This article states that research in skill acquisitionand executionhas underestimated the relevance of some features of attention. We present and theoretically discuss two essential features of attention that have been systematically overlooked in the research of skill acquisitionandexecution. First, attention alters the appearance of the perceived stimuli in an essential way; and second, attention plays a fundamental role in action, being crucial for solving the so called ’many-many problem’, that is to say, the problem of generating a coherent behavior byselecting (...) between many inputs and many potential outputs. We discuss the importance of these features for skill acquisition in sport. We also suggest empirical ways to assess the precise impact of taking them into consideration and at the same time we propose important implications for training derived from the ideas discussed in the paper. (shrink)

Mediante una investigación teórica y de trabajo de campo en relación a la adaptación de la titulación de arquitectura al EEES y con el objetivo de hacer efectivo un despliegue gradual del desarrollo de las competencias del submódulo de dibujo, se exponen los resultados de la coordinación entre asignaturas y una selección crítica y comparativa de actividades de aprendizaje. Se indaga además en la dispar distribución de las materias de dibujo de la adaptación al plan de bolonia, concluyendo con una (...) propuesta de despliegue independiente y mejorada del submódulo desvinculado de las materias que no le son afines. (shrink)

Esta entrevista realizada al vicedirector de la Real Academia Española, José Manuel Sánchez Ron, busca resolver las inquietudes que se formulan a partir de las posibilidades de hallar una conjunción metodológica entre la Literatura y la Física. Para ello, se toma en cuenta la organización especializada de la RAE, que se encarga de la difusión y la preservación del buen uso del lenguaje y la creación literaria. El discurso, junto con las personalidades que se dedican a desarrollarlo, cumplen también un (...) rol importante para ello, ya que sirven como ejes para construir un lenguaje apropiado del castellano. Para terminar, este intercambio de conocimientos será de utilidad para desentrañar cómo se desenvuelve esta dicotomía de disciplinas en otros ámbitos, como el universitario. (shrink)

Este manuscrito es una fiel transcripción de la entrevista que se realizó al doctor Gilberto Sánchez Cabezas, miembro de la Academia Chilena de la Lengua. La información que brindó el académico en este intercambio de preguntas fue esencial para tener un panorama de cómo fluctúa una investigación medular de las lenguas originarias o aborígenes de su país. Asimismo, hizo algunas precisiones en función de las traducciones de escritores canónicos que existen en lenguas proteiformes y cómo estas son plasmadas con modificaciones (...) que podrían alterar en demasía el contenido. Para ello, el académico usa con frecuencia algunos ejemplos de palabras quechuas, aimaras o castellanas con sus respectivos significados, además de citar fragmentos de autores como Paul Verlaine, Attila József, García Lorca, Goethe y Homero, con la volición de que se corrobore la traslación semántica y fonológica. (shrink)

De acuerdo con una caracterización filosófica estándar, el comportamiento humano se hace inteligible a partir de estados mentales, atendiendo especialmente a dos relaciones explicativas: la racionalidad y la causalidad. En el presente artículo evaluaremos cuán adecuada es dicha caracterización respecto a las explicaciones que se dan en las psicoterapias contextuales. Nuestro análisis establece varias respuestas por la negativa. Por un lado, el objetivo de estas terapias no es la comprensión ni la evaluación normativa, por lo que la racionalidad no juega (...) allí un rol explicativo. A su vez, el rol de la causalidad es secundario en la evaluación diagnóstica, dado que en esa etapa del proceso terapéutico es la función de los comportamientos la que busca elucidarse. Finalmente, sostenemos que la intervención terapéutica de estas psicoterapias se centra en explicaciones causales, aunque no desde el modelo de sentido común que la caracterización filosófica supone. Sugerimos, por la positiva, que las explicaciones del comportamiento en psicoterapias contextuales son híbridas: al evaluar apelan a explicaciones funcionales y al intervenir a explicaciones causales. (shrink)

Higher-order thought theories of consciousness attempt to explain what it takes for a mental state to be conscious, rather than unconscious, by means of a HOT that represents oneself as being in the state in question. Rosenthal Consciousness and the self: new essays, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2011) stresses that the way we are aware of our own conscious states requires essentially indexical self-reference. The challenge for defenders of HOT theories is to show that there is a way to explain (...) the required reference-fixing mechanisms that is compatible with the theory. According to Rosenthal, the reference to oneself as such is grounded in the disposition to identify the individual the HOT refers to as the individual who has that HOT. I argue that this leads to a vicious infinite regress on the more than plausible assumption that our cognitive capacities are limited. This leaves such theories without a foundation, since self-reference is thought essential to consciousness. (shrink)

Las prioridades estratégicas que definió la Organización Mundial de la Salud para su labor en la década 2020-2030 son el sustrato de este trabajo. El mismo grupo interdisciplinario de profesionales de la salud que reflexionó en la primera entrega sobre las prioridades relacionadas con lograr poblaciones más sanas, continúa con otras prioridades orientadas a lograr una cobertura sanitaria universal y un mejor manejo de las emergencias sanitarias. En las conclusiones de la segunda entrega se destaca la importancia de desarrollar cada (...) una de las prioridades involucrando a la sociedad civil, la familia y los medios de comunicación. La manera de hacerlo será haciendo girar todas las iniciativas de ejecución alrededor de estrategias educativas adecuadamente planteadas en todos los niveles, sin que se admitan injerencias ni presiones, para recuperar así la confianza necesaria para conseguir las soluciones que son buenas para el ser humano, el ecosistema y las futuras generaciones. -/- . (shrink)

