuss the possibility of generalizing the vacuum constitutive relations, by relaxing the fixed conditions of homogeneity and isotropy, and by assuming that the symmetry properties of the electro-vacuum follow the spacetime isometries. The implications of this extension are briefly discussed in the context of the intimate connection between electromagnetism and the geometry of spacetime. (shrink)

El año 2021 marca un punto de inflexión en Jordania, con la creación de una Comisión Real para la Modernización Política. El objetivo es crear un sistema de partidos que deje atrás las dinámicas clientelistas que en el pasado habían capturado el parlamento. A pesar de ello, el legislativo sigue supeditado al resto de poderes del Estado, y todavía no existe el espacio físico ni digital para que la sociedad se organice en líneas ideológicas.

Através da distinção entre atitude natural e atitude transcendental, Husserl parece fundamentar várias de suas teses, como a diferença do agir propriamente filosófico frente o científico, a necessidade do método fenomenológico na investigação do âmbito subjetivo, etc. Com a exposição e problematização da noção fenomenológica de atitude (Einstellung) neste artigo, se pretende trazer luz à crítica desenvolvida pelo fenomenólogo ao objetivismo presente nas ciências particulares, principalmente a partir do período moderno. Tais discussões, permitem a compreensão de que as reflexões husserlianas (...) trouxeram grandes contribuições tanto ao procedimento científico, quanto à tradição fenomenológica de investigação. (shrink)

This exploratory study is focused on the perceptions of science communication practitioners about the activities of scientists and the audiences of the marine sciences outreach in Portugal. Using the qualitative method of thematic analysis and collecting data through semistructured interviews of 14 practitioners of diverse professions, backgrounds, ages, and stages of career, it was found that the role of marine scientists in this area is traditionally viewed as reduced, but with a slight improvement in the past 5 to 10 years. (...) Despite having a historical connection with and curiosity about the sea, audiences were considered to have a mostly utilitarian interest in the marine sciences. Most practitioners had a view of science communication connected to the knowledge deficit model, with a minority articulating a more dialogical model. Although there are signs of conflict between science communicators and scientists, the proliferation of training opportunities in science communication at the national level, the perceived increase of interest and participation of marine scientists in public communication in the past years, and the consolidation of science communicators as part of the scientific community offer positive prospects for the future of outreach of marine sciences in Portugal. (shrink)

L’apparition du musée « moderne » qui cherche à repenser, dans la première moitié du XX e siècle, les fonctions de l’institution muséale et la nature des objets qu’elle expose, requiert l’élaboration de projets architecturaux spécifiques. Le plan libre et la transparence se substituent alors à la traditionnelle boîte compartimentée et opaque, pour des raisons qui excèdent le simple souci de flexibilité fonctionnelle. La comparaison des propositions radicales d’édifices-musées modernes de Le Corbusier et de Mies van der Rohe permet de (...) mettre en évidence, au-delà de certaines caractéristiques formelles communes, le caractère réducteur d’une lecture uniforme du modernisme architectural appliqué au musée. (shrink)

Many issues in ethics arise in relation to the contexts in which psychologists work. However, most ethical decision-making models reproduce the way in which psychologists tend to approach ethics by focusing on ethical dilemmas and proposing a step-by-step response to deal with them. Although these models might be useful, their emphasis on reactive approaches and their lack of contextualization constitute significant limitations on their applicability. In this article, an approach to ethical decision making that highlights the importance of the context (...) in developing proactive strategies to solve ethical issues is proposed. This approach is further explained through its application to medical and rural settings. The implications of these suggestions to the training in ethics are finally discussed. (shrink)

According to the traditional nomological-deductive methodology of physics and chemistry [Hempel and Oppenheim, 1948], explaining a phenomenon means subsuming it under a law. Logic becomes then the glue of explanation and laws the primary explainers. Thus, the scientific study of a system would consist in the development of a logically sound model of it, once the relevant observables (state variables) are identified and the general laws governing their change (expressed as differential equations, state transition rules, maximization/minimization principles,. . . ) (...) are well determined, together with the initial or boundary conditions for each particular case. Often this also involves making a set of assumptions about the elementary components of the system (e.g., their structural and dynamic properties) and modes of local interaction. In this framework, predictability becomes the main goal and that is why research is carried out through the construction of accurate mathematical models. Thus, physics and chemistry have made most progress so far by focusing on systems that, either due to their intrinsic properties or to the conditions in which they are investigated, allow for very strong simplifying assumptions, under which, nevertheless, those highly idealized models of reality are deemed to be in good correspondence with reality itself. Despite the enormous success that this methodology has had, the study of living and cognitive phenomena had to follow a very different road, because these phenomena are produced by systems whose underlying material structure and organization do not permit such crude approximations. Seen from the perspective of physics or chemistry, biological and cognitive systems are made of an enormous number of parts or elements interacting in non-linear and selective ways, which makes very difficult their tractability through mathematical models. In addition, many of those interacting elements are hierarchically organized, in a way that the “macroscopic” (observable) parts behave according to rules that cannot be, in practice, derived from simple principles at the level of their “microscopic” dynamics.. (shrink)

