There is a tension between the definition of empty logic as a logic with no valid arguments and no valid meta-arguments, on the one hand, and the way in which we have usually interpreted the validity of meta-arguments, on the other. Here we argue that one way to eliminate the tension is understanding the “If. . . then. . . ” in a meta-argument, at least in the case of an empty logic, as a transplication (aka the de Finetti conditional) (...) instead of an extensional or material conditional. (shrink)

En The paradox of Addition and its dissolution (1969), Mario Bunge presenta algunos argumentos para mostrar que la Regla de Adición puede ocasionar paradojas o problemas semánticos. Posteriormente, Margáin (1972) y Robles (1976) mostraron que las afirmaciones de Bunge son insostenibles, al menos desde el punto de vista de la lógica clásica. Aunque estamos de acuerdo con las críticas de Margáin y Robles, no estamos de acuerdo en el diagnóstico del origen del problema y tampoco con la manera en la (...) que se proponen solucionarlo. En esta medida, en este texto mostraremos cómo la Regla de Adición sí trae problemas semánticos que pueden ser planteados desde diferentes perspectivas contemporáneas, como la extensionalidad del condicional, los principios proscriptivos y la validez conexiva. (shrink)

Seen from the point of view of evaluation conditions, a usual way to obtain a connexive logic is to take a well-known negation, for example, Boolean negation or de Morgan negation, and then assign special properties to the conditional to validate Aristotle’s and Boethius’ Theses. Nonetheless, another theoretical possibility is to have the extensional or the material conditional and then assign special properties to the negation to validate the theses. In this paper we examine that possibility, not sufficiently explored in (...) the connexive literature yet.We offer a characterization of connexive negation disentangled from the cancellation account of negation, a previous attempt to define connexivity on top of a distinctive negation. We also discuss an ancient view on connexive logics, according to which a valid implication is one where the negation of the consequent is incompatible with the antecedent, and discuss the role of our idea of connexive negation for this kind of view. (shrink)

En The paradox of Addition and its dissolution (1969), Mario Bunge presenta algunos argumentos para mostrar que la Regla de Adición puede ocasionar paradojas o problemas semánticos. Posteriormente, Margáin (1972) y Robles (1976) mostraron que las afirmaciones de Bunge son insostenibles, al menos desde el punto de vista de la lógica clásica. Aunque estamos de acuerdo con las críticas de Margáin y Robles, no estamos de acuerdo en el diagnóstico del origen del problema y tampoco con la manera en la (...) que se proponen solucionarlo. En esta medida, en este texto mostraremos cómo la Regla de Adición sí trae problemas semánticos que pueden ser planteados desde diferentes perspectivas contemporáneas, como la extensionalidad del condicional, los principios proscriptivos y la validez conexiva. (shrink)

Sumário. Apresentação. PARTE I. 1. O legado filosófico de P. F. Strawson, Itamar Luís Gelain e Jaimir Conte; 2 . Strawson e o caso dos metafísicos descritivos, Itamar Luís Gelain; 3. Metafísica e linguagem comum: sobre uma conturbada herança wittgensteiniana de Strawson, Jônadas Techio; 4. Strawson e Descartes, Albertinho Luiz Gallina; 5. Strawson: sobre Kant e Berkeley, Robert Calabria; 6. O empirismo pós-kantiano de Strawson, Wenceslao J. González; 7. Reabilitando Strawson, Marco Antonio Franciotti; 8. Strawson e o ceticismo em (...) Individuals, Plínio Junqueira Smith; 9. Strawson e a causação visível, João Paulo Monteiro; 10. A verdade dos fatos, Susana Badiola; 11. Estabelecer limites: implicações epistemológicas da lógica, Roberta Corvi; 12. Referência e termos singulares, Carlos E. Caorsi; 13. Strawson: da experiência possível para a ação possível, Márlon Henrique Teixeira; 14. Atitudes reativas e responsabilidade moral, Cristina de Moraes Nunes; 15. Strawson e Hume: uma comparação a propósito de “Moralidade social e ideal individual”, Amán Rosales Rodríguez; PARTE II. 16. Liberdade e ressentimento, P. F. Strawson. Tradução: Jaimir Conte; 17. Moralidade social e ideal individual, P. F. Strawson, Tradução: Jaimir Conte. Seleção bibliográfica. (shrink)

