Numerous researchers have examined the antecedents of trust between managers and subordinates. Recent studies conclude that their influence varies depending on whether what is being examined is a manager's trust in a subordinate or a subordinate's trust in a manager. However, the reasons given to justify this phenomenon present limitations. This article offers a new theoretical approach that relates the influence of each antecedent to Aristotelian forms of reasoning, ethical, and instrumental. The proposed approach shows that the influence of each (...) antecedent depends on which rationality prevails in the person who trusts. The contribution of this article is to better explain the phenomenon of interpersonal trust formation and its logic, while offering at the same time several practical implications for managers interested in developing an organizational culture based on trust. The article begins with a literature review of more relevant empirical studies analyzing superior–subordinate trust formation and presents some theoretical limitations of the arguments described in these works. Then, it offers a new theorerical approach based on Aristotelian thought to explain the influence of the antecedents of trust in management–subordinate relationships. The theoretical contribution is then confirmed in an empirical study of 163 mid-level managers in Spain. (shrink)

This paper describes the development and implementation of a character education program at the University of Navarra. The Leadership as Service Program has been developed in collaboration with the Oxford Character Project, and has adapted its Global Leadership Initiative to the Spanish context. The purpose of the Leadership as Service Program is to help students develop a sense of personal purpose, and virtues that are specific to leadership, such as prudence, humility, gratitude, resilience, and service. The methodology of the program (...) follows the seven strategies of character education and includes a mentoring program. In order to adapt the Global Leadership Initiative to the Spanish context, the Leadership as Service Program was integrated as much as possible into the fabric of the University of Navarra by means of (1) facilitating a new initiative to develop workshops on purpose; (2) incorporating an existing mentoring program; (3) positioning local actors as experts, and (4) dialogue with stakeholders within the university. First results indicate that the Leadership as Service Program makes a valuable contribution to the ethical and professional development of students, which corroborates with the findings of the Oxford Global Leadership Initiative. (shrink)

The purpose of this study is to investigate the role of school principal trustworthiness components (i.e., ability, integrity, benevolence) in helping shape teacher trust and affective commitment within schools. Using data from 1,026 teachers in Spain and structural equation modeling (via EQS 6.3), this study establishes how a principal’s integrity and benevolence are key in determining, both directly and indirectly (via trust in the principal), teachers’ affective commitment to their school. It also reveals that the perceived ability of a principal (...) is not effective in generating trust or affective commitment to the school in teachers. As a contribution to the literature, these findings reveal that the ethical trustworthiness (benevolence, integrity) of principals is key in engendering trust and affective commitment to schools. Thus, to shape work environments that are high in trust and commitment, principals should focus on behaving in ways that make their integrity and benevolence manifest to their teachers. (shrink)

Comprender qué consume una sociedad y sobre todo cómo lo hace requiere descubrir cuáles son sus creencias básicas, cuáles son sus formas de vida que se desprenden de ellas, lo que va más allá de la cantidad de productos que se consumen. El consumo de objetos valiosos es, en realidad, consumo de signos. Y lo más interesante es la metamorfosis de lo sagrado que se opera en la llamada �religión del consumo�.

La relación del ser humano con la experiencia religiosa siempre ha sido un equilibrio inestable, conoce "el temor y el ardor" frente a lo numinoso de Dios, como reconoce San Agustín, y que se convertirá en el tremendum et fascinans en la terminología de Rudolf Otto y en la inquietud de la búsqueda infinita que haita en el corazón humano. El miedo ha sido siempre uno de los aliados más fieles del poder. Sea este político o religioso. Es una emoción (...) que paraliza, que inmoviliza, que resta las energías vitales al ser humano. El pájaro inmovilizado por la mirada seductora de la cobra es un ejemplo común en la filosofía oriental que nos ilustra bien sobre esa verdad esencial que es núcleo del miedo. El pájaro sigue teniendo alas y las podría utilizar para escapar del depredador, pero es precisamente el miedo el que las inutiliza. El mido le hace creer que no puede volar y ello se convierte en su perdición. (shrink)

Este estudio tiene como propósito explicar la relatividad del secreto médico y la actuación del médico perito. El secreto profesional médico es un derecho a la intimidad y constituye obligación ineludible para el personal de la salud, los pacientes y peritados, de ahí que todo lo que revelen deba ser guardado para evitar daños a la vida privada de los individuos. Desde el punto de vista ético el secreto médico profesional obliga al perito a no revelar más de lo necesario (...) para el peritaje, así como a no divulgar dicho informe, limitándose a entregarlo solamente a quienes tuvieran derecho a él. This study aims at explaining the relativity of medical secrecy and the performance of the medical expert. The medical professional secrecy is a right to privacy and it is an unavoidable obligation for the health staff, and assessed patients, hence everything they reveal must be stored to prevent damage to the private life of individuals. From the ethical point of view medical confidentiality forces the expert not to disclose more than necessary for the expertise, as well as not to disclose such report, just limited to be delivered to those who had right to it. (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.