Many moral philosophers have criticized intensive animal farming because it can be harmful to the environment, it causes pain and misery to a large number of animals, and furthermore eating meat and animal-based products can be unhealthful. The issue of industrially farmed animals has become one of the most pressing ethical questions of our time. On the one hand, utilitarians have argued that we should become vegetarians or vegans because the practices of raising animals for food are immoral since they (...) minimize the overall happiness. Deontologists, on the other hand, have argued that the practices of raising animals for food are immoral because animals have certain rights and we have duties toward them. Some virtue ethicists remain unconvinced of deontic and consequentialist arguments against the exploitation of animals and suggest that a virtue-based approach is better equipped to show what is immoral about raising and using animals for food, and what is virtuous about ethical veganism. (shrink)

Firstly we consider the new results about enzymatic capabilities in the RNA. In this framework we analyse the sequence-folding duality as a precursor of the genotype/phenotype duality. We discuss then which are the evolutive potentialities and limitations for a system with the absence and the presence of a nucleic acid to proteins translator code. We study the arise of the code in the living systems as a form of deep interlooking between the logic of the machinery and its hardware, discussing (...) some problems that abstract modelization of this process implies. Finaly we propose to redefine the informational vocabulary usually employed in Molecular Biology. (shrink)

This article departs from the consideration that global communication is not only a reality but also a challenge. This is because most of our communication does not involve dialogue but remains mere communication without achieving the creativity implied in true conversation. Departing from Gordon Pask’s warning, in 1980, that too much togetherness would be hazardous in future information environments, this article proposes a playful displacement of images – from network to lacework. The aim is to help us refine our gaze (...) into the interconnectedness of the world, or at least, into the intricacies of our contemporary culture and its global communication. The idea is that by using lace as an inspirational image we may go beyond the hazards of uniformity and triviality of our excessive togetherness. By doing so, we would allow space for a variety of local patterns of dialogues, articulated around unspoken tensions and thus, allowing the emergency of genuine conversation. (shrink)

El _realismo político_ señala que la política consiste en la creación y sostenimiento del orden en un contexto de persistente desacuerdo, proclive a conflictos y donde el uso de la coerción por parte del poder político es inevitable. Los realistas sostienen que el _modus vivendi_ es un arreglo político contingente al nivel de la constitución política que permite a diversos grupos de personas coexistir pacíficamente. Las propuestas del _modus vivendi_ no dicen mucho sobre cómo tratar con los desacuerdos y conflictos. (...) En este artículo se argumenta que las propuestas de la _democracia agonista_ solventan esta carencia. Aquí se argumenta que las propuestas de la democracia agonista comparten premisas con el realismo político y contribuyen al sostenimiento de un _modus vivendi_ liberal. (shrink)

Ou como um manuscrito do século XVIII, que não mereceu a glória de ser publicado, constitui uma fonte documental de indesmentível interesse. Trata-se de um relato de viagem de Lisboa a Roma na segunda metade do século XVIII o qual, embora não corresponda à descrição de uma peregrinação, revela com clareza questões culturais e religiosas que atormentam o Portugal de setecentos. Um diário de viagem que ajuda a compreender, em parte, o rótulo de exótico que a Europa iluminada atribuía a (...) Portugal. Através de uma leitura atenta, conseguem identificar-se elos, à primeira vista imperceptíveis, valorizando o próprio documento e lançando pistas para situar e compreender figuras de relevo naquele período da história portuguesa. O presente relato, como acontece com a literatura de viagens em geral, atribui ao leitor a responsabilidade de perscrutar a intenção do autor. Discute-se ainda a autoria, origem e fins do manuscrito, um conjunto de elementos que explicam a importância do mesmo. (shrink)

This article shows the results of an investigation registered in the field of pedagogy. The scenario and starting point to situate our company is the fact of knowing that the subordination of education is increasingly greater than the mechanisms of the free market economy; besides that, a real reform of the education will not be carried out if the elements for the construction of the professional identity of the educator are not analyzed in depth, we think that a substantial reform (...) of the educative system involves the reconstruction of the educator's identity from the perspective philosophical, for this reason our goal is to help uncover the educator reason to be, that is, to expose –in front of present concealment– his identity, as well as to explain the keys of constitution of the educational act. (shrink)

