The initial foundations to the notion that Cometan's grandparents, Irene Mary Taylor and Derrick Taylor, should be recognised for their life as laypeople in the Roman Catholic Church first emerged in January 2020 and October 2021 respectively. Irene Mary was well known for her devotion to Catholicism among her family and acquaintances, yet Cometan saw in her icon and life events an opportunity to reinvigorate Catholic fervour in England and abroad. In his own endeavour as a religious figure (...) and philosopher as the founder of Astronism, Cometan had made it clear that his paternal grandmother had played a large role in his religious life from infancy and so Irene Mary's Cause for Beatification was the culmination of this destined religious figureship. The Beatification Story of Irene Mary Taylor holds the responsibility of presenting Irene Mary for the recognition in the Roman Catholic Church in whichever capacity the Church deems suitable. The book explores the major remembered life events of Irene Mary Taylor, relates them to Catholic doctrine, and systematises them to form Irenianism, Irene Mary's eponymous Catholic system of thought. (shrink)

What kind of reference (if any) do terms such as “pencil,” “chair,” “television,” and so on have? On the matter, a de-bate between directly referential theorists and descriptiv-ist theorists is open. It is largely acknowledged that natural kind terms (such as “water,” “gold,” “tiger,” etc.) are directly referential expressions (cf. Putnam,1975). That is, they are expressions whose reference is determined by their refer-ents' nature, independent of whether we know or will ever know what this nature is. However, it does not (...) seem like-wise convincing that all artifactual kind terms (like “pen-cil,” “chair,” “television,” etc.) semantically behave the same. Terms for artifactual kinds seem more likely to be subjected to a descriptivist view, that is, definable not by links to their extensions' nature but in terms of conjunctions or clusters of properties. In his celebrated “The Meaning of ‘Meaning’” (1975), Hilary Putnam originated the mentioned debate by arguing that artifactual kind terms also refer directly. Thus, the discussion ultimately revolves around establishing whether artifactual and natural kind terms are both directly referential expressions. The authors engaged in this debate have tried to argue in favor of (or against) Putnam's proposal by highlighting the similarities (or differences) between nat-ural vis-à-vis artifactual kind words and their respective ref-erents. This paper aims to provide a thorough and reasoned overview of the debate at stake, pointing out trends and problems associated with each proposed account. (shrink)

For the philosopher of Rotterdam, religious coercion has two essential sources of illegitimacy: the linking of religious and ecclesiastical belief and the use of politics for religious purposes. Bayle responds to it, with his doctrine of freedom of conscience, on one hand and by means of the essential distinction between voluntary religious affiliation and political obligation, on the other hand. From my perspective, his doctrine of tolerance does not involve an atheist state, nor does it mean the rejection of the (...) presence of religion in the public space or its displacement to the intimate sphere of the conscience. This paper proposes a reading of Baylean tolerance as a political doctrine that allows the articulation between freedom of conscience, minority confessions, and official religion. Thus, the Baylean theoretical model could be considered a proposal to provide a normative form to the practice of toleration present in the seventeenth -century Netherlands. (shrink)

For most interpreters of the philosopher from Rotterdam, his political doctrine is solely a consequence of his religious and moral doctrines, and so an image of Bayle as a political philosopher is not usually presented. To my mind, however, only by analyzing his political doctrine can the extent of his religious proposal be understood. In this article, I intend to show that both the Baylean criticism of popular sovereignty and his rejection of the right of resistance are analyses that are (...) indissociable from the Baylean doctrine of tolerance. The protection of individual freedom of conscience and the defense of a multi-confessional state model, tolerant regarding religious minorities, can only be articulated as historical reality if they rest on the political doctrine of indivisible sovereignty and on the strictest separation between political obedience and religious membership. (shrink)

‘Pencil’, ‘Tiger’, ‘Christianity’. What kind of reference (if any) do these terms have? Do they have the same semantics? In his celebrated The Meaning of ‘Meaning’ (1975), Hilary Putnam suggests so when arguing that they have externalist semantics. However, this claim is highly controversial. A lengthy discussion has been going on the matter. So far, neither Putnam’s nor other defenses of Externalism proposed within this debate have actually succeeded in showing that the terms at stake (and their likes) are semantically (...) on a par. Here I examine further options left to the externalist. I conclude that, still, none is a viable alternative for defending that Externalism applies to the mentioned terms (and their likes). (shrink)