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)

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 feed- ing 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 conse- quences for the environment, animals, and humans, or in terms of deontic princi- ples. 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 essen- tial 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)

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)

Ethical veganism is the view that raising animals for food is an immoral practice that must be stopped because of the harm it causes to the animals, the environment, and our health. Carlo Alvaro argues the only way to stop that harm is to acquire the virtues that enable us to act justly and benevolently toward animals.

Marcus William Hunt argues that when co-parents disagree over whether to raise their child (or children) as a vegan, they should reach a compromise as a gift given by one parent to the other out of respect for his or her authority. Josh Millburn contends that Hunt’s proposal of parental compromise over veganism is unacceptable on the ground that it overlooks respect for animal rights, which bars compromising. However, he contemplates the possibility of parental compromise over ‘unusual eating,’ of animal-based (...) foods obtained without the violation of animal rights. I argue for zero parental compromise, rejecting a rights-oriented approach, and propose a policy that an ethical vegan parent and a non-vegan co-parent should follow to determine how to raise their children. (shrink)

The Heythrop Journal, Volume 63, Issue 5, Page 869-885, September 2022.

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)

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)

Abstract: This paper is a response to Park Seungbae’s article, “Defence of Cultural Relativism”. Some of the typical criticisms of moral relativism are the following: moral relativism is erroneously committed to the principle of tolerance, which is a universal principle; there are a number of objective moral rules; a moral relativist must admit that Hitler was right, which is absurd; a moral relativist must deny, in the face of evidence, that moral progress is possible; and, since every individual belongs to (...) multiple cultures at once, the concept of moral relativism is vague. Park argues that such contentions do not affect moral relativism and that the moral relativist may respond that the value of tolerance, Hitler’s actions, and the concept of culture are themselves relative. In what follows, I show that Park’s adroit strategy is unsuc-cessful. Consequently, moral relativism is incoherent. (shrink)

It is often claimed that belief in God is based on faith, while non-belief is grounded in rationality. This claim is inaccurate. Moral philosopher Carlo Alvaro takes the reader through his philosophical journey—a journey taken with the absolute absence of faith. Through reasoning alone, and with an objective assessment of the classical theistic arguments, Deism takes the reader from disbelief to a particular version of deism. Deism discusses such arguments as the Kalam Cosmological, the asymmetry against the evil-god challenge, the (...) anthropic principle, and the moral. Such arguments lead to the undeniable conclusion that there exists a timeless, space-less, wholly good, and infinitely powerful being endowed with freedom of the will, who brought the universe into existence a finite time ago. An objective appraisal of such arguments leads to the conclusions that atheism is an irrational philosophical position, that God does not interact with humans, at least not during our physical existence on earth, and that God is the best explanation of the objectivity of moral value and duty. (shrink)

In this paper I respond to Marcus William Hunt’s argument that vegan parents have pro tanto reasons for not raising their children on a vegan diet because such a diet is potentially harmful to children’s physical and social well-being. In my rebuttal, first I show that in practice all vegan diets, with the exception of wacky diets, are beneficial to children’s well-being ; and that all animal-based diets are potentially unhealthful. Second, I show that vegan children are no more socially (...) outcast than any other group. In other words, veganism does not harm the lives of children. Having considered several studies, I show that the moral reasons that vegan parents may have for raising their children on a vegan diet significantly outweigh the reasons for raising their children on an animal-based diet. Thus, I conclude that parents have a moral obligation to raise their children on a vegan diet. (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)

The first form of the inside-outside dichotomy appears as a self-encapsulated system with an active border. These systems are based on two complementary but asymmetric processes: constructive and interactive. The former physically constitute the system as a recursive network of component production, defining an inside. The maintenance of the constructive processes implies that the internal organization also constrains certain flows of matter and energy across the border of the system, generating interactive processes. These interactive processes ensure the maintenance of the (...) constructive processes thus specifying a meaningful outside. Upon this basic form of identity formation, the evolutionary and historical domain is open for the emergence of a whole hierarchy and ecology of insides and outsides. These which mutually subsume and collaborate in the maintenance of the essential inside-outside dichotomy that defines the conditions of possibility of the subjects and the worlds they generate. (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)