Dejando de lado la discusión acerca de si hay o no una filosofía en el trabajo intelectual de Fernando González Ochoa, se propone considerar la obra del pensador colombiano como un trabajo antifilosófico que buscó socavar la seriedad de discusiones teóricas tomadas con solemnidad por intelectuales colombianos de su época. Se estudia, especialmente, la manera como González Ochoa, sin separarse de los supuestos de las tesis raciales y deterministas propuestas por intelectuales como Luis López de Meza o (...) Miguel Jiménez López, asume la discusión sobre la raza con el propósito de “empayasar el concepto” y llevarlo a instancias hilarantes a partir de la exageración, la ironía y las notas de ingenio. Su burla lo condujo a no tomar una posición seria o emprender una crítica de los supuestos relacionados con el problema como pasa, precisamente, con la posición ingeniosa de los antifilósofos. (shrink)

In this eleventh book of scilogs – called in-turns and out-turns –, one may find new and old questions and solutions, referring mostly to topics on Neutrosophy, but also Multispace, with miscellaneous addition of topics on Physics, Mathematics, or Sociology – email messages to research colleagues, or replies, notes about authors, articles, or books, spontaneous ideas, and so on. -/- Exchanging ideas with Prem Kumar Singh, Feng Liu, Nicolae Bălașa, Jimmy Quellet, Minodora Rușchița, Frank Gelli, A. R. Vătuiu, Victor Christianto, (...) Vladimir I. Rogozhin, Robert Neil Boyd, Akira Kanda, Stefan Spaarmann, Oliver Consa, Yabin Shao, Junle Zhuo, Nivetha Martin, Said Broumi, Jean Dezert, Erick González, Tomasz Witczak, B. De Baets, I. Couso, D. Dubois, L. Good, Mihaela Colhon, Atiqe Ur Rahman, Muhammad Saeed, Muhammad Ihsan, Edeline Nancy, Shawkat Alkhazaleh, Shazia Rana, Vasantha Kandasamy, Santanu Acharjee, Mohamed Al-Shmrani, Parimala Manie, Mehmet Unver, Murat Olgun, Adel Aleidhri, Akira Kanda, Ilanthenral Kandasamy, Mircea Zărnescu, R. Tayebi Khorami, Arsham Borumand Saeid, Maisam Jdid, M. Abobala, Riad Hamido, Rafael Rojas, Esmaeil Zarei, Faisal Khan, Rouzbeh Abbassi, Adel Al-Odhari, Henry Garrett, Ackbar Rezaei, Saeid Jafari, Karthika Muthusamy, Harish Garg, Huda E. Khalid, Gonca D. Güngör, Muslim A. Noah Zainal, Fakhry Asad Agusfrianto, Madeleine Al-Tahan, Mariam Hariri, Yudi Mahatma, Masoud Ghods, Marco Brigliadori, Luis Enrique Aponte Pérez, Amr Mohammed, M. Aslam (in order of reference in the book). (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)

The future of human computation benefits from examining tasks that agents already perform and designing environments to give those tasks computational significance. We call this natural human computation. We consider the possible future of NHC through the lens of Swarm!, an application under development for Google Glass. Swarm! motivates users to compute the solutions to a class of economic optimization problems by engaging the attention dynamics of crowds. We argue that anticipating and managing economies of attention provides one of the (...) most tantalizing future applications for NHC. (shrink)

Self-employment merits protection and promotion, we often hear, because it confers independence from a boss. But what, if anything, is wrong with having a boss? On one of the two views that this chapter inspects, being under the power of a boss is objectionable as such, no matter how suitably checked this power may be, for it undermines workers’ agency. On a second view, which republican theorists favor, what is objectionable is subjection not to the power of a boss as (...) such but to their arbitrary power. The first view is unconvincing, I argue, as it entails (implausibly) that being under the power of others in realms like the family or the state is likewise objectionable as such. And although the second view yields compelling reasons for self-employment, it only does so when employers’ power is not suitably checked. When it is, such reasons are more easily outweighed by competing considerations, like those stemming from the further forms of dependence—on suppliers and purchasers—that self-employment may prompt. (shrink)

Workplace democracy is often defined, and has recently been defended, as a form of intra-firm governance in which workers have control rights over management with no ownership requirement on their part. Using the normative tools of republican political theory, the paper examines bargaining power disparities and moral hazard problems resulting from the allocation of control rights and ownership to different groups within democratic firms, with a particular reference to the European codetermination system. With various qualifications related to potentially mitigating factors, (...) such as workforce and shareholder composition or risk aversion and reallocation, the paper contends that forms of workplace democracy in which workers control and own the firm, such as cooperativism, are preferable to other forms, such as codetermination, in which ownership and control rights are formally separated. (shrink)

