Based on the results obtained from primary education students—fifth and sixth graders—the aim of this work is to check the appropriate self-perceived behaviors during and at the end of the game. The study population was made up of 698 students from fifth and sixth grade in the Autonomous Region of Castilla–La Mancha (Spain). Data were collected through a questionnaire (scale) on the social skills of primary school students linked to the adequate skills when losing, the adequate skills when winning, and (...) the adequate skills during the game. Study results revealed that analyzed behaviors vary, depending on the moment of the game, being it more frequently during the development of the game than when losing or winning. (shrink)

En los últimos tiempos el derecho ambiental ha ganado un puesto importante en el ámbito jurídico, hecho que refleja la preocupación que hoy se tiene por la relación del hombre con su entorno. Desde hace quince años, la Universidad Colegio Mayor de Nuestra señora del Rosario, por intermedio de su Facultad de Jurisprudencia y concretamente de la Especialización y la línea de investigación en Derecho Ambiental, ha propuesto a través de diversos proyectos avanzar en el conocimiento y análisis del ordenamiento (...) jurídico ambiental, aportando así al desarrollo, estructura y consolidación de esta rama jurídica. Bajo estos parámetros, el objetivo de esta publicación es hacer algunas reflexiones en torno a distintos temas que dentro del derecho público impactan o influyen al derecho ambiental y responder a los enormes desafíos que se presentan en la materia. Por tanto, el programa quiere contribuir desde la academia al diálogo crítico y propositivo que permita dar solución a los problemas encontrados en la aplicación del derecho ambiental. En el primer capítulo, Gloria Amparo Rodriguez describe los ordenamientos jurídicos constitucionales de Colombia, Ecuador y Bolivia a fin de analizar la forma en que cada uno de ellos consagra el derecho a un ambiente sano. A continuación, Martha Ovalle y Zelba Nidia Castro de Perez realizan un estudio de los principios de precaución y prevención, exponiendo su alcance, su fundamento desde el derecho internacional y cómo vienen siendo entendidos por nuestro ordenamiento jurídico, tanto jurisprudencial como legal. Luis Adolfo Diazgranados se ocupa de la responsabilidad de los funcionarios públicos en materia ambiental, para lo cual realiza un análisis de los deberes consagrados en la normatividad vigente. Continuando con esta temática, el profesor Jorge Agudo Gonzalez, de la Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, explora la incidencia del ambiente y los recursos naturales en los procesos contractuales, a fin de mostrar cómo estas materias se han constituido en variable fundamental en el devenir de la formación, celebración y ejecución de los contratos, desde un punto de vista crítico, los aspectos importantes del proceso sancionatorio ambiental, evidenciando las falencias y vacios del a Ley 1333 de 2009. Jairo Cabrera plantea algunas reflexiones sobre la responsabilidad, valiéndose de la doctrina internacional, sobre la problemática de la reparación por daño ambiental. Por su parte, Leonardo Güiza Suárez explica el régimen general de la responsabilidad ambiental en el ordenamiento jurídico a partir del daño de los bosques naturales y su incidencia sobre los derechos humanos. Andres Gomez Rey, desde la teoría del acto administrativo, desarrolla el análisis crítico del régimen jurídico de las aguas superficiales en el derecho ambiental. Giovani J. Herrera Carrascal realiza una disertación sobre los recursos naturales y el ambiente como elementos del espacio público que a su vez constituye en un componente del medio ambiente urbano a partir de la jurisprudencia y de las competencias respectivas. Por último, Marybell Ochoa Miranda trate el tema de los residuos hospitalarios en Colombia, exponiendo su régimen jurídico, las competencias de las autoridades ambientales, los deberes que en estos asuntos tienen los ciudadanos, proponiendo lineamientos para avanzar en la consolidación de la gestión integral de residuos hospitalarios y similares. (shrink)

Este artículo se propone analizar la reinterpretación del concepto kantiano de crítica como una actitud ética en la obra de Foucault, destacando su relevancia para la hermenéutica crítica contemporánea. Por un lado, se explora cómo la práctica del cuidado de sí se convierte en un medio para “controlar” y “limitar” el poder, permitiendo así el ejercicio constante de la libertad. Esta concepción ética implica una nueva comprensión de la libertad, no como contrapuesta al poder, sino como su antecedente. La reflexión (...) crítica sobre la libertad, la ética y la verdad ofrece la posibilidad de transformarse continuamente a través del trabajo incesante en la construcción y el cultivo de uno mismo. Por otro lado, se presenta un método filosófico crítico basado en la autorreflexión, una ética hermenéutica del cuidado de sí, que abre nuevos horizontes interpretativos para dar forma al yo. (shrink)

Guido Löhr's recent article makes several insightful and productive suggestions about how to proceed with the empirical study of collective action. However, their critique of the conclusions drawn in Gomez-Lavin & Rachar (2022) is undermined by some issues with the interpretation of the debate and paper. This discussion article clears up those issues, presents new findings from experiments developed in response to Löhr's critiques, reflects on the role of experimental research in the development and refinement of philosophical theories, and (...) adds to Löhr's suggestions about the path forward. (shrink)