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)

El artículo se propone elucidar la lectura deconstructiva que Derrida lleva a cabo de la filosofía de Marx y, más ampliamente, de los presupuestos metafísicos de la filosofía marxista. Espectros de Marx (1993) funciona como el punto de partida de un análisis histórico y conceptual que rastrea algunas de las principales hipótesis de este libro en publicaciones, entrevistas, cursos y seminarios fechados entre 1964 y 2004. La pregunta que sirve como hilo conductor de este trabajo es cómo interpretar filosófica y (...) políticamente la deconstrucción de la ontología marxista. (shrink)

With millions of animals brought into existence and raised for food every year, their negative impact upon the environment and the staggering growth in the number of chronic diseases caused by meat and dairy diets make a global move toward ethical veganism imperative. Typi-cally, utilitarians and deontologists have led this discussion. The purpose of this paper is to pro-pose a virtuous approach to ethical veganism. Virtue ethics can be used to construct a defense of ethical veganism by relying on the (...) virtues of compassion and fairness. Exercising these values in our relations with animals involves acknowledging their moral value, thus seeing that they are not our property or our food. It is important to emphasize that this argument applies only to well-developed societies that need not rely upon animals as sources of food, clothing, and various by-products. (shrink)

El llamado “argumento maestro” de Berkeley, por el cual demuestra su principio _esse est percipi_, ha recibido críticas mixtas por parte de los comentaristas: algunos defienden su validez desde sus propias interpretaciones y otros lo acusan de falaz con base en diversas objeciones. El presente artículo defiende al argumento maestro de tres objeciones por parte de Russell, Pitcher y Tipton, las cuales son referidas como _“objeción de la confusión entre el acto perceptivo y el objeto percibido”, “objeción de la confusión (...) entre el concepto del objeto y el objeto mismo” y “objeción del solipsismo del presente”_. El autor propone su propia lectura del argumento maestro para evitar malentendidos y sostiene que dicho argumento cobra su verdadero sentido a partir de los siguientes puntos: la aclaración de los conceptos berkeleyanos de _idea y percepción_; la explicitación de la_ intencionalidad_ de la percepción en el sentido de su _dirección intencional_ hacia objetos intencionales (ideas); y la distinción entre los _dos niveles de dirección intencional de la percepción mediata_ (de una idea _por medio_ de otra), a saber: uno dirigido al _concepto o representación mental como su objeto intencional inmediato_ y el otro dirigido al _objeto representado_ como su _objeto intencional mediato_. (shrink)

The aim of this commentary article is to discuss several problems in the distribution map for conscious organisms and suggest a different strategy to address their evolutionary development. I propose to complement the model of Unlimited Associative Learning (UAL) that Jablonka and Ginsburg present in their Target Article with the additional consideration of how body plans constrain the possibilities of evolution of the brain— in some cases blocking, in some others enabling its complexification and corporal integration. In my view, the (...) specific body plan of vertebrates has played a key role in the complexification and diversification of consciousness because it has favored an increasing integration between brain and body. (shrink)

Human beings are getting fatter and sicker. As we question what we eat and why we eat it, this book argues that living well involves consuming a raw vegan diet. With eating healthfully and eating ethically being simpler said than done, this book argues that the best solution to health, environmental, and ethical problems concerning animals is raw veganism―the human diet. The human diet is what humans are naturally designed to eat, and that is, a raw vegan diet of fruit, (...) tender leafy greens, and occasionally nuts and seeds. While veganism raises challenging questions over the ethics of consuming animal products, while also considering the environmental impact of the agriculture industry, raw veganism goes a step further and argues that consuming cooked food is also detrimental to our health and the environment. Cooking foods allows us to eat food that is not otherwise fit for human consumption and in an age that promotes eating foods in ‘moderation’ and having ‘balanced’ diets, this raises the question of why we are eating foods that should only be consumed in moderation at all, as moderation clearly implies they aren’t good for us. In addition, from an environmental perspective, the use of stoves, ovens and microwaves for cooking contributes significantly to energy consumption and cooking in general generates excessive waste of food and resources. Thus, this book maintains that living well and living a noble life, that is, good physical and moral health, requires consuming a raw vegan diet. Exploring the scientific and philosophical aspects of raw veganism, this novel book is essential reading for all interested in promoting ethical, healthful, and sustainable diets. (shrink)