We provide here irrefutable facts that prove the falsehood of the claims published in [1] by Dehmer and Mowshowitz (DM) against our paper published in [2]. We first prove that Dehmer’s definition of node probability [3] is flawed. In addition, we show that it was not Dehmer in [3] who proposed this definition for the first time. We continue by proving how the use of Dehmer’s definition does not reveal all the physico-mathematical richness of the walk entropy of graphs. Finally, (...) we show a few facts about the failure of DM themselves to cite properly the relevant literature in their field. We also show here how the Editors of Complexity have failed to manage the publication of [1] in an appropriate way according to the accepted guidelines given in the Code of Conduct and Best Practice Guidelines for Journal Editors, published by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE). (shrink)

Political theorists have recently sought to replace the liberal, contractual theory of the firm with a political view that models the authority relation of employee to firm, and its appropriate regulation, on that of subject to state. This view is liable to serious difficulties, however, given existing discontinuities between corporate and civil authority as to their coerciveness, entry and exit conditions, scope, legal standing, and efficiency constraints. I here inspect these, and argue that, albeit in some cases significant, such discontinuities (...) fail to undermine the firm/state analogy, either because they are not significant enough to do so or because the particular trait on which they hinge is not decisive for how authority, in the state and in the firm, should be regulated to be legitimate. A pro tanto requirement exists, I thus argue, that corporate authority be held to regulatory norms comparable to those legitimate states abide by, including civil liberties, rule-of-law constraints, and accountability to subjects. (shrink)

This paper aims to contribute to the existing literature on normative cognition by providing a lineage explanation of human social norm psychology. This approach builds upon theories of goal-directed behavioral control in the reinforcement learning and control literature, arguing that this form of control defines an important class of intentional normative mental states that are instrumental in nature. I defend the view that great ape capacities for instrumental reasoning and our capacity (or family of capacities) for shared intentionality coadapted to (...) each other and argue that the evolution of this capacity has allowed the representation of social norms and the emergence of our capacity for normative guidance. (shrink)

This paper examines an insoluble Cartesian problem for classical AI, namely, how linguistic understanding involves knowledge and awareness of u’s meaning, a cognitive process that is irreducible to algorithms. As analyzed, Descartes’ view about reason and intelligence has paradoxically encouraged certain classical AI researchers to suppose that linguistic understanding suffices for machine intelligence. Several advocates of the Turing Test, for example, assume that linguistic understanding only comprises computational processes which can be recursively decomposed into algorithmic mechanisms. Against this background, in (...) the first section, I explain Descartes’ view about language and mind. To show that Turing bites the bullet with his imitation game, in the second section I analyze this method to assess intelligence. Then, in the third section, I elaborate on Schank and Abelsons’ Script Applier Mechanism (SAM, hereby), which supposedly casts doubt on Descartes’ denial that machines can think. Finally, in the fourth section, I explore a challenge that any algorithmic decomposition of linguistic understanding faces. This challenge, I argue, is the core of the Cartesian problem: knowledge and awareness of meaning require a first-person viewpoint which is irreducible to the decomposition of algorithmic mechanisms. (shrink)

Higher‐order evidence can make an agent doubt the reliability of her reasoning. When this happens, it seems rational for the agent to adopt a cautious attitude towards her original conclusion, even in cases where the higher‐order evidence is misleading and the agent's original reasons were actually perfectly good. One may think that recoiling to a cautious attitude in the face of misleading self‐doubt involves a failure to properly respond to one's reasons. My aim is to show that this is not (...) so. My proposal is that (misleading) higher‐order evidence can undermine the agent's possession of her first‐order reasons, constituting what I call a dispossessing defeater. After acquiring the higher‐order evidence, the agent is no longer in a position to rely competently on the relevant first‐order considerations as reasons for her original conclusion, so that such reasons stop being available to her (even if they remain as strong as in the absence of the higher‐order evidence). In this way, an agent with misleading higher‐order evidence can adopt a cautious stance towards her original conclusion, while properly responding to the set of reasons that she possesses–a set that is reduced due to the acquisition of higher‐order dispossessing defeaters. (shrink)