Bourrat and Griffiths :33, 2018) have recently argued that most of the evidence presented by holobiont defenders to support the thesis that holobionts are evolutionary individuals is not to the point and is not even adequate to discriminate multispecies evolutionary individuals from other multispecies assemblages that would not be considered evolutionary individuals by most holobiont defenders. They further argue that an adequate criterion to distinguish the two categories is fitness alignment, presenting the notion of fitness boundedness as a criterion that (...) allows divorcing true multispecies evolutionary individuals from other multispecies assemblages and provides an adequate criterion to single out genuine evolutionary multispecies assemblages. A consequence of their criterion is that holobionts, as conventionally defined by hologenome defenders, are not evolutionary individuals except in very rare cases, and for very specific host-symbiont associations. This paper is a critical response to Bourrat and Griffiths’ arguments and a defence of the arguments presented by holobiont defenders. Drawing upon the case of the hologenomic basis of the evolution of sanguivory in vampire bats, I argue that Bourrat and Griffiths overlook some aspects of the biological nature of the microbiome that justifies the thesis that holobionts are evolutionarily different to other multispecies assemblages. I argue that the hologenome theory of evolution should not define the hologenome as a collection of genomes, but as the sum of the host genome plus some traits of the microbiome which together constitute an evolutionary individual, a conception I refer to as the stability of traits conception of the hologenome. Based on that conception I argue that the evidence presented by holobiont defenders is to the point, and supports the thesis that holobionts are evolutionary individuals. In this sense, the paper offers an account of the holobiont that aims to foster a dialogue between hologenome advocates and hologenome critics. (shrink)

The intuitive distinction between natural and unnatural properties (e.g., green vs. grue) informs our theorizing not only in fundamental physics, but also in non-fundamental domains. This paper develops a reductive account of this broad notion of naturalness that covers non-fundamental properties: for a property to be natural, I propose, is for it to figure in a law of nature. After motivating the account, I defend it from a potential circularity charge. I argue that a suitably broad notion of lawhood can (...) be defined independently of naturalness, if we help ourselves to the notion of a fundamental physical property. I end by showing how the notions of naturalness and lawhood that my account delivers help illuminate a number of other important philosophical notions, like causation, reference/meaning, and rational induction. (shrink)

Contemporary biological research has suggested that some host–microbiome multispecies systems (referred to as “holobionts”) can in certain circumstances evolve as unique biological individual, thus being a unit of selection in evolution. If this is so, then it is arguably the case that some biological adaptations have evolved at the level of the multispecies system, what we call hologenomic adaptations. However, no research has yet been devoted to investigating their nature, or how these adaptations can be distinguished from adaptations at the (...) species-level (genomic adaptations). In this paper, we cover this gap by investigating the nature of hologenomic adaptations. By drawing on the case of the evolution of sanguivory diet in vampire bats, we argue that a trait constitutes a hologenomic adaptation when its evolution can only be explained if the holobiont is considered the biological individual that manifests this adaptation, while the bacterial taxa that bear the trait are only opportunistic beneficiaries of it. We then use the philosophical notions of emergence and inter-identity to explain the nature of this form of individuality and argue why it is special of holobionts. Overall, our paper illustrates how the use of philosophical concepts can illuminate scientific discussions, in the trend of what has recently been called metaphysics of biology. (shrink)

Some arguments against David Lewis’s modal realism seek to exploit apparent inconsistencies between it and anthropic reasoning. A recent argument, in particular, seeks to exploit an inconsistency between modal realism and typicality anthropic premises, premises common in the literature on physical multiverses, to the effect that observers who are like human observers in certain respects must be typical in the relevant multiverse. Here I argue that typicality premises are not applicable to the description of Lewis’s metaphysical multiverse, where the proportions (...) of metaphysically possible observers possessing the pertinent properties can be independently established by metaphysical reasoning. However, other kinds of reasonable anthropic premises can be seen to be consistent with and usable within modal realism. (shrink)

The Internet has been identified in human enhancement scholarship as a powerful cognitive enhancement technology. It offers instant access to almost any type of information, along with the ability to share that information with others. The aim of this paper is to critically assess the enhancement potential of the Internet. We argue that unconditional access to information does not lead to cognitive enhancement. The Internet is not a simple, uniform technology, either in its composition, or in its use. We will (...) look into why the Internet as an informational resource currently fails to enhance cognition. We analyze some of the phenomena that emerge from vast, continual fluxes of information–information overload, misinformation and persuasive design—and show how they could negatively impact users’ cognition. Methods for mitigating these negative impacts are then advanced: individual empowerment, better collaborative systems for sorting and categorizing information, and the use of artificial intelligence assistants that could guide users through the informational space of today’s Internet. (shrink)

Symbiosis plays a fundamental role in contemporary biology, as well as in recent thinking in philosophy of biology. The discovery of the importance and universality of symbiotic associations has brought new light to old debates in the field, including issues about the concept of biological individuality. An important aspect of these debates has been the formulation of the hologenome concept of evolution, the notion that holobionts are units of natural selection in evolution. This review examines the philosophical assumptions that underlie (...) recent proposal of the hologenome concept of evolution, and traces those debates back in time to their historical origins, to the moment when the connection between the topics of symbiosis and biological individuality first caught the attention of biologists. The review is divided in two parts. The first part explores the historical origins of the connection between the notion of symbiosis and the concept of biological individuality, and emphasizes the role of A. de Bary, R. Pound, A. Schneider and C. Merezhkowsky in framing the debate. The second part examines the hologenome concept of evolution and explores four parallelisms between contemporary debates and the debates presented in the first part of the essay, arguing that the different debates raised by the hologenome concept were already present in the literature. I suggest that the novelty of the hologenome concept of evolution lies in the wider appreciation of the importance of symbiosis for maintaining life on Earth as we know it. Finally, I conclude by suggesting the importance of exploring the connections among contemporary biology, philosophy of biology and history of biology in order to gain a better understanding of contemporary biology. (shrink)