Este artículo se propone realizar un acercamiento a la concepción que desarrolla Matthew Lipman sobre las múltiples dimensiones transactivas del pensamiento, con la intención de apreciar la forma en que aporta a la consolidación de una racionalidad que tenga como características distintivas la complejidad y el humanismo; en virtud de ello, se analizan las tres vertientes principales del pensamiento multidimensional, a saber: crítica, creativa y cuidadosa. La consecuencia del escrutinio arroja que la interacción y reciprocidad que se da entre las (...) tres dimensiones susodichas abre las puertas para la emergencia de un pensamiento de orden superior, la razonabilidad, que no es otra cosa que una racionalidad compleja, capaz de reconocer la pluralidad y la diversidad; es decir, una racionalidad que pretende superar las limitaciones del pensamiento imperante, para no incurrir en la unilateralidad, el instrumentalismo y el cientifismo. Así las cosas, el pionero del programa de Filosofía para Niños considera que el alcance de la razonabilidad debe ser la finalidad de todo proceso educativo; de ahí que Lipman se dé a la tarea de forjar una propuesta filosófico-pedagógica, que será la base para el despliegue de las habilidades superiores del pensamiento, las cuales resultarán indispensables para la construcción de una democracia de alta calidad. (shrink)

In this article, we will analyze the redefinition that Hobbes applies to the essential elements of Protestant biblical hermeneutics in the Leviathan. Establishing who is the authorized interpreter, defining the rules for conducting a proper exegesis, and determining the content that results from both tasks, is of utmost importance. The answers to these three questions lay the foundation for a new relationship between civil and ecclesiastical power and fully immerse Hobbes in the theological-political discussion of the 17th century.

The article goes through the critical analysis of the rawlsian concept of original position, expressed by Habermas in 1995. Habermasian remarks on the original position aim to undermine the justifiability of such a concept as fundamental to the whole political theory. In fact, it is supposed to substitute the procedures of democratic deliberation with a well thought-out construction belonging uniquely to the theoretician. According to Habermas, substantive outcomes of procedures must be left out from political theory, whose task is to (...) set a standard for the best possible procedures, meaning a democratic framework in which all opinions and beliefs take part to the decision. Rawls approves the critique since from his point of view, no procedure is able to avoid the inclusion of some substantive contents. On such assumption he twists to Habermasian theory the same remarks, observing that it avoids substantive assumptions at political level, embodying them at the epistemic one. As a result, the article raises some issues about the desirability and feasibility of both theories, even considering which interpretation of the role of political philosophy they imply. (shrink)

Durante siglos, se consideró un deber del buen cristiano obligar, a todos los hombres a entrar en el seno de la Iglesia, puesto que de ello dependía su salvación eterna. Esta doctrina presupone que existe una nítida diferencia entre verdad religiosa y error. Para Bayle, sin embargo, la creencia religiosa solo puede aspirar a convertirse en una verdad putativa, sustentada en la convicción subjetiva del fiel, concepción que le permite desdibujar el propio concepto de herejía y criticar las persecuciones religiosas (...) de su tiempo. (shrink)

In this article, I discuss the Protestant contribution to the modern concept of autonomy on the basis of an analysis of John Calvin's moral theology. I show that Calvin affirms our incapacity to know and want what is morally good, as expressed by natural law. Such incapacity is compensated for by the biblical mandates that, according to Calvin, should be incorporated into the positive legislation of Christian republics. In view of all this, I conclude that Calvin is far from the (...) Kantian idea of autonomy which defines our Modernity. (shrink)

In this paper I consider the essential role that public memory plays in the establishment and maintenance of the political arena and its space of appearance. Without this space and the shared memory that allows it to appear, Hannah Arendt argues, transience and finitude would consume the excellence of word and deed—just as the "natural ruin of time" consumes its mortal performer. The modern era displays a kind of mnemonic failure, however, a situation arising not only from technological developments that (...) "outsource" memory but from several normative breakdowns that Arendt describes as characteristic of modernity. The consequence is the individual's loss of personal, living access to the community's memories, and the community's own failure to engage in the difficult choice of what counts as worthy of preservation. In failing to ask this question, however, the community abdicates responsibility for establishing the shared norms by which it will govern itself in times of crisis. (shrink)

During the 13th century, several logicians in the Latin medieval tradition showed a special interest in the nature of impossibility, and in the different kinds or ‘degrees’ of impossibility that could be distinguished. This discussion resulted in an analysis of the modal concept with a fineness of grain unprecedented in earlier modal accounts. Of the several divisions of the term ‘impossible’ that were offered, one became particularly relevant in connection with the debate on ars obligatoria and positio impossibilis: the distinction (...) between ‘intelligible’ and ‘unintelligible’ impossibilities. In this article, I consider some 13th-century tracts on obligations that provide an account of the relation between impossibility and intelligibility and discuss the inferential principles that are permissible when we reason from an impossible – but intelligible – premise. I also explore the way in which the 13th-century reflection on this topic survives, in a revised form, in some early 14th-century accounts of positio, namely, those of William of Ockham, Roger Swineshead and Thomas Bradwardine. (shrink)