La investigación incorpora las experiencias de un grupo de personas artesanas de las provincias de Azuayy Cañar, en Ecuador. Tiene como objetivo reflexionar, desde un enfoque pedagógico centrado en la educaciónsocial y popular, sobre las prácticas profesionales de los colectivos artesanales y su relación con los procesosescolarizados de enseñanza y aprendizaje. El estudio aplica la metodología cualitativa con enfoque etnográfico.Los resultados no solo visibilizan que los espacios que ocupa el artesanado en el imaginario social están marcadospor bloqueos y restricciones en (...) el ejercicio profesional, también dan cuenta que los saberes que portan estáncondicionados por dimensiones étnicas y socioculturales, y que pese a contar con experiencias y conocimientosque no distan de los contenidos curriculares con los que se forma en el sistema educativo, son excluidos yconsiderados de menor valía. La investigación concluye que los métodos y procedimientos artesanales puedenser utilizados como elementos formativos potentes para fortalecer la identidad, la participación democrática,el diálogo de saberes, la justicia social y una verdadera educación intercultural. En consecuencia, la educaciónsocial y popular puede ayudar a promover la participación activa de artesanos y otros colectivos, y de esa maneracontribuir con la transformación y cambio de las estructuras desiguales desde una filosofía socioeducativa. (shrink)

Our goal in this paper is to articulate a precise concept of at least a certain kind of disease-mongering, showing how pharmaceutical marketing can commercially exploit certain diseases when their best definition is given through the success of a treatment in a clinical trial. We distinguish two types of disease-mongering according to the way they exploit the definition of the trial population for marketing purposes. We argue that behind these two forms of disease-mongering there are two well-known problems in the (...) statistical methodology of clinical trials (the reference class problem and the distinction between statistical and clinical significance). Overcoming them is far from simple. (shrink)

Este artigo desenvolve uma leitura do livro de Jacques Derrida, Mal de arquivo, com o objetivo de situar o que se poderia chamar de concepção derridiana de arquivo. Ao desdobrar o potencial de conflito que se arquiva na própria palavra "arquivo", Derrida oferece uma concepção de arquivo que, para além das discussões desenvolvidas no livro em questão, abre a possibilidade de uma nova forma de se pensar o âmbito da política. This article develops a reading of Jacques Derrida's book, Archive (...) Fever, with the aim of circumscribing what could be named the Derridian conception of archive. By unfolding the conflictive power which is archived within the proper word "archive", Derrida comes with a conception of archive that, beyond the discussions developed in the book, opens the possibility of a new way of thinking the political. (shrink)

Are norms of inquiry in tension with epistemic norms? I provide a (largely) negative answer, turning to a picture of epistemic practices as rule-governed games. The idea is that, while epistemic norms are correctness standards for the attitudes involved in epistemic games, norms of inquiry derive from the aims of those games. Attitudes that, despite being epistemically correct, are inadvisable regarding the goals of some inquiry are just like bad (but legal) moves in basketball or chess. I further consider cases (...) in which the aims of inquiry recommend breaking epistemic norms. I compare them to strategic infractions, which are common in many coherent games. Finally, I explore the connections between rules and aims in games and in inquiry. I show that in both cases respecting the rules is constitutively required for satisfying the aims of the practice. (shrink)

In this paper I argue that some human reproductive genome editing interventions can be therapeutic in nature, and thus that it is false that all such interventions just create healthy individuals. I do this by showing that the conditions established by a therapy definition are met by certain reproductive genome editing interventions. I then defend this position against two objections: (a) reproductive genome editing interventions do not attain one of the two conditions for something to be a therapy, and (b) (...) some reproductive genome editing interventions are therapeutic but in a nonstandard way. In the Conclusion I call for a more nuanced discussion of the nature of reproductive genome editing interventions. (shrink)

Despite growing interest in workplace democracy, the question whether nonworker stakeholders, like suppliers and local communities, warrant inclusion in the governance of democratic companies, as workers do, has been largely neglected. We inspect this question by leaning on the boundary problem in democratic theory. We first argue that the question of who warrants inclusion in democratic workplaces is best addressed by examining why workplace democracy is warranted in the first place, and offer a twofold normative benchmark—addressing objectionable corporate power and (...) upholding efficiency—to assess the principles of democratic inclusion on offer. Against this benchmark, we next argue that the All-Affected Principle is unfit due to its over- and underinclusive extensional results, and that the All-Subjected Principle, whose variants we examine alongside their extensional results, holds more promise when coupled with independent considerations of justice or a constrained variant of the All-Affected Principle. These combinations need not entirely preclude, but speak against, nonworker stakeholder inclusion. (shrink)

In times of climate change and public debt, a concern for intergenerational justice should lead us to have a closer look at theories of intergenerational justice. It should also press us to provide institutional design proposals to change the decision-making world that surrounds us. This book provides an exhaustive overview of the most important institutional proposals as well as a systematic and theoretical discussion of their respective features and advantages. It focuses on institutional proposals aimed at taking the interests of (...) future generations more seriously, and does so from the perspective of applied political philosophy, being explicit about the underlying normative choices and the latest developments in the social sciences. It provides citizens, activists, firms, charities, public authorities, policy-analysts, students, and academics with the body of knowledge necessary to understand what our institutional options are and what they entail if we are concerned about today's excessive short-termism. (shrink)

Aesthetic subjectivism takes the truth of aesthetic judgments to be relative to the individual making that judgment. Despite widespread suspicion, however, this does not mean that one cannot be wrong about such judgments. Accordingly, this does not mean that one cannot gain higher-order evidence of error and fallibility that bears on the rationality of the aesthetic judgment in question. In this paper, we explain and explore these issues in some detail.