L.A. Paul calls “deep” the kind of essentialism according to which the essential properties of objects are determined independently of the context. Deep essentialism opposes “shallow essentialism”, of which David Lewis is said to be a prominent advocate. Paul argues that standard forms of deep essentialism face a range of issues (mainly based on an interpretation of Quinean skepticism) that shallow essentialism does not. However, Paul claims, shallow essentialism eliminates the very heart of what motivates essentialism, so it is better (...) to be deep than shallow. Accordingly, she proposes a very sharp novel account of essentialism, which, while attempting to preserve some of the advantages of shallow essentialism over the classical forms of deep essentialism, can be deemed to be deep. In this paper, I compare Paul’s proposal for a kind of deep essentialism with Lewis’s account, as it is presented by Paul. My aim is to show that the differences between the two approaches are not as significant as Paul takes them to be, and that Paul’s account can be taken to be deeper than Lewis’s only at the cost of sacrificing the very idea at the bottom of deep essentialism. This might be taken to suggest that, if Paul is correct in asserting that shallow essentialism is better equipped to address some skeptical challenges, but it is generally preferable to be deep than shallow, then Lewis’s account should be re-evaluated, since, as shallow as it can be, it might be deeper than it looks. (shrink)

Holobionts are symbiotic assemblages composed by a host plus its microbiome. The status of holobionts as individuals has recently been a subject of continuous controversy, which has given rise to two main positions: on the one hand, holobiont advocates argue that holobionts are biological individuals; on the other, holobiont detractors argue that they are just mere chimeras or ecological communities, but not individuals. Both parties in the dispute develop their arguments from the framework of the philosophy of biology, in terms (...) of what it takes for a “conglomerate” to be considered an interesting individual from a biological point of view. However, the debates about holobiont individuality have important ontological implications that have remained vaguely explored from a metaphysical framework. The purpose of this paper is to cover that gap by presenting a metaphysical approach to holobionts individuality. Drawing upon a conception of natural selection that puts the focus on the transgenerational recurrence of the traits and that supports the thesis that holobionts are units of selection, we argue that holobionts bear emergent traits and exert downward powers over the entities that compose them. In this vein, we argue, a reasonable argument can be made for conceiving holobionts as emergent biological individuals. (shrink)

This paper uses the tools of experimental philosophy to examine the nature of interpersonal normativity in collective action, focusing on cases of immoral collective action and collective action by friends. The results of our two studies, which expand on recent empirical interventions into longstanding debates in social ontology, demonstrate that according to our everyday judgments there are interpersonal obligations in cases of collective action, even when immoral, and that, while friendship elicits judgments of togetherness, it does not affect the norms (...) of collective action. We also situate these results in the philosophical literature and discuss their consequences for a “pluralism” about sociality. (shrink)

The boundary problem is related to the binding problem, part of a family of puzzles and phenomenal experiences that theories of consciousness (ToC) must either explain or eliminate. By comparison with the phenomenal binding problem, the boundary problem has received very little scholarly attention since first framed in detail by Rosengard in 1998, despite discussion by Chalmers in his widely cited 2016 work on the combination problem. However, any ToC that addresses the binding problem must also address the boundary problem. (...) The binding problem asks how a unified first person perspective (1PP) can bind experiences across multiple physically distinct activities, whether billions of individual neurons firing or some other underlying phenomenon. To a first approximation, the boundary problem asks why we experience hard boundaries around those unified 1PPs and why the boundaries operate at their apparent spatiotemporal scale. We review recent discussion of the boundary problem, identifying several promising avenues but none that yet address all aspects of the problem. We set out five specific boundary problems to aid precision in future efforts. We also examine electromagnetic (EM) field theories in detail, given their previous success with the binding problem, and introduce a feature with the necessary characteristics to address the boundary problem at a conceptual level. Topological segmentation can, in principle, create exactly the hard boundaries desired, enclosing holistic, frame-invariant units capable of effecting downward causality. The conclusion outlines a programme for testing this concept, describing how it might also differentiate between competing EM ToCs. (shrink)

The debate regarding the nature of joint action has come to a stalemate due to a dependence on intuitional methods. Normativists, such as Margaret Gilbert, argue that action-relative normative relations are inherent in joint action, while non-normativists, such as Michael Bratman, claim that there are minimal cases of joint action without normative relations. In this work, we describe the first experimental examinations of these intuitions, and report the results of six studies that weigh in favor of the normativist paradigm. Philosophical (...) ramifications and further extensions of this work are then discussed. (shrink)

Many hypotheses have been advanced to explain the collective irrationality of COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy, such as partisanship and ideology, exposure to misinformation and conspiracy theories or the effectiveness of public messaging. This paper presents a complementary explanation to epistemic accounts of collective irrationality, focusing on the moral reasons underlying people’s decisions regarding vaccination. We argue that the moralization of COVID-19 risk mitigation measures contributed to the polarization of groups along moral values, which ultimately led to the emergence of collective irrational (...) behaviors. Collective irrationality arises from groups explicitly or implicitly endorsing values that ultimately harm both themselves and those around. The role of social media platforms in amplifying this polarization and contributing to the emergence of collective irrationality is also examined. Finally, potential strategies for addressing the moral sources of collective irrationality are discussed. (shrink)