Freedom as a natural right, the importance of consent, defending the idea that government should be in the hands of the most virtuous and reflective citizens, denouncing patronage, the need to link individual and political freedom ? These are some of the characteristics of La Boétie's doctrine that I believe place him within the tradition that Quentin Skinner calls the neo-Roman conception of civil liberty. Of course, La Boétie did not write a positive defence of the rule of law, as (...) Livy did in his History of Rome and as the English republicans do, but the Discourse can easily be read as a legal plea condemning absolute monarchy and any kind of arbitrary regime. (shrink)

While the Academic sceptics followed the plausible as a criterion of truth and guided their practice by a doxastic norm, so thinking that agential performances are actions for which the agent assumes responsibility, the Pyrrhonists did not accept rational belief-management, dispensing with judgment in empirical matters. In this sense, the Pyrrhonian Sceptic described himself as not acting in any robust sense of the notion, or as ‘acting’ out of sub-personal and social mechanisms. The important point is that the Pyrrhonian advocacy (...) of a minimal conception of ‘belief’ was motivated by ethical concerns: avoiding any sort of commitment, he attempted to preserve his peace of mind. In this article, I argue for a Cartesian model of rational guidance that, in line with some current versions of an agential virtue epistemology, does involve judgment and risk, and thus which is true both to our rational constitution and to our finite and fallible nature. Insofar as epistemic humility is a virtue of rational agents that recognise the limits of their judgments, Pyrrhonian scepticism, and a fortiori any variety of naturalism, is unable to accommodate this virtue. This means that, in contrast to the Cartesian model, the Pyrrhonist does not provide a satisfactory answer to the problem of cognitive disintegration. The Pyrrhonist thus becomes a social rebel, one that violates the norm of serious personal assent that enables the flourishing of a collaborative and social species which depends on agents that, however fallible, are accountable for their actions and judgments. (shrink)

It is usually assumed that political modernity and the reformation go hand in hand. Authors such as Hegel, Tocqueville, Jellinek or Martha Nussbaum find in the protestant reformation the origin of ideas such as political freedom or freedom of conscience. In this paper, I will try to analyze the relationship between these two concepts in two fundamental characters in the Calvinist tradition. John Calvin, its founding father, on the one hand, and, on the other, Pierre Bayle, the Rotterdam philosopher who (...) pushed Calvinism to its most heterodox forms in the XVII century. I will show how they both understand the interpretation of the Bible and the political arrangements that they defended for their close context. (shrink)

The topic I address in this paper is whether the independence of Church and State brought about by the Lutheran Reformation tantamounted to the secularisation of the latter. Taking into account two recent essays by Harold Berman and John Witte on the Lutheran contribution to the Western legal tradition, I argue that Luther’s criticism of the catholic doctrine of Papal power came hand in hand with a theologization of the foundations of the authority of the State, which is difficult to (...) deem «secular». (shrink)

In this article I propose an original view of the nature of shared intention. In contrast to psychological views (Bratman, Searle, Tuomela) and normative views (Gilbert), I argue that both functional roles played by attitudes of individual participants and interpersonal obligations are factors of central and independent significance for explaining what shared intention is. It is widely agreed that shared intention (I) normally motivates participants to act, and (II) normally creates obligations between them. I argue that the view I propose (...) can explain why it is not a mere accident that both (I) and (II) are true of shared intention, while psychological and normative views cannot. The basic idea is that shared intention involves a structure of attitudes of individuals –including, most importantly, attitudes of reliance – which normally plays the relevant motivating roles and creates the relevant obligations. (shrink)

Calvin was a man of the Church so his political doctrine stems from his ecclesiology, in response to both the Papal doctrine on the delegate power of the magistrates, and the Lutheran subordination of the Church to the civil authorities. He was not concerned with discussing the best possible regime, but rather with preparing a theological justification of civil power that would make it depend exclusively on God, not on the people. I will hold that Calvin states the people’s function (...) is merely instrumental: they accept the authority chosen by God, but do not institute it. The only really relevant element is that both political vocation and the transmission of power that is indispensable to it, derive uniquely and exclusively from God. The discrepancies apparent in different authors’ interpretations can be clarified by recovering the context of his argumentation. This is the objective of this article. (shrink)