This paper examines the link between political liberties and social equality, and contends that the former are constitutive of, i.e. necessary to secure, the latter. Although this constitutive link is often assumed in the literature on political liberties, the reasons why it holds true remain largely unexplored. Three such reasons are examined here. First, political liberties are constitutive of social equality because they bestow political power on their holders, leaving disenfranchised individuals excluded from decisions that are particularly pervasive, coercively enforced, (...) hard to avoid, monopolistic, and final. Second, they are constitutive of social equality due to their positional value, such that those who are denied such liberties are socially downgraded because and to the extent that others enjoy them. Third, they are constitutive of social equality due to their expressive value, in the sense that, by disenfranchising some individuals, the state publicly fails to recognize their equal moral agency. While unpacking these reasons, we address some criticisms of this constitutive link recently raised by Steven Wall and Jason Brennan. (shrink)

El Realismo Especulativo, Nuevo Realismo o Realismo Postcontinental es una corriente ecléctica que viene a superar las aporías e insuficiencias de la filosofía continental desde una perspectiva a la que se le podrían achacar los mismos problemas que la perspectiva idealista y constructivista de los filósofos continentales. Para el desarrollo de la filosofía es importante entablar conversación los autores de este movimiento. En el presente artículo se presenta una aproximación a los aciertos e insuficiencias de las ontologías de dos autores (...) de la corriente como son Markus Gabriel y Graham Harman. Se presentan los aciertos e insuficiencias del realismo neutro de Markus Gabriel y de la Ontología Orientada a los Objetos, en este orden. En el último epígrafe, a modo de conclusiones, se señalan los puntos en común de las ontologías y se aporta la idea de acontecimiento como línea de investigación que supere las aporías que emergen de la contraposición entre el idealismo y realismo. (shrink)

En aras del universalismo y en contra del totalitarismo, la ética discursiva ha mostrado con Jürgen Habermas un déficit práctico al negar a la filosofía moral la posibilidad de reflexionar sobre las condiciones alienantes del diálogo desde un ethos concreto. Este artículo analiza el modo en que la teoría de la resonancia formulada por Hartmut Rosa permite revitalizar el debate sobre las condiciones que pueden minar las bases para el diálogo en las sociedades aceleradas sin apoyarse en el concepto de (...) ethos, sino en el de modo de relacionarse con el mundo [Modus der Weltbeziehung]. (shrink)

Abstract: This article intends to address the importance of Heidegger, in Derrida's evaluation, for a rereading of Marx, around the themes of history, of being-with, of politics.

La formación docente es indispensable para responder a los requerimientos de la compleja sociedad actual. De su conocimiento, iniciativa, praxis y creatividad depende el éxito o el fracaso del sujeto que aprende. Al modificar el rol del docente se transforma la actitud de los estudiantes. ¿Cómo entender la formación filosófica transdisciplinar? Este texto responde a este y otros cuestionamientos: ¿cuáles son los planteamientos pedagógicos afines a la era digital? ¿en qué medida las TIC se encuentran al servicio de una filosofía (...) educativa transdisciplinar?, ¿cómo se explica ese enfoque en la formación del docente?, ¿cuál es la función de la formación en la innovación educativa?, ¿cómo formar para la ciudadanía mundial?, ¿cuáles son las contribuciones de las nuevas ciencias para la formación educativa? El crecimiento exponencial de la ciencia y de la tecnología nos obliga a pensar en procesos formativos innovadores. En tal sentido, resulta imprescindible el estudio de estas problemáticas. (shrink)

The gulf between philosophical and formal ontology can and should be bridged. In this Editorial, I elaborate briefly on this subject.