Nos proponemos analizar el pensamiento de Álvaro García Linera, uno de los intelectuales más interesantes en lengua española, y que mayor difusión está teniendo en los últimos tiempos. Para ello, tomaremos como punto de referencia cuatro de las ideas centrales dentro de la filosofía del boliviano: proyecto político, estado, hegemonía y dominación (analizando las dos últimas de manera conjunta). Comenzaremos exponiendo las influencias de García Linera, así como las peculiaridades de sus planteamientos, para centrarnos posteriormente en la etapa de su (...) producción intelectual más reciente, y acabar con una conclusión que mencionará también algunas de las críticas más importantes que se han vertido hacia el antiguo vicepresidente. (shrink)

The project of growing meat artificially represents for some the next best thing to humanity. If successful, it could be the solution to several problems, such as feeding a growing global population while reducing the environmental impact of raising animals for food and, of course, reducing the amount and degree of animal cruelty and suffering that is involved in animal farming. In this paper, I argue that the issue of the morality of such a project has been framed only in (...) terms of the best consequences for the environment, animals, and humans, or in terms of deontic principles. I argue that to appreciate how deep and difficult this issue is, it is necessary to consider it in terms of a virtue-oriented approach. Such an approach will reveal aspects that are not apparent, not contemplated by typical approaches, but are essential to our understanding of the morality of lab-grown meat. As I argue, evaluating the issue from a virtue-oriented perspective suggests that the project of in vitro meat should not be supported because it stems from unvirtuous motivations. (shrink)

In The Theory of Moral Sentiments, Adam Smith recognizes that in certain occasions even the most impartial of all spectators experience an ‘irregularity of sentiment’ in judging the moral value of an action. An example of this irregularity can be found in cases where, under the influence of fortune, the consequence of the action does not follow directly from the design of the agent. Within this article, the problem presented will be addressed in order to seek the grounds for the (...) validity of the following thesis: the recognition of the natural equality of all moral agents is the objective basis in which all moral judgment must be grounded. Having indicated this, an important question arises: Why does the innocent, who is not unjust but who is the material cause of the factual injury of another, feels a kind of remorse facing the act and somehow feels “guilty”? (shrink)

This article shows how macro-historical processes of change can activate robust and enduring forms of citizenship practice, providing both survey-based evidence for this claim and a theorization of the causal mechanisms involved. Focusing on the case of Portugal, where democratization followed the historically unusual path of social revolution, we examine survey data on civic practice covering twenty countries and find Portugal to be a world leader in public participation in the electronic public sphere. When we examine the subsection of the (...) population socialized politically in the country’s post-revolutionary democracy, we find another important indicator of lively citizenship practice. The article takes the examination of this specific national case as the basis for developing an argument of broad theoretical relevance on the social underpinnings of lively and participatory citizenship practice. With an empirical foundation for our claims in survey data and other sources, our analysis of Portugal offers an interpretation of the case, leading to substantial revision of assumptions in the extant literature. More importantly, through our examination of this case, we show how large-scale macro-historical processes of change can encourage lively civic practice manifested at the individual level. Our argument highlights the importance of hierarchy-challenging collective experiences that reconfigure cultural frameworks and reorient the character of institutional practice. We take up the implications of this argument for cases lacking a history of revolution and find certain parallels with national cases shaped by movements of social reform as in the social democracies of Scandinavia. (shrink)

This thesis is presented from a historical life history, the conscious world of an academic whose thoughts were not dogmatic nor censured, neither within or without the university. It was a dialogue with others who never hesitated to judge him as critical and heuristic. The only way to be authenti..

The meaning and function of the image has been evolving over all time. This has been separated from mimesis and given greater openness and an emergent meaning to be adapted to the fluxes that characterize our contemporary society. Throughout this process Art has lost the primacy and exclusivity of the image to share it with science and its visualization procedures and with a social function, now disseminated trough social networks. This article points out the decisive moments – and illustrates them (...) with examples – through the evolution from the image in Postmodernity to the open and co-participated meaning of the Postmedia age image, and the new relation with the real world that characterizes the image of the Postdigital situation. Finally, we propose that the Postdigital Condition, related to new advances such as augmented reality (AR), geopositioning devices and ubiquitous informatics, is making the appearance of a new image type possible, here called Tracking-Image. This Tracking-Image is self-generated with data, from the flux of inputs generated in physical space and registered by networked users and sensors, becoming the protagonist of a new encounter with the physical fluid reality that characterizes the Postdigital situation. (shrink)