Pierre Bayle and the impossibility of a rational debate on evil I claim that Bayle engaged with theodicy in order to show how philosophy was misused in religious matters. For Bayle, the debate on evil does not oppose dichotomically reason and religion, it just requires that the participants deal with revealed truths using reason alone. In this regard, Bayle does not only criticize the Calvinist theologians of his time, but also the very source of Christian theology, Augustine of Hippo. En (...) ese artículo, sugerimos que el debate sobre la teodicea bayleana tiene por finalidad hacer patente el uso ilegítimo que se hace de la filosofía al aplicarla al debate religioso. La discusión sobre el mal no supone una disputa entre la razón en sentido absoluto y la religión, sino que compromete el uso de la razón en la revelación, de modo exclusivo Por esa razón, como veremos, el filósofo de Rotterdam no limita su crítica a la teología calvinista de su tiempo sino que la dirige al mismo corazón de la teología cristiana: la obra de Agustin de Hipona. (shrink)

This paper discusses the reach of ecclesiastical power in Hobbes' Leviathan, examining how the State acquires some of the roles traditionally played by the Church. I will first contextualize historically the ecclesiological debates on which Leviathan draws. Then, I will examine the essential role Hobbes assigns to the king in the governance of the church. Although Hobbes' political theology is often deemed atheist, in Leviathan the king becomes the institutional head of the Church. Moreover, he should establish a minimal Christian (...) creed to be shared by his subjects, in order to preserve religious peace among the different churches of his kingdom. (shrink)

For most interpreters of the philosopher from Rotterdam, his doctrine of tolerance is solely a consequence of his religious and moral doctrines. In this article, I intend to show that his doctrine rest on the political doctrine of indivisible sovereignty and on the strictest separation between political obedience and religious membership. Baylean tolerance is a political doctrine that allows the articulation between freedom of conscience (individual), minority confessions (private associations), and public religion (acknowledged as official).

We often appeal to the notion of an agent’s commitment to action to characterize, e.g., an agent’s faithfulness to a promise she has given to another, her robust disposition to pursue a goal she values or cares about, and her determination to stick to that goal. In the philosophy of action, that notion is often associated with the idea of an agent’s intention to act. In ethics, it is associated primarily with the idea of an agent’s commitment to, or endorsement (...) of, a certain norm. This essay argues that both these ideas, of intention and of normative endorsement, are central to the –or, at least, an—ordinary notion of an agent’s (psychological) commitment to action. In so doing, the essay also sheds light on important features of intention. -/- Keywords: commitment – intention – normative endorsement – stability across contexts – coordination. (shrink)

Philosophers of action of different persuasions have suggested that there is a tight connection between the phenomenon of intending and the phenomena of “being settled on” and of “settling” a course of action. For many, this connection supports an important constraint on intention: one may only intend what one takes one’s so intending as settling. Traditionally, this has been understood as a doxastic constraint on intention: what one takes one’s intention as settling is what one believes one’s so intending as (...) settling. This paper proposes an alternative conception of such a constraint. The idea is to conceive of it in terms of the attitude of reliance, rather than of belief. The aim of the paper is three-fold: to clarify the connection between intending to act and the phenomena of being settled on and of settling a course of action, to provide support for the reliance conception of the cited constraint, and to show that this conception drives a wedge in the familiar dispute, between doxastic and conative accounts of intention, as to whether intending to act necessarily involves the belief that one will so act. (shrink)

In this paper, we try to show that the existing Spanish secular model should be defined in terms of collaboration. Religious freedom is interpreted by Spanish judges in a Catholic framework, as an implementation of the Second Vatican Council's Declarations and Constitutions. In this sense, the Catholic Church has managed to impose its authority through privileged agreements with the Spanish State. _Keywords:_ religious freedom, secularism, Spain, religious law.

In this article it is defended that the notion known as “The mark of the cognitive” is better characterized as a process that performs the function of generating intelligent behavior, in a flexible and adaptive way, capable of adapting to circumstances, given it is a context sensitive process. For that, some relevant definitions of cognition are examined. In the end, it is pointed out that the definition of the mark of cognition as a context-sensitive process takes into account several factors (...) that were added as constitutive parts of cognitive phenomena over the years, especially the 4E Cognition, which cannot be satisfactorily accommodated alongside the preceding notions of cognition. Accordingly, this essay shouldn’t be mistaken merely as an exercise in intellectual history, but as a brief and accessible attempt to advance the debate. (shrink)

This is a survey article on reductive views of shared intention.