The republican case for workplace democracy is presented and defended from two alternative means of ensuring freedom from arbitrary interference in the firm—namely, the right to freely exit the firm and workplace regulation. This paper shows, respectively, that costless exit is neither possible nor desirable in either perfect or imperfect labor markets, and that managerial discretion is both desirable and inevitable due to the incompleteness of employment contracts and labor legislation. The paper then shows that WD is necessary, from a (...) republican standpoint, if workers’ interests are to be adequately tracked in the exercise of managerial authority. Three important objections are finally addressed— that WD is redundant, that it is unnecessary provided that litigation and unionism can produce similar outcomes, and that it falls short of ensuring republican freedom compared to self-employment. (shrink)

This paper examines the legitimacy conditions of constitutionalism by examining one particular type of constitutional provision: provisions aimed at advancing future generations’ interests. After covering the main forms that such provisions can adopt; it first considers three legitimacy gains of constitutionalising them. It then explores two legitimacy concerns that so doing raises. Given that constitutions are difficult to amend; constitutionalisation may threaten future generations’ sovereignty. And it may also make the constitution’s content impossible to adapt to changing circumstances and interests. (...) Finally; the paper examines the ways in which such concerns may be addressed at the adoption; formulation; and amendment stages. In particular; it discusses if the use of sunset clauses and regular constitutional conventions may; and under what conditions; successfully address such concerns. (shrink)

Representing unborn generations to more suitably include future interests in today's climate policymaking has sparked much interest in recent years. In this review we survey the main proposed instruments to achieve this effect, some of which have been attempted in polities such as Israel, Philippines, Wales, Finland, and Chile. We first review recent normative work on the idea of representing future people in climate governance: The grounds on which it has been advocated, and the main difficulties that traditional forms of (...) representation have encountered when applied to this particular case. We then survey existing institutional means to represent generations to come. We separate out representation in courts, in parliament, and by independent bodies, and review specific instruments including climate litigation, parliamentary commissions, future representatives, youth quotas, and independent offices for future generations. We examine the particular forms whereby each of these may suitably represent future people, including audience representation, surrogate representation, and indicative representation, and discuss the main challenges they encounter in so doing. (shrink)

En este artículo examino dos criterios para la existencia de estados mentales, el de Descartes y el de Turing. Mientras que el primero plantea que las máquinas no pueden pensar en principio, el segundo defiende la inteligencia de máquina. Pese a esto, ambos parecen coincidir en que la decisión sobre la presencia de estados mentales es tomada por alguien que juzga internamente la misma. Si bien ello es esperable del racionalismo cartesiano, en el funcionalismo de Turing es sorprendente. En efecto, (...) ningún comentarista de su Juego de la Imitación repara en el hecho de que los interrogadores son una instancia que no parece reemplazable y, además, que dichos interrogadores aplican un criterio internalista para decidir si están frente a una mente o un computador. Tal aproximación internalista a la mente, argumento, representa una dificultad para que una máquina pase el Test de Turing. Por este motivo concluyo que dicho test no solo no reemplaza la pregunta ¿pueden pensar las máquinas?; adicionalmente traslada de modo dramático el foco del debate a la filosofía de la mente. (shrink)

Workplace democracy is often advocated on two intertwined views. The first is that the authority relation of employee to firm is akin to that of subject to state, such that reasons favoring democracy in the state may likewise apply to the firm. The second is that, when democratic controls are absent in the workplace, employees are liable to objectionable forms of subordination by their bosses, who may then issue arbitrary directives on matters ranging from pay to the allocation of overtime (...) and to relocation and promotion. Daniel Jacob and Christian Neuhäuser have recently submitted these views to careful criticism. They argue that the parallel between firms and states is unwarranted. For, unlike managerial authority, state authority is final. The state grants firms their legal status and subjects their authority to its regulations, which citizens in democracies already control. And they also argue that suitable workplace regulation alongside meaningful exit options may suffice to prevent, with no need for democratization, objectionable forms of workplace subjection. Neither view offers, they resolve, compelling reasons to believe that justice requires that firms be democratic. I here inspect these criticisms in turn, and offer reasons for skepticism. (shrink)

En el marco de los estándares profesionalizantes de la academia, con sus “rankings” y productividad científica, las humanidades subsisten. Una explicación de este fenómeno es que, según la ontología social, las razones para la acción independiente de deseos son piezas clave en la educación. Por ello, dichas razones, que constituyen obligaciones, también serían claves para el desarrollo de las humanidades. Aquí examino de qué forma el individualismo y la competencia tensionan la dinámica entre deseos y obligaciones. Ciertamente, el mercado valora (...) más la satisfacción de deseos que la teorización sobre la intencionalidad colectiva y su producto: la civilización humana. (shrink)

News about the first baby born after a mitochondrial replacement technique (MRT; specifically maternal spindle transfer) broke on September 27, 2016 and, in a matter of hours, went global. Of special interest was the fact that the mitochondrial replacement procedure happened in Mexico. One of the scientists behind this world first was quoted as having said that he and his team went to Mexico to carry out the procedure because, in Mexico, there are no rules. In this paper, we explore (...) Mexico's rule of law in relation to mitochondrial replacement techniques and show that, in fact, certain instances of MRTs are prohibited at the federal level and others are prohibited at the state level. According to our interpretation of the law, the scientists behind this first successful MRT procedure broke federal regulations regarding assisted fertilization research. (shrink)