The transition from chemistry to biology is an extremely complex issue because of the huge phenomenological differences between the two domains and because this transition has many different aspects and dimensions. In this paper, I will try to analyze how chemical systems have developed a cohesive, self-maintaining and functionally differentiated system that recruits its organization to stay far from equilibrium. This organization cannot exist but in an individualized form, and yet, it unfolds both a diachronic-historical and a synchronic collective dimension. (...) I will argue that, far from being a problem, these different dimensions of the phenomenon of life, appear as a consequence of the nature of this individualized organization. (shrink)

This paper aims to offer an Aristotelian critique of virtue epistemology, particularly of the way virtue epistemologists use the concept of intellectual virtue in their definitions of knowledge. I engage with David Bronstein’s thesis that virtue reliabilists, despite claims of being contemporary representatives of Aristotle’s epistemology, construct their key epistemic categories in ways that fundamentally deviate from Aristotle’s own virtue epistemology. In addition to Bronstein’s argument, I will argue that a similar critique applies to the other main branch of virtue (...) epistemology – namely, Zagzebski’s responsibilism. I intend to clarify both the gist of contemporary virtue epistemologists and the motivation behind their approaches, highlighting that, not only do they differ from Aristotle, but also that their theories run the risk of vicious circular reasoning. I conclude by proposing alternative options, within virtue epistemology, that may avoid the problems I identify in mainstream virtue reliabilism and responsibilism. (shrink)

Título: Didáctica de geografía e historia en educación primaria Autor: Laura Arias Ferrer y Alejandro Egea Vivancos Edición: Editorial Síntesis Lugar de publicación: Madrid Año: 2022 Idioma: Español ISBN: 978-84-1357-231-4 Páginas: 198.

This article examines the relation between the dialectical program established in Plato’s Republic and the practice of dialectic in other dialogues, such as the Parmenides and the Theaetetus. The author argues against those scholars who have sustained a sharp distinction between an intuitive conception of knowledge and the discursive practices characteristic of Plato’s concept of dialectic. In his view, Plato has been overinterpreted from the modern perspective of the distinction between intuitive and discursive forms of knowledge. As a consequence, this (...) article also examines the relation between the dialectical practices displayed in the Parmenides and the Theaetetus and the anhypothetical condition that Plato attributes to “the principle of everything” in the Republic. (shrink)

The Green Revolution is often seen as epitomising the dawn of scientific and technological advancement and modernity in the agricultural sector across developing countries, a process that unfolded from the 1940s through to the 1980s. Despite the time that has elapsed, this episode of the past continues to resonate today, and still shapes the institutions and practices of agricultural science and technology. In Brazil, China, and India, narratives of science-led agricultural transformations portray that period in glorifying terms—entailing pressing national imperatives, (...) unprecedented achievements, and heroic individuals or organizations. These “epic narratives” draw on the past to produce meaning and empower the actors that deploy them. Epic narratives are reproduced over time and perpetuate a conviction about the heroic power of science and technology in agricultural development. By crafting history and cultivating a sense of scientific nationalism, exceptionalism, and heritage, these epic narratives sustain power-knowledge relations in agricultural science and technology, which are underpinned by a hegemonic modernization paradigm. Unravelling the processes of assemblage and reproduction of epic narratives helps us make sense of how science and technology actors draw on their subjective representations of the past to assert their position in the field at present. This includes making claims about their credentials to envision and deliver sustainable solutions for agriculture into the future. (shrink)

Recent research in philosophy of science has shown that scientists rely on a plurality of strategies to develop successful explanations of different types of phenomena. In the case of biology, most of these strategies go far beyond the traditional and reductionistic models of scientific explanation that have proven so successful in the fundamental sciences. Concretely, in the last two decades, philosophers of science have discovered the existence of at least two different types of scientific explanation at work in the biological (...) sciences, namely: mechanistic and structural explanations. Despite the growing evidence about the radically different nature of these two types of explanation, no inquiry has been conducted to date to determine the ontological reasons that might underlie these differences, nor the way in which these types of explanations can be systematically related with each other. Here, we aim to cover this gap by connecting this plurality of research strategies with the existence of emergent levels of reality. We argue that the existence of these different—and apparently incompatible—explanatory strategies to account for biological phenomena derives from the existence of “ontological jumps” in nature, which generate different regimes of causation that in turn demand the development of different explanatory frameworks. We identify two of these strategies—mechanistic modelling and network modelling—and connect them to the existence of two ontological regimes of causation. Finally, we relate them with each other in a systematic way. In this vein, our paper provides an ontological justification for the plurality of explanatory strategies that we see in the life sciences. (shrink)