There is a dimension of rationality, known as structural rationality, according to which a paradigmatic example of what it means to be rational is not to be akratic. Although some philosophers claim that aesthetics falls within the scope of rationality, a non-akrasia constraint prohibiting certain combinations of attitudes is yet to be developed in this domain. This essay is concerned with the question of whether such a requirement is plausible and, if so, whether it is an actual requirement of aesthetic (...) rationality. Ultimately, this paper defends the view that aesthetics is no different from other domains in that it requires coherence between a subject’s mental states (in the aesthetic case, between what is judged and what is aesthetically liked). (shrink)

Doxasticism is the thesis that intention is or involves belief in the forthcoming action (Velleman, Harman). Supporters claim that it is only by accepting that thesis that we can explain a wide array of important phenomena, including the special knowledge we have of intentional action, the roles intention plays in facilitating coordination, and the norms of rationality for intention. Others argue that the thesis is subject to counterexample (Davidson, Bratman). Yet some others contend that the thesis can be reformulated in (...) a way that avoids such counterexamples and preserves its explanatory significance (Pears, Setiya). Their suggestion is that we view intention as involving partial –rather than full—belief. I argue that while the move from full to partial doxasticism helps to accommodate such counterexamples, it does so in a way that undermines the ability of the resulting view to explain the coordinating roles of and rationality norms for intention. (shrink)

In this essay, I consider some logical treatises and commentaries from the first decades of the 12th century (many of which are still unedited) which contain a discussion on modalities and modal logic. After presenting a short catalogue of these sources and a description of their common features, I shall focus on some definitions of the modal term “necessarium” which are provided in them. As we will see, Abelard and logicians of his time advanced three different characterizations of this term: (...) necessity was either defined in terms of unavoidability (ineuitabilitas), or in terms of immutability and omnitemporality (impermutabilitas, sempiternitas), or again in terms of absolute necessity as opposed to conditioned one (necessitas absoluta vs. determinata). I argue that the temporal understanding of necessity in terms of omnitemporality, inherited from ancient sources and extensively used by Abelard and others in the first years of the twelfth-century, started to disappear in texts datable from around the 1120, perhaps due to several difficulties that were related to this definition when applied in logical contexts. I also discuss how the notion of necessitas determinata was used by Abelard’s contemporaries to qualify the modal status of present and past events, which were generally believed to be necessary only in a “weak” and harmless sense that did not prevent them from being contingent. -/- . (shrink)

This essay examines the way in which the modal concept of necessity was discussed and analyzed in some eleventh- and early twelfth-century sources, such as Peter Damian’s De divina omnipotentia, Anselm of Canterbury’s Cur deus homo and several anonymous commentaries on Aristotle’s De interpretatione that were presumably composed in the first two decades of the twelfth century by logicians connected to William of Champeaux’s and Peter Abelard’s milieu. My aim is to offer a comparison of these different sources with respect (...) to their use of the Boethian distinction between two types or kinds of necessity, namely, the “absolute” or “simple” necessity that is involved in statements like “God is necessarily immortal” or “it is necessary for humans to be animals”, and the “conditional” or “temporal” necessity that is at stake when we say, for instance, that someone necessarily walks when he is walking. (shrink)

Research has shown that the construction of visual representations may have a positive effect on cognitive skills, including argumentation. In this paper we present a study on learning argumentation through computer-supported argument diagramming. We specifically focus on whether students, when provided with an argument-diagramming tool, create better diagrams, are more motivated, and learn more when working with other students or on their own. We use learning analytics to evaluate a variety of student activities: pre and post questionnaires to explore motivational (...) changes; the argument diagrams created by students to evaluate richness, complexity and completion; and pre and post knowledge tests to evaluate learning gains. (shrink)

The concept of autonomy is central to many debates in aesthetics. However, exactly what it means to be autonomous in our aesthetic engagements is somewhat unclear in the philosophical literature. The normative significance of autonomy is also unclear and hotly debated. In this essay, I propose a method for clarifying this elusive concept by distinguishing three distinct senses or varieties of aesthetic autonomy: experiential autonomy, competence-based autonomy, and personal autonomy. On this taxonomy autonomy is a context-sensitive concept and autonomy applies (...) to several different moments or stages of aesthetic appreciation. Throughout this critical discussion, important issues concerning the nature of aesthetic appreciation are also explored. (shrink)

Internal coherence is of great importance for how we think about appreciating objects of aesthetic worth. A disagreement between what we judge to be worthy and what we affectively favor can prevent us from properly grasping its value. However, it is also assumed in the aesthetic domain that our taste changes over time, jeopardising such coherence constraint. These changes can lead to a mismatch between new aesthetic judgments and old aesthetic preferences. This chapter explores a number of issues that emerge (...) from this tension. Using Taylor Swift’s re-recording as a case study, I will explore the relation between fan loyalty and personal authenticity, as well as the role of biographical taste in the reception of these newly recorded albums among Swift’s long-time fanbase. (shrink)

The paper Post-Trial Acces To Treatment (PTA) offers an insight into current corporate policies and corporate best practices relating to the provision of PTA in low and middle income countries based on company sources. In these countries there is a greater appeal for pharmaceutical companies to take responsibility for providing PTA. However, the practice of providing PTA is the exception rather than the rule.