Philippe Huneman has recently questioned the widespread application of mechanistic models of scientific explanation based on the existence of structural explanations, i.e. explanations that account for the phenomenon to be explained in virtue of the mathematical properties of the system where the phenomenon obtains, rather than in terms of the mechanisms that causally produce the phenomenon. Structural explanations are very diverse, including cases like explanations in terms of bowtie structures, in terms of the topological properties of the system, or in (...) terms of equilibrium. The role of mathematics in bowtie structured systems and in topologically constrained systems has recently been examined in different papers. However, the specific role that mathematical properties play in equilibrium explanations requires further examination, as different authors defend different interpretations, some of them closer to the new-mechanistic approach than to the structural model advocated by Huneman. In this paper, we cover this gap by investigating the explanatory role that mathematics play in Blaser and Kirschner’s nested equilibrium model of the stability of persistent long-term human-microbe associations. We argue that their model is explanatory because: i) it provides a mathematical structure in the form of a set of differential equations that together satisfy an ESS; ii) that the nested nature of the ESSs makes the explanation of host-microbe persistent associations robust to any perturbation; iii) that this is so because the properties of the ESS directly mirror the properties of the biological system in a non-causal way. The combination of these three theses make equilibrium explanations look more similar to structural explanations than to causal-mechanistic explanation. (shrink)

El artículo tiene como objetivo explorar el papel del juego y del enfoque lúdico dentro de la Filosofía Lúdica (Filú), un movimiento educativo arraigado en la Filosofía para Niños y Niñas (FpN). Desde la perspectiva de un aprendiz, se subraya que, en la evolución de Filú, el juego no se considera simplemente un componente adicional, sino un pilar esencial, especialmente cuando lo lúdico se integra de manera crucial en el proceso de aprendizaje junto al cuerpo. La dimensión lúdica abarca diversos (...) aspectos, incluyendo el movimiento emocional, verbal, cognitivo y corporal, ofreciendo la posibilidad de vivenciar el proceso de aprendizaje de forma holística. (shrink)

Disponibile anche in versione cartacea: in Almanacco Equilibri 2024, La società dell’educazione, P. Alfieri e N. Zanardi (curatori). Collana Equilibri Magazine, Mimesi edizioni, Milano. -/- **Abstract:** -/- Questo articolo esplora l'importanza della filosofia pratica e della cittadinanza creativa nel contesto delle attuali transizioni epocali. Riprendendo le origini del concetto di "scuola" nell'Antica Grecia, l'autrice evidenzia come il processo di insegnamento-apprendimento fosse centrato sull'auto-direzione della crescita individuale. Rifacendosi alle riflessioni di filosofi come Hadot e Foucault, si sottolinea il carattere pratico della (...) filosofia antica, fondata non solo sulla teoria ma anche su esercizi spirituali e pratiche di cura di sé. -/- L'articolo discute il cambiamento nell'insegnamento della filosofia nelle scuole secondarie italiane, passando da una prospettiva storicista a un approccio che favorisce il confronto diretto con i testi della tradizione filosofica. Vengono esplorate anche esperienze educative alternative, come la pedagogia proposta da Danilo Dolci e la Scuola di Barbiana, che enfatizzano il dialogo, la cooperazione e la promozione della creatività. -/- Inoltre, si esamina il ruolo della Philosophy for Children (P4C) nel promuovere il pensiero complesso e la partecipazione attiva degli studenti attraverso il dialogo filosofico. Si illustrano le sfide e i successi dell'implementazione della P4C in Italia, evidenziando l'importanza della formazione dei docenti e delle pratiche di ricerca filosofica nelle comunità educative. -/- Infine, si introduce il concetto di Filosofia Ludica e il Curriculum Noria, sottolineando il loro approccio ludico e multiculturale alla promozione del pensiero critico e della cittadinanza creativa. Si evidenzia come queste pratiche si inseriscano nel movimento più ampio della Cittadinanza Creativa, offrendo agli studenti strumenti per affrontare le sfide contemporanee e contribuire alla costruzione di un futuro migliore. (shrink)

The paper addresses the methodology used by the teacher-KEYWORDS: facilitator to plan P4C sessions. The classic method consists of identifying the guidelines of the dialogue from a provisional mapping of the text, but this can be supplemented or replaced by other tools‡. GrupIREF and the Filosofía Lúdica movement§ use an approach that focuses on thinking skills. The P4C session is planned from the choice of the thinking skills to be trained - or possibly the attitudes and ethical values that appear (...) in the stimulus used. This article proposes an alternative to the classical planning approach, examining the basis of the model considered and offering a practical example. ITA_Focus dell’articolo è la modalità di pianificazione delle sessioni di Philosophy for Children, P4C, da parte del docente-facilitatore. Il metodo classico consiste nell’individuazione di linee-guida del dialogo a partire da una mappatura orientativa del testo-pretesto, ma ciò può essere integrato, o sostituito da altre modalità*. Il GrupIREF e il movimento della Filosofía Lúdica† utilizzano un approccio che privilegia le abilità di pensiero. La sessione P4C viene pianificata a partire dalla scelta dell’abilità di pensiero da allenare – o eventualmente dell’atteggiamento etico e dei valori legati al pre-testo utilizzato. Il presente lavoro suggerisce un’alternativa alla progettazione classica, attraverso una disamina delle basi del modello considerato, e ne offre un esempio pratico. (shrink)