It is widely held that there is a distinctive norm of assertion. A plausible idea is that there is an analogous, perhaps weaker, norm for indirect communication via implicatures. I argue against this type of proposal. My claim is that the norm of assertion is a social norm governing public updates to the conversational record. Off the record implicatures are not subject to social norms of this type. I grant that, as happens in general with intentional actions, off the record (...) communicative acts may be subject to normative assessments on different levels (for instance, regarding their moral or prudential appropriateness). However, such assessments do not generate distinctive norms that apply to all cases of implicature. (shrink)

Despite renewed interest in work, philosophers have largely ignored self-employment. This neglect is surprising, not just because self-employment was central to classic philosophizing about work, but also given that half of the global workforce today, including one in seven workers in OECD countries, are self-employed. We start off by offering a definition of self-employment, one that accounts for its various forms while avoiding misclassifying dependent self-employed workers as independent contractors, and by mapping the barriers to becoming and remaining self-employed (section (...) 2). We then examine five arguments why governments ought to promote self-employment, despite the forgone opportunities to promote employee work instead that this often entails (sections 3-7): the argument from job creation, the argument from job satisfaction, the argument from independence, the argument from occupational freedom, and the argument from subsistence under non-ideal circumstances. Some of these are unconvincing, we argue, but others are not. Although the strength of the latter arguments hangs on various context-dependent conditions, such that they need to be carefully weighed against considerations of efficiency and equality, they nonetheless offer compelling pro tanto reasons to promote, and not just to protect, self-employment. (shrink)

En este trabajo presentamos los fundamentos teóricos de una propuesta para el abordaje didáctico de concepciones teleológicas de los y las estudiantes en la enseñanza de la Biología. La propuesta en cuestión supone acudir al modo en que Darwin lidió con las concepciones teleológicas dominantes entre sus contemporáneos, para proponer una estrategia general a través de la cual se podría incidir sobre las intuiciones teleológicas de los estudiantes, de modo que se pueda facilitar el aprendizaje de la teoría de la (...) selección natural. Sugeriremos también que esta propuesta implica un modo original de apelar a la analogía entre el cambio teórico en la Historia de la Ciencia y el aprendizaje de las ciencias. (shrink)

The paper makes a twofold contribution. Firstly, it advances a preliminary account of the conditions that need to obtain for constitutional rights to be democratic. Secondly, in so doing, it defends precommitment-based theories from a criticism raised by Jeremy Waldron—namely, that constitutional rights do not become any more democratic when they are democratically adopted, for the people could adopt undemocratic policies without such policies becoming democratic as a result. The paper shows that the reductio applies to political rights, yet not (...) to non-political rights, such as reproductive, environmental, or privacy rights. The democratic status of the former is process-independent. The latter, by contrast, are democratic precisely when they are adopted by democratic means. (shrink)

En este artículo argumento que, pese al llamado “escepticismo cartesiano”, el significado y alcance de la refutación cartesiana del escéptico y del ateo pueden comprenderse a la luz de tres hitos metafísicos. En la primera sección examino de qué forma este filósofo emplea argumentos escépticos como método, no como fin. Tal como enfatizo, el cogito es el punto en que la duda hiperbólica debe detenerse. Luego, en la segunda sección, discuto por qué Descartes es contrario al fideísmo. Debido a que (...) este se relaciona con el escepticismo, y con la imposibilidad de probar la existencia de Dios, Descartes prueba que Él existe. Sostengo, en la sección final, que Dios es garante de la certeza epistemológica, incluso en el caso de las ideas claras y distintas, cuya confiabilidad pareciera en peligro debido a la hipótesis escéptica del genio maligno. Según el francés, entonces, probar que Dios existe es necesario para garantizar el conocimiento cierto, y es base para inferir la existencia del mundo externo. Los tres hitos, entonces, parecen suficientes para delimitar el sentido y alcance del llamado escepticismo cartesiano. (shrink)

Genera, typically hand-in-hand with their branching species, are essential elements of vocabulary-based information constructs, in particular scientific taxonomies. Should they also feature in formal ontologies, the highest of such constructs? I argue in this article that the answer is “Yes” and that the question posed in its title also has a Yes-answer: The way medieval ontologists sliced up the world into genera does matter to formal ontology. More specifically, the way Dietrich of Freiberg, a Latin scholastic, conceived and applied strictly (...) generic criteria to slice up the world into its entities can provide some guidelines to the field of formal ontology with respect to not only its contents, but also its scope. In particular, Dietrich's information criterion plays here a central role. (shrink)