En este artículo analizamos la contribución de la teología protestante a la idea de autonomía moral a partir de un análisis de la obra de Juan Calvino. Mostramos cómo se afirma en ella la incapacidad del sujeto para conocer y querer el bien, manifiesto en la ley natural. Esta incapacidad es compensada con los mandatos bíblicos, para los que Calvino justificará una positivación jurídica en los Estados cristianos. Concluimos, por todo ello, que Calvino está lejos de la idea kantiana de (...) autonomía que consideramos distintiva de la Modernidad. (shrink)

It will be argued that personal agency, far from lacking epistemic value, contributes to knowledge in a substantial way. To this end, it will be claimed that what Sosa calls an epistemic perspective is necessary to solve the binding problem in epistemology at the three junctures at which it can occur: as the Pyrrhonian question of whether one can rationally endorse one’s epistemic rationality; as the problem of the epistemic status of guessing; and as the enquiry into the contribution of (...) the agential perspective for evading coincidental luck. Our aim has been that of elucidating and expanding Sosa’s virtue perspectivism. (shrink)

Este artículo analiza los fundamentos doctrinales del derecho penal eclesiástico calviniano, asentado teóricamente en la teología del pecado original y cuyo ejercicio toma forma en la práctica del Consistorio ginebrino. Asimismo, explora las razones de la diferencia entre derecho penal eclesial y civil. Y es que, aunque en el calvinismo la Iglesia y el Estado son titulares de un ius gladii, sólo uno de estos sistemas penales puede reivindicar el ejercicio de la pena corporal, el otro tan sólo puede reclamar (...) un castigo espiritual: en esto haremos radicar la diferencia entre derecho y disciplina. El derecho de coacción propiamente dicho pertenece en exclusiva al Estado como tal y ni el individuo ni la Iglesia pueden reclamarlos para sí. Estamos ante una aportación fundamental de la Reforma a la historia del derecho. (shrink)

Globalization has made it easier for people to migrate, thus increasing diversity within organizations. One problem with this migration is that 1st and 2nd generation immigrants may prefer different leadership styles than those of the mainstream culture. The purpose of this survey-based quantitative comparative study was to investigate the effects of acculturation on the work-related cultural values and leadership style preferences of Mexican immigrants living in the United States. The research question that guided this study focused on the differences in (...) work-related cultural values and preferred leadership styles between 2 generations of Mexican immigrants, Mexicans, and U.S.-born Caucasians. Two hundred and forty-five participants completed the survey. The researcher used a Likert-type self-assessing questionnaire adapted from existing instruments to measure the work-related cultural values and preferred leadership styles of two generations of Mexican immigrants, native Mexicans, and U.S.-born Caucasians. Statistical tools, such as correlations, Cronbach’s alpha, t-test, and analysis of variance (ANOVA) were used to test measurement reliability and to test for differences in the mean scores of the criterion variables among the 4 groups. The researcher found that, in the aggregate, Mexican immigrants did not acculturate to the mainstream values of the United States, 2nd generation Mexican immigrants’ scores were similar to those of U.S.-born Caucasians in work-related values, and all groups prefer the servant leadership style. Implications for social change may include raising the awareness of human resource managers of the differences and similarities in values and preferences of their staff, which may help improve the relationships between managers and the employees. (shrink)

At first sight, if A is all-things-considered better than B and B is all-things-considered better than C, the judgment that A is all-things-considered better than C seems to follow. This should be a straight-forward consequence of the transitivity of the \all-things-considered better than" relation. However, if we deny that transitivity is a logical axiom of those relations involving comparatives, then it might turn out that betterness is not transitive. Following Temkin's terminology, a relation R will be de ned as nontransitive (...) i either it is intransitive (i.e. aRb and bRc yet :(aRc)) or if transitivity cannot be applied, for there is no single relation R that holds between all the alternatives. More spefici cally, this could happen in a case where the obtaining of the better-than relation depends on different factors according to the nature of the relata. As a result, there are two main strategies available to question the axiom of transitivity: the rst is by providing an effective counterexample displaying cRa as well as (aRb ^ bRc), hence yielding a cycle. The second, more general way, is to show that all-things-considered betterness is a relation that conceptually involves comparison-dependent betterness relations, so that it is likely that transitivity fails to apply across different alternatives. The aim of this paper is to investigate part of the recent attack on the transitivity of better than, to conclude that there seems to be no cogent reason why this would not be a transitive relation. (shrink)