The Lewisean counterpart theorist– despite not defending a genuinely essentialist view of what is possible, de re, of individuals – generally has a way to make essentialist claims come out as true, in those contexts in which they are endorsed by a committed essentialist. In this paper, I am going to show that the normal system that the Lewisean adopts when she wants to make the essentialist a truth-teller does not work with Kit Fine: his essentialist beliefs, which support his (...) counterexamples to the modal account of essentialism, cannot come out as true, in any contexts whatsoever, under the Lewisean view. After arguing that this represents a genuine problem for Lewis’s theory, I will propose a solution. I will indeed show that the Lewisean has a principled way to account for Fine’s essentialist beliefs, consistently with her own counterpart-theorist reading of them. (shrink)

Escribir hoy en día un libro sobre hermenéutica, que tal hermenéutica se refiera a la desarrollada por G. Gadamer en su conocido Verdad y método y que se pretenda añadir algo nuevo a lo mucho escrito sobre el tema parecería, a primera vista, empresa irrealizable. Que ambas pretensiones inspiren la sólida monografía de María G. Navarro —titulada Interpretar y argumentar— constituye empresa audaz y arriesgada, plena de coraje innovador, que provoca admiración, curiosidad e interés. Contra lo que pudiera parecer a (...) primera vista, el libro contiene un alto componente de originalidad y creatividad, debido a la estratagema metodoló-gica de que se sirve la autora. A saber, una hermenéutica in obliquo, estrategia consistente en interpretar a la hermenéutica gadameriana a través del prisma de la lógica de la argumentación. (shrink)

The New Evil Demon Problem presents a serious challenge to externalist theories of epistemic justification. In recent years, externalists have developed a number of strategies for responding to the problem. A popular line of response involves distinguishing between a belief’s being epistemically justified and a subject’s being epistemically blameless for holding it. The apparently problematic intuitions the New Evil Demon Problem elicits, proponents of this response claim, track the fact that the deceived subject is epistemically blameless for believing as she (...) does, not that she is justified for so believing. This general strategy—which I call the “unjustified-but-blameless maneuver”—is motivated, in part, by the assumption that the distinction between epistemic justification and blamelessness is merely an extension of the familiar distinction between moral justification and blamelessness. In this paper, I consider three ways of drawing the distinction between justification and blamelessness familiar from the moral domain: the first in terms of a connection with reactive attitudes, the second in terms of the distinction between wrongness and wronging, and the third in terms of reasons-responsiveness. All three ways of drawing the distinction, I argue, make it difficult to see how an analogous distinction in the epistemic domain could help externalists explain away the intuitions which underwrite the New Evil Demon Problem. Motivating the unjustified-but-blameless maneuver, I conclude, is a much less straightforward task than its proponents tend to assume. (shrink)

Este artículo explora el uso del cuento “¡Quiero dinero!”, parte de la colección “Cuentos para pensar” de Angélica Sátiro, como recurso pedagógico en sesiones de filosofía para niños y niñas, en distintos contextos. Entre 2015 y 2019, se organizaron talleres tanto en escuelas primarias como en espacios de organización ciudadana, involucrando a adultos en proyectos relacionados con la “otra economía”. Los talleres tenían como objetivos fomentar la conciencia sobre los significados personales atribuidos a conceptos y prácticas económicas, así como los (...) vinculados a la participación en comunidades de diálogo. Se empleó también como herramienta para recolectar datos en investigación de campo. Los resultados de las sesiones con adultos destacan que el cuento facilitó el diálogo necesario para construir un sentido común en torno a prácticas colectivas, mediante la reflexión sobre la propia praxis. El artículo concluye con una comparación de dos sesiones, una con niños y otra con adultos. (shrink)

El artículo aborda el problema de la relación entre el ser humano y la técnica en el mundo actual desde una perspectiva filosófica. Volver a la concepción de la filosofía griega permite concebir hoy el quehacer filosófico como un ejercicio vital, sin fracturas entre el pensamiento y la acción. La patente plasticidad del ser humano evidencia la constitutiva apertura que determina su especificidad y, además, columbra la estrecha vinculación entre técnica, creación y cuidado a partir del acontecimiento del habitar. El (...) cuidado no puede tener lugar sin cierta promoción de un ethos cultural centrado en el miramiento, la asistencia y la preocupación por uno mismo y por el Otro. El olvido de la relación entre la creación y el cuidado conduce a un desequilibrio ethopoiético entre la condición ontológica del ser humano, como ser nacido, finito y vulnerable, y el desarrollo tecnológico, impulsado por la digitalización de la vida y el ascendente papel de las nuevas tecnologías en la sociedad. Advertir y remediar dicho desequilibrio supone repensar la originaria relación entre la creación técnica y el cuidado ético, así como la importancia de la ética para la persistencia de lo orgánico. (shrink)

This essay proposes a reductive account of robust macro-regularities. On the view proposed, regularities can earn their elite scientific status by featuring in good summaries of restricted regions in the space of physical possibilities: our “modal neighborhoods.” I argue that this view vindicates “nomic foundationalism”, while doing justice to the practice of invoking physically contingent generalizations in higher-level explanations. Moreover, the view suggests an explanation for the particular significance of robust macro-regularities: we rely on summaries of our modal neighborhoods when (...) reasoning hypothetically about “agentially accessible” possibilities. (shrink)