Abstract. Following the tracks of Ryle and based upon the theory of complex systems, we shall develop a characterization of action-based consciousness as an embodied, embedded, selforganized process in which action and dispositions occupy a special place. From this perspective, consciousness is not a unique prerogative of humans, but it is spread all around, throughout the evolution of life. We argue that artificial systems such as robots currently lack the genuine embodied embeddedness that allows the type of self-organization that is (...) relevant to consciousness. -/- Sommario. Seguendo la linea tracciata da Ryle e basata sulla teorie dei sistemi complessi, svilupperemo una caratterizzazione della coscienza basata sull’azione come un processo incarnato, situato e auto organizzante nel quale le azioni e le disposizioni occupano un ruolo decisivo. Da questo punto di vista, la coscienza non è una prerogativa esclusiva degli esseri umani, ma è diffusa nel mondo naturale grazie ai processi evolutivi. Noi sosteniamo che i sistemi artificiali come i robot attualmente sono carenti del tipo di relazione con la corporeità e con l’ambiente che consente quel tipo di auto-organizzazione indispensabile per l’emergenza della coscienza. (shrink)

According to John Searle, default positions, i.e., those intelligibility and action presuppositions, are some departing points from which pre-reflective and pragmatic assumptions are made. Postulating such points helps us deal with certain perennial philosophical issues, by leaving them aside. These problems are the existence of the external world, truth and facts, “direct” perception, the meaning of words, and causality. In this article, we argue that those default positions described by Searle constitute a default humanity, and their absence would dehumanize us. (...) This is particularly relevant in a default position: cooperation, which is the basis of collective intentionality and the milestone of human civilization. (shrink)

Several European countries are approving legislative reforms moving to a presumed consent system in order to increase organ donation rates. Nevertheless, irrespective of the consent system in force, family's decisional capacity probably causes a greater impact on such rates. In this contribution we have developed a systematic methodology in order to analyse and compare European organ procurement laws, and we clarify the weight given by each European law to relatives' decisional capacity over individual's preferences (expressed or not while alive) regarding (...) the destination of his or her organs after death. In this sense, the results constitute the first comprehensive and comparative legislative mapping on European transplantation laws. (shrink)

An analysis of--yet another--case of academic failure in multi- and interdisciplinarity. An editorial of the Journal of Knowledge Structures & Systems.

In response to the COVID‐19 pandemic philosophers and governments have proposed scarce resource allocation guidelines. Their purpose is to advise healthcare professionals on how to ethically allocate scarce medical resources. One challenging feature of the pandemic has been the large numbers of patients needing mechanical ventilatory support. Guidelines have paradigmatically focused on the question of what doctors should do if they have fewer ventilators than patients who need respiratory support: which patient should get the ventilator? There is, however, an important (...) higher level allocation problem. Namely, how are we to ethically distribute newly obtained ventilators across hospitals: which hospital should get the ventilator(s)? In this paper, we identify a set of principles for allocating newly obtained ventilators across hospitals. We focus particularly on low and middle income countries, who frequently have limited pre‐existing intensive care capacity, and have needed to source additional ventilators. We first provide some background. Second, we argue that the main population healthcare aim during the COVID‐19 pandemic should be to save the most lives. Next, we assess a series of potential heuristics or principles that could be used to guide allocation: allocation to the most densely populated cities, random allocation, allocation based on the ratio of patients to ICU personnel, prioritisation in terms of intrahospital mortality, prioritisation of younger populations, and prioritisation in terms of population mortality. We conclude by providing a plausible ranking of the principles, while noting a number of epistemological challenges, in terms of how they best further the aim of increasing the probability of saving the most lives. (shrink)

El propósito del ensayo es ofrecer una reflexión sobre la profesión del investigador novel desde la experiencia del autor a la luz de las ideas y reflexiones ofrecidas por Pierre Bourdieu en su obra “El oficio de científico” con cuestiones actuales y retos a los que se enfrentan la comunidad científica en el ámbito de las ciencias de la educación. El texto se articula con relación a los temas que surgen de la lectura del libro de Bourdieu que se irán (...) nutriendo de los aportes de otros textos y artículos relacionados con la materia. Como señala Martel (2016), se pretende aportar un trozo de este espejo roto que es la profesión del investigador para reconstruirlo a modo de aviso para navegantes para los que vienen detrás desde la experiencia del investigador novel. (shrink)