El artículo se concentra en indagar las diferentes declaraciones de Marx sobre la justicia, con la intención de determinar tres cuestiones: en primer lugar, saber si nuestro autor cuenta con una concepción de la justicia; en segundo lugar, establecer si la reflexión acerca de lo que es justo ocupa un lugar privilegiado en su obra; y, en tercer lugar, ver si a partir de ahí puede colegirse la existencia de una teoría marxiana de la justicia. De especial interés resulta la (...) presencia de argumentos con implicaciones éticas y morales en estos asuntos. (shrink)

Human epistemic subjects cannot but employ imperfect and limited tools to gain knowledge. Even in the seemingly simple business of acquiring knowledge of the value of a physical quantity, what the instrument reads or perception tells more often that not does not correspond to real value. However, even though both our perceptual apparatus and measuring instruments are sensible to background noise, under certain conditions, collecting more information of the same quantity using the same tools leads to an improvement of the (...) subject's epistemic condition. The aim of this paper is to formalize this intuition employing a model which extends Williamson (2013) on the arising of Gettier cases in epistemic logic. From a model where each world is univocally represented by the pair r, a defined by the real value and the apparent one, I will be considering a scenario wherein the subject has collected n appearances of the real parameter, so that each world is identified by a n + 1-tuple. On the assumptions that the n data are all independent and regarded by the subject as equally reliable, a plausible model should be able to describe three phenomena. First of all, the more coherent and closer to represent the real value the set of n appearances is, the more knowledge of the real value is gained. Secondly, the more the subject goes on acquiring "good" data, the more she knows. Thirdly, the world where the n apparent values and the real one match is the best world for the subject. Following Williamson, I shall put forth a system for multiple appearances in epistemic logic that aims at modeling these phenomena by describing the interval within which the real value is known to lie. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Heidegger, Art, and Postmodernity by Iain D. ThomsonIrene McMullinIain D. Thomson. Heidegger, Art, and Postmodernity. Cambridge-New York: Cambridge University Press, 2011. Pp. xix + 245. Paper, $27.99.Iain Thomson’s Heidegger, Art, and Postmodernity is an exceptional piece of Heidegger scholarship, providing detailed, informative analysis while remaining highly readable.Thomson begins by reprising the argument from his earlier Heidegger on Ontotheology: Technology and the Politics of Education (Cambridge, 2005), namely, that (...) the concept of ontotheology is key to understanding Heidegger’s thought. Ontotheologies comprehend “the intelligible order in terms of both its innermost core [ontology] and its outermost form or ultimate expression [theology]” (10). Thomson examines Heidegger’s claim that these understandings of reality change over time, a history of being comprised of distinct metaphysical “epochs” of intelligibility. Thomson recounts Heidegger’s project as an attempt to overcome ontotheology, particularly its modern and late-modern forms, in which entities appear solely as objects for control or resources for optimization.Doing so requires cultivating a plural realism whereby entities are recognized as richer in intrinsic meaning than we can capture. Thomson shows that Heidegger’s analysis of [End Page 324] art—particularly Van Gogh’s “A Pair of Shoes”—is aimed at demonstrating how art over-flows conceptual boundaries and thereby reveals this plural givenness of meaning. With startling originality, Thomson both explains the use of the three artworks in “Origin of the Work of Art” in terms of Heidegger’s history of being and refutes Shapiro’s famous criticism, arguing that Heidegger is not suggesting that the painting simply represents a peasant woman’s shoes. Rather, it represents both the shoes and a plurality of other possible meaning gestalts suggested by the umbra of “nothingness” that surrounds the shoes—the unformed textures and colors of the background—one of which is the figure of a woman.The work prompts a gestalt shift from shoes to woman, encouraging us to recognize possibilities of meaning in the inchoate forms surrounding the shoes, and thus (Heidegger hopes) realize the inexhaustibility of meaning and the structure of intelligibility itself: namely, the ontological tension between earth and world, revealing and concealing. Any representation is only one of the many conceptual possibilities present, and art helps us accomplish a postmodern “active receptivity” that responds adequately to the inexhaustibility of being as such.The latter half of Thomson’s book engages in “applied Heidegger”: the examination of particular works to demonstrate the fruitfulness of understanding Heidegger in this way. By analyzing U2’s Achtung Baby, Moore’s Watchmen comic series, and (in a particularly informative chapter) Heidegger’s Contributions to Philosophy qua philosophical fugue, Thomson is able to pursue the implications of what “postmodernity” means for Heidegger and why it should be considered appealing.Thomson’s thought-provoking and informative book should prompt a great deal of discussion. In particular, one can ask whether such a “postmodern” condition represents what Thomson and Heidegger hope it does. Thomson suggests throughout that escaping late-modern optimization and control narratives will encourage us “to approach all things with care, humility, patience, gratitude, and perhaps... awe, reverence, and love” (212). But why should we suppose that recognizing meaning’s excessiveness and multiplicity should produce such positive responses? Is it not equally plausible that it would prompt a kind of desiccated ennui, an inability to care or commit that is rooted in the sense that there is no right answer, no right way to be? One wonders if living with such recognition is even possible, considering the view espoused throughout that intelligibility depends on tension between revealing and concealing. What is the proper place for the view that no framework of intelligibility is right or adequate, but merely captures one facet of possible meaning? Is this compatible with existentialism’s characterization of humanity in terms of the need to commit to projects that delimit a normative horizon through which the world can show up as intelligible?Further, though it seems clear that cultivating a poetic responsivity to the given plurality of meaning will help overcome Western nihilism—i.e. the view that there is no inherent meaning—it is not clear that it will move us beyond... (shrink)