The units or levels of selection debate concerns the question of what kind of biological systems are stable enough that part of their evolution is a result of the process of natural selection acting at their level. Traditionally, the debate has concerned at least two different, though related, questions: the question of the level at which interaction with the environment occurs, and the question of the level at which reproduction occurs. In recent years, biologists and philosophers have discussed a new (...) aspect of this debate, namely the possibility that certain multi-species consortia formed by a host and its microbiome may act as a unit of selection. This thesis, however, has not been without criticism, as it is doubtful that such consortia could meet the conditions required to achieve the degree of stability that would allow them to experience natural selection. The purpose of this paper is to systematically examine such criticisms and to defend the thesis that the holobiont/hologenome can act as a genuine level of selection both in the form of an interactor and in the form of a reproducer. To do so, it will be argued that the microbiome should be characterized in functional rather than taxonomic terms. (shrink)

Adela Cortina introduced the term aporophobia in the public arena in order to offer another perspective in the discussion on the struggle against poverty and inequality. In this paper, we are aiming to apply this Cortina’s thesis in journalism, whose common thread will be the exodus of Venezuelans. Appealing to critical hermeneutics as a philosophical method, we understand journalism as a profession capable of transforming social reality. In order for journalism to gain social legitimacy and not be perceived as a (...) mere business or metric competition, it is urgent to understand it not from the functional-communicative point of view, but committed to human dignity, as a basis to generate opportunities for freedom. (shrink)

The hologenome concept of evolution is a hypothesis about the evolution of animals and plants. It asserts that the evolution of animals and plants was partially triggered by their interactions with their symbiotic microbiomes. In that vein, the hologenome concept posits that the holobiont (animal host + symbionts of the microbiome) is a unit of selection. -/- The hologenome concept has been severely criticized on the basis that selection on holobionts would only be possible if there were a tight transgenerational (...) host-genotype-to-symbiont-genotype connection. As our current evidence suggests that this is not the case for most of the symbiont species that compose the microbiome of animals and plants, the opportunity for holobiont selection is very low in relation to the opportunity for selection on each of the species that compose the host microbiome. Therefore, holobiont selection will always be disrupted ‘from below’, by selection on each of the species that compose the microbiome. -/- This thesis constitutes a conceptual effort to defend philosophically the hologenome concept. I argue that the criticism according to which holobiont selection requires tight transgenerational host-genotype-to-symbiont-genotype connection is grounded on a metaphysical view of the world according to which the biological hierarchy needs to be nested, such that each new level of selection includes every entity from below. Applied to hologenomes, it entails that the hologenome is a collection of genomes, and selection of hologenomes is assumed to entail cospeciation of the host with the species that constitute its microbiome. -/- Against that interpretation, I propose the ‘stability of traits’ account, according to which hologenome evolution is the result of the action of natural selection in a non-nested hierarchical world. In that vein, hologenome evolution does not entail cospeciation, and thus it does not require tight transgenerational host-genotype-to-symbiont-genotype connection. By embracing a multilevel selection perspective, I argue that hologenome evolution results from the simultaneous action of natural selection on each of the lineages that compose the microbiome, and on the assemblage composed by the host genome plus the functional traits of its microbiome. Hologenome selection occurs when the evolution of the traits of the microbiome result from their effects on the fitness of the host, and it can take the form of multilevel selection 1, or multilevel selection 2. In both cases, hologenome selection entails the evolution of microbiome traits, as well as evolution of the host genome, rather than cospeciation of lineages. (shrink)

This essay focuses on recent proposals to confer decisional status upon deliberative minipublics such as citizen juries, Deliberative Polls, citizen’s assemblies, and so forth. Against such proposals, I argue that inserting deliberative minipublics into political decision-making processes would diminish the democratic legitimacy of the political system as a whole. This negative conclusion invites a question: which political uses of minipublics would yield genuinely democratic improvements? Drawing from a participatory conception of deliberative democracy, I propose several uses of minipublics that could (...) enhance the democratic legitimacy of political decision-making in current societies. (shrink)

In this essay, I address several questions and challenges brought about by the contributors to the special issue on my book Democracy without Shortcuts. In particular, I address some implications of my critique of deep pluralism; distinguish between three senses of ‘blind deference’: political, reflective, and informational; draw a critical parallelism between the populist conception of representation as embodiment and the conception of ‘citizen-representatives’ often ascribed to participants in deliberative minipublics; defend the democratic attractiveness of participatory uses over empowered uses (...) of deliberative minipublics; clarify why accepting public reason constraints does not imply limiting deliberation to questions about constitutional rights, and argue that overcoming a state-centric conception of democracy does not require replacing the ‘all subjected’ principle with the ‘all affected’ principle. (shrink)

In the present paper, we shall discuss the notion of prototype and show its benefits. First, we shall argue that the prototypes of common-sense concepts are necessary for making prompt and reliable categorisations and inferences. However, the features constituting the prototype of a particular concept are neither necessary nor sufficient conditions for determining category membership; in this sense, the prototype might lead to conclusions regarded as wrong from a theoretical perspective. That being said, the prototype remains essential to handling most (...) ordinary situations and helps us to perform important cognitive tasks. To exemplify this point, we shall focus on disease concepts. Our analysis concludes that the prototypical conception of disease is needed to make important inferences from a practical and clinical point of view. Moreover, it can still be compatible with a classical definition of disease, given in terms of necessary and sufficient conditions. In the first section, we shall compare the notion of stereotype, as it has been introduced in philosophy of language by Hilary Putnam, with the notion of prototype, as it has been developed in the cognitive sciences. In the second section, we shall discuss the general role of prototypical information in cognition and stress its centrality. In the third section, we shall apply our previous discussion to the specific case of medical concepts, before briefly summarising our conclusions in section four. (shrink)