The scope of this article is to propose a reflection about the concept of citizenship presented by Aristotle in his work “Politics”, and which people were considered citizens then in comparison to nowadays. There is no intention to make a deep historical assessment about the particularities of each period of time, but analyse the characteristics which kept some groups inside of the political life and as well kept other groups away from it, in order to demonstrate how strong is the (...) maintenance of the estrangement between people who achieve everything is possible to, whereas other groups cannot achieve even what is deemed to be worthy by law. Keywords: citizenship; citizen; state; law; minorities; achievement. (shrink)

ABSTRACT The major approaches to belief revision and non monotonic reasoning proposed in the literature differ along a number of dimensions, including whether they are ?syntax- based? or ?semantic-based?, ?foundational? or ?coherentist?, ?consistence-restoring? or ?inconsistency-tolerant?. Our contribution towards clarifying the connections between these various approaches is threefold: ?We show that the two main approaches to belief revision, the foundations and coherence theories, are mathematically equivalent, thus answering a question left open in [Gar90, Doy92], The distinction between syntax-based approaches to revision (...) and approaches based on (semantic) preferential structures falls along similar lines, and their expressive equivalence is a consequence of this result. ?We formally clarify the connection between belief revision and non monotonic reasoning, in a particularly simple way which also throws light on the connection between consistence- restoring and reasoning-from-inconsistency approaches [BDP95]. ?As a direct application of the above, we show that Poole's (syntax-based) system of default reasoning and Shoham's preferential semantic for non monotonic reasoning are also expressively equivalent, in that they can represent the same set of non monotonic consequence relations. (shrink)

Disturbances in social cognition are a core feature of schizophrenia. While most research in the field has focused on emotion perception, social knowledge, theory of mind, and attribution styles, the domain of social perception has received little specific attention. In this paper, we suggest that this issue can be explained by the lack of a precise and unitary definition of the concept, this leads to the existence of different competing uses of the concept and their conflation with other domains of (...) social cognition. Relying on resources coming from the ecological approach to psychology and the phenomenological tradition in psychiatry, we propose that the concept of Social Perception should be used to refer to low-level pre-reflective processes underlying the awareness of interpersonal interactions with and between others. Clinical data suggests that people with schizophrenia have problems perceiving social situations as opportunities for social engagement, so, in order to fulfil this explanatory need, we propose that the term should be used to capture this important—yet neglected—domain of social cognition. We conclude with the discussion of some future directions for research derived from our proposal. (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)

This article aims to carry out a historical, philosophical, and political analysis of Jean-Luc Nancy’s conception of communism. To achieve this end, a series of texts by the author, published between 1986 and 2021, are referenced, where the question of communism is approached in relation to themes such as totalitarianism, community, the common, literature, democracy, and capitalist civilization. The paper investigates the development of Nancy’s approach until it reaches its more or less definitive form in the mid-2000s, within the framework (...) of the debate on “the Idea of communism” (Alain Badiou). The interpretation of Nancy’s position in this international debate leads to the two main contributions of the article. First, the characterization of an ontological or existential understanding of communism radically differs from other current positions and does not have antecedents within communist theoretical traditions. Secondly, the identification of a threshold in Nancy’s thought, and by extension in contemporary thought, where the sense of “communism,” as the demand for granting inestimable value to every existence, communicates with the search for another “spirit” for our time. (shrink)

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)

Automatic public malware analysis services provide controlled, isolated and virtual environments to analyse malicious software samples. Unfortunately, malware is currently incorporating techniques to recognize execution onto a virtual or sandbox environment; when an analysis environment is detected, malware behaves as a benign application or even shows no activity. In this work, we present an empirical study and characterization of automatic PMAS, considering 26 different services. We also show a set of features that allow to easily fingerprint these services as analysis (...) environments; the lower the unlikeability of these features, the easier for us to fingerprint the analysis service they belong to. Finally, we propose a method for these analysis services to counter or at least mitigate our proposal. (shrink)

Explicit atheism is a philosophical position according to which belief in God is irrational, and thus it should be rejected. In this paper, I revisit, extend, and defend against the most telling counter arguments the Kalām Cosmological Argument in order to show that explicit atheism must be deemed as a positively irrational position.