Este texto analiza las concepciones que J. S. Mill y K. Marx defienden sobre la libertad, con el fin de establecer si entre ellas hay puntos de convergencia, a pesar de las diferentes motivaciones que las impulsan. En este sentido, la tesis que se propone es que ambos pensadores coinciden en la defensa que realizan de la libertad, dado que le otorgan un papel destacado a la autodeterminación, el libre desarrollo de la individualidad y a la existencia de condiciones materiales (...) para su concreción. Así las cosas, las distancias que las separan no constituyen ningún óbice al momento de abogar por lo que consideran como el valor fundamental del ser humano. (shrink)

Two common strategies have dominated attempts to account for the nature of taste. On the one side, we have an affectivist understanding of taste where aesthetic attribution has to do with the expression of a subjective response. On the other side, we find a non-affectivist approach according to which to judge something aesthetically is to epistemically track its main aesthetic properties. Our main argument will show that neither emotion nor perception can explain the nature of aesthetic taste single-handedly. In this (...) paper, our principal aim is to examine the relationship between perceptual discernment and emotional sensibility as we find it in the process of ascribing aesthetic qualities. Is it the nature of the specific aesthetic property in question which determines the way in which perception and emotion are balanced in aesthetic attribution, or is it, rather, something about how our sensory skills operate? One of the notions we would like to explore in greater detail in this context is the idea of attunement, or the way in which aesthetic agents can align themselves to the content of an artwork o in order to better grasp its content and significance. According to our proposed picture, the exercise of taste involves an adjustment of one’s emotional sensibility to the aesthetic character of o. From here, we will posit both emotional and perceptual training as part of an agent’s aesthetic education in her use of aesthetic terms. (shrink)

En este artículo nos proponemos reconstruir las bases de la teoría política calviniana. Intentaremos comprender cómo define el reformador al sujeto político de su teología, donde es definido como Pueblo de Dios. A través de una Teología de la Alianza Calvino establece los términos de un contrato político en el que las instituciones humanas son queridas y establecidas por Dios. A continuación, veremos que el Estado cristiano según Calvino es la plataforma desde la que se promueve el conocimiento de la (...) Voluntad divina, a través de la predicación y la positivación de leyes conformes a la misma. Finalmente, veremos que las ideas del reformador sobre la organización y la naturaleza de la política tuvieron en Ginebra una realización evidente. Ni sus textos ni sus acciones nos permiten calificar a Calvino de constitucionalista o republicano, sino más bien de hombre de orden y defensor de la tradición del derecho divino de los reyes. (shrink)

Jenefer Robinson believes that feelings can play an important role in the critical evaluation of artworks. In this paper, I want to put some pressure on two important notions in her theory: emotional understanding and affective empathy. I will do this by focusing on the nature of self-conscious emotions. My strategy will be, firstly, to demonstrate the difficulty that Robinson’s two step theory of emotions has in accommodating higher cognitive emotional responses to art. Secondly, I will discuss how the tight (...) connection to the ‘self’ involved in self-conscious emotions makes it difficult to take the emotional perspective of another person as empathy requires. From here, I suggest that Peter Goldie’s feeling-towards and his critique of perspective-shifting may give a better understanding of the role of emotions in the appreciation of art, particularly in the case of reflective emotions. This issue will be explored through a discussion of the expression of autobiographical nostalgia in the work of the avant-garde filmmaker Jonas Mekas. (shrink)