El artículo pretende incidir en el vínculo entre lenguaje y cuidado. Para ello, se realiza una aproximación a la reflexión levinasiana sobre el lenguaje. La concepción antropológico-metafísica de la condición humana de Lévinas destaca la dimensión moral de la palabra y la productividad de la relación entre el decir el mundo y el don, como una de las dimensiones fundamentales que permite la apertura efectiva del Yo a la alteridad. Todo ello, nos conduce a explicitar la potencialidad de su pensamiento (...) para sentar las bases de una ética hermenéutica del cuidado del Otro. (shrink)

The thesis, typical among dualists, that there are no necessitation relations between events of consciousness and physical events implies that it is prima facie lucky that in our world the apparently existing psychophysical laws usually match events of consciousness and physical events in a “harmonious” way. The lucky psychophysical laws argument concludes that typical dualism amounts to a psychophysical parallelism that is prima facie too improbable to be true. I argue that an anthropic reasoning in the space of possible worlds (...) makes the appearance of a harmonious match situation unsurprising, and that this is all that is needed for the argument to be harmless to a typical dualist. (shrink)

Lewis (1968) claims that his language of Counterpart Theory (CT) interprets modal discourse and he adverts to a translation scheme from the language of Quantifed Modal Logic (QML) to CT. However, everybody now agrees that his original translation scheme does not always work, since it does not always preserve the ‘intuitive’ meaning of the translated QML-formulas. Lewis discusses this problem with regard to the Necessitist Thesis, and I will extend his discourse to the analysis of the Converse Barcan Formula. Everyone (...) also agrees that there are CT-formulas that can express the QMLcontent that gets lost through the translation. The problem is how we arrive to them. In this paper, I propose new translation rules from QML to CT, based on a suggestion by Kaplan. However, I will claim that we cannot have ‘the’ translation scheme from QML to CT. The reason being that de re modal language is ambiguous. Accordingly, there are diferent sorts of QML, depending on how we resolve such ambiguity. Therefore, depending on what sort of QML we intend to translate into CT, we need to use the corresponding translation scheme. This suggests that all the translation problems might just disappear if we do what Lewis did not: begin with a fully worked out QML that tells us how to understand de re modal discourse. (shrink)

This paper looks into two Scottish Philosophical Societies of the Eighteenth century: The Philosophical Society of Edinburgh, and the Select Society of Edinburgh. I intend to show that they were planned, constructed, and carried out according to the experimental method of natural philosophy, and that it was this factor that enhanced the influence they had in the development of the country. An examination of the minute books, discourses, abstracts and question lists of these societies will provide enough evidence to support (...) the claim that experimental philosophy and its method were the decisive factors for the developing and huge success of these societies. (shrink)

Recent studies demonstrate a moral self effect: continuity in moral values is crucial to ascriptions of identity in and over time. Since Locke, personal identity has been referred to as a ‘forensic’ concept, meaning that it plays a role in attributions of moral responsibility. If moral values are crucial to identity over time, then perceived changes in a person’s set of values may reduce responsibility for past deeds. To test this, we examined the moral self effect in parole contexts. In (...) this empirical article, we conducted two experiments, in which participants were significantly more likely to grant parole to agents who underwent a moral change as opposed to mere behavioral change. We conclude by discussing possible objections and implications of these philosophical results for the Lockean view of personal identity. -/- . (shrink)

Cette étude défend l’idée que, contrairement à l’opinion de Latour sur la nécessité de laisser de côté l’épistémologie pour traiter de tout ce qui a de la valeur pour la science, Mario Bunge a systématiquement construit une épistémologie détaillée et approfondie. La stratégie argumentative consistera à montrer (a) qu’il est faux que nous n’avons jamais été modernes (b) que l’épistémologie est là pour de bon et (c) que Mario Bunge soutient un réalisme scientifique fort, une version du matérialisme, du systémisme (...) et de l’émergentisme, comportant une dimension morale (il existe des valeurs objectives comme la vérité, la paix et la justice qui méritent d’être étudiées). Ensuite, le réalisme de Bunge rejette la neutralité axiologique rendant les scientifiques responsables de leurs actions. Bunge a toujours été moderne et continue à enrichir ses propres positions. (shrink)

From the refusal of some parents to apply some vaccines to their children, in this work we will show that to act properly it is not enough with a good intellectual justification to validate a belief as accurate, it will be necessary to take into account also the systematic actions in relation to which we are constituted, as well as the feelings that accompany those actions. We begin by exposing the notion of belief that Villoro presents from authors such as (...) Braithwaite and Bain. Next, we briefly explain the topic of the justification of beliefs and then articulate it with some of the controversies related to the application of vaccines. Later, we turned to Hume to show the role of imagination in relation to pleasure and pain in decision making. Finally, we present an outline of the discussion about paternalism in the application of vaccines. (shrink)

I defend the hypothesis that the semantic paradoxes, the paradoxes about collections, and the sorites paradoxes, are all paradoxes of reference fixing: they show that certain conventionally adopted and otherwise functional reference-fixing principles cannot provide consistent assignments of reference to certain relevant expressions in paradoxical cases. I note that the hypothesis has interesting implications concerning the idea of a unified account of the semantic, collection and sorites paradoxes, as well as about the explanation of their “recalcitrance”. I also note that (...) it does not necessarily imply that one should not expect the sometimes hoped for “unique” solution to a paradox of these kinds. (shrink)

Nuestro frenesí de comunicación e información hace que las cosas des- aparezcan y devengan en no-cosas, también llamadas informaciones (Han, 2021: 10). El marco ontológico presente es resultado de un desplazamiento que va del ocaso de las cosas al consumo rápido y frenético de no-cosas. En este entorno intangible el ser humano ya no maneja ninguna cosa. Las no cosas son aquellas cosas puramente intangibles, que no pueden aprehenderse con las manos. Lo único que le queda de las manos al (...) ser humano que habita este entorno son las yemas de los dedos con las que presiona las teclas para jugar con símbolos (Flusser, 2002: 107). ¿Qué efectos contrae este nuevo paradigma vital en el campo de la educación? ¿Qué significa educar en y trabajar con no-cosas? (shrink)

Explorar la posibilidad de una nueva micropolítica crítica del signo a partir de Foucault, inspirada en la genealogía nietzscheana, y examinar las políticas y estrategias de alfabetización mediática e informacional necesarias para desarrollar competencias digitales en la transformación del ecosistema mediático es una tarea fundamental del quehacer filosófico actual. La pregunta por la posibilidad de la verdad retorna en un contexto en el que el pluralismo semiótico y la conducción mediática son dos elementos que rigen y ordenan la sociedad actual, (...) sociedad que se caracteriza por la abundancia de información y la omnipresencia de los medios de comunicación como tecnologías de poder. Desgranar su significado y vínculo nos conduce directamente al estudio del poder y el signo en relación con los efectos de la verdad de la posverdad. En este marco conceptual, la obra de Foucault proporciona herramientas teóricas valiosas para afrontar esta problemática. (shrink)

In this essay, I address some questions and challenges brought about by the contributors to this special issue on my book ‘Democracy without Shortcuts’. First, I clarify different aspects of my cri...

La sociedad del siglo XXI ha sufrido una mutación histórica en lo que respecta a los métodos de producción y los impactos derivados de la generación de información. Este período se caracteriza por su inmersión en el entorno digital, donde los individuos, como ciudadanos, se encuentran bajo la manipulación, por un lado, de sus datos mediante técnicas de vigilancia y, por otros, expuestos a cámaras de resonancia mediática. Este panorama plantea desafíos significativos en cuanto a la manera en que interactúan (...) con la información y cómo esta afecta sus vidas. La relación entre los medios de comunicación y los acontecimientos, además, se encuentra atravesada por el concepto de interpretación, donde la capacidad de comprender y la habilidad para reconstruir narrativas son elementos que determinan la comprensión y el sentido de lo que ocurre en nuestro mundo. (shrink)

Working memory is a foundational construct of cognitive psychology, where it is thought to be a capacity that enables us to keep information in mind and to use that information to support goal directed behavior. Philosophers have recently employed working memory to explain central cognitive processes, from consciousness to reasoning. In this paper, I show that working memory cannot meet even a minimal account of natural kindhood, as the functions of maintenance and manipulation of information that tie working memory models (...) and theories together do not have a coherent or univocal realizer in the brain. As such, working memory cannot explain central cognition. Rather, I argue that working memory merely redescribes its target phenomenon, and in doing so it obfuscates relevant distinctions amongst the many ways that brains like ours retain and transform information in the service of cognition. While this project ultimately erodes the explanatory role that working memory has played in our understanding of cognition, it simultaneously prompts us to evaluate the function of natural kinds within cognitive science, and signals the need for a productive pessimism to frame our future study of cognitive categories. (shrink)

“Hay momentos en la vida en los que la cuestión de saber si se puede pensar distinto de como se piensa o percibir distinto de como se ve es indispensable para seguir contemplando o reflexionando” (Foucault, 2003, p. 8). Esta declaración foucaultiana es la que impulsa la voluntad genealógica que presenta este ensayo, así como su pretensión proyectiva para pensar hoy la educación. El momento filosófico crítico consiste en volver sobre las prácticas que día a día llevamos a cabo y (...) configuran nuestras vidas y nuestras instituciones. Este es necesario para realimentar y reorientar la savia de las instituciones, y especialmente la savia de nuestras instituciones académicas, suelo en el cual se teje la sustancia ética que posteriormente dará lugar a la articulación social. Si se aplica el elemento crítico que la actividad filosófica supone a la experiencia de la educación, entendiendo por ella la correlación dentro de una cultura entre campos de saber, tipos de normatividad y formas de subjetividad, podemos preguntarnos: qué es la educación y qué función desempeña hoy con respecto al ejercicio mismo del pensamiento en un contexto atravesado por las nuevas tecnologías y la IA. (shrink)

In this paper, I defend an epistemological pluralism that moves away from universal and absolute rationality, as well as from a radical and arbitrary relativism, where any criterion is valid for decision making. Such epistemological pluralism maintains that subjects know the world in which they live according to different conceptual schemes. We posit a notion of truth linked to the justification process and practical effectiveness. Then we present the importance of traditional knowledge in the socio-ecological field and relative to complex (...) systems. Finally, we explain the relevance of epistemic equity between traditional and scientific knowledges in order to anticipate consequences and to make decisions less uncertain. (shrink)