A constitutive theory of representation must address two challenges. The content determination challenge requires specifying why a particular state has a given content. The job description challenge requires spelling out the explanatory role that representational notions play in that theory. Recently, Nicholas Shea has advanced *varitel semantics* as a hybrid approach to representation to answer those challenges, supplementing teleosemantics with non-historical features –namely, exploitable relations and robustness. In this paper, I critically assess the hybrid theory’s answers to both challenges, arguing (...) that their hybrid nature undermines their merits. In each case, I will show that it is hard to establish how the alleged complementariness of the hybrid account components works. I will conclude that internal problems beset Shea’s theory of representation. (shrink)

Justo antes de la pandemia por COVID-19, la Organización Mundial de la Salud definió unas prioridades de trabajo para la década 2020-2030. Un grupo interdisciplinario de profesionales de la salud reflexiona sobre estas prioridades, determinando unas categorías de análisis y, desde una perspectiva bioética, analiza cada una de ellas, ve su pertinencia, algunos eventos causales, las implicaciones que pueden tener si no son enfrentadas adecuadamente y hace sugerencias sobre la forma de llevarlas a cabo. En esta primera entrega se analiza (...) el primer grupo de prioridades estratégicas: “poblaciones más sanas”. En las conclusiones se destaca la conveniencia de acometer cada una de ellas de una manera colaborativa, gubernamental y privada; de reestructurar el sector salud con base en estas prioridades, aprovechando la experiencia obtenida en la lucha contra el COVID-19. La relación del ser humano con el medio ambiente también debe cambiar, apelando a la responsabilidad humana por el cuidado del planeta. (shrink)

Higher-Order Thought (HOT) theories of consciousness maintain that the kind of awareness necessary for phenomenal consciousness depends on the cognitive accessibility that underlies reporting. -/- There is empirical evidence strongly suggesting that the cognitive accessibility that underlies the ability to report visual experiences depends on the activity of the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (dlPFC). This area, however, is highly deactivated during the conscious experiences we have during sleep: dreams. HOT theories are jeopardized, as I will argue. I will briefly present HOT (...) theories in the first section. Section 2 offers empirical evidence to the effect that the cognitive accessibility that underlies the ability to report depends on the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex: dlPFC is the neural correlate of HOTs. Section 3 shows the evidence we have of the deactivation of this brain area during dreams and, in section 4, I present my argument. Finally, I consider and rejoin two possible replies that my opponent can offer: the possibility of an alternative neural correlate of HOTs during dreams and the denial that we have phenomenally conscious experiences during sleep. (shrink)

La teoría de la intentio hoy conocida como “intencionalidad” había pasado desapercibida en la filosofía moderna y fue recuperada por Brentano, pero sobre todo fue puesta de relieve por Husserl, quien se apoyó en ella como uno de los elementos básicos de su fenomenología. Sin embargo, en esta corriente la intencionalidad perdió su sentido clásico. Así lo pone de manifiesto Jacques Maritain en su gnoseología. ¿Por qué Husserl cambia el sentido del concepto?, ¿cuál es la crítica principal de Maritain a (...) este hecho? Parece pertinente esclarecer ambas visiones a fin de comprender el sentido que ha prevalecido en la Filosofía de la Mente contemporánea y las Neurociencias. Lo que se halla en juego es nuevamente la antigua confrontación entre inmanentismo y realismo gnoseológico: admitir en qué consiste la intencionalidad es el punto de inflexión entre estas posiciones. En este trabajo pongo de manifiesto que la forma de asumir un legítimo realismo es mediante una metafísica del ser que reclama una intencionalidad radicada no solamente en el sujeto cognoscente sino además en su relación con la cosa conocida y no sólo con los meros objetos mentales. -/- El propósito de esta publicación es mostrar el punto de quiebre que se lleva a cabo en la teoría del conocimiento y en la psicología racional con respecto al concepto “intencionalidad” del realismo metafísico. La teoría de la intentio en F. Brentano recoge la idea original de los medievales pero sin ser muy explícito en los términos gnoseológicos ya que su objetivo primario consistió sobre todo en superar el psicologismo de su época. En cambio, esa teoría heredada por Husserl se ve alterada completamente con respecto a su sentido primigenio cuando aplica su método trascendental. Esto se puede apreciar en varias partes de su obra "Ideas relativas a una fenomenología pura y una filosofía fenomenológica" (1913). (shrink)

El presente texto pretende analizar el concepto de 'destino' atribuido a Heráclito por ciertos autores de la antigüedad a la luz de los fragmentos del corpus heraclíteo y la doxografía disponibles. Se pretende mostrar la pertinencia de leer a los filósofos presocráticos, como Heráclito de Éfeso, en un contexto enriquecido por fragmentos y material textual de otras clases (doxografía, reminiscencias y paráfrasis) a fin de ofrecer una explicación para la atribución del término ειμαρμεν-eta o su correspondiente en latín 'fatum', al (...) filósofo Efesio. (shrink)

Explaining agency is a significant challenge for those who are interested in the sciences of the mind, and non-representationalists are no exception to this. Even though both ecological psychologists and enactivists agree that agency is to be explained by focusing on the relation between the organism and the environment, they have approached it by focusing on different aspects of the organism-environment relation. In this paper, I offer a suggestion for a radical embodied account of agency that combines ecological psychology with (...) recent trends in enactive cognitive science. According to this proposal, while enactivism focuses primarily on describing how our acquired sensorimotor schemes and habits mutually equilibrate, affecting our tendency to act upon some affordances instead of others, ecological psychology focuses on studying how perceptual information contributes to the actualization of the sensorimotor schemes and habits without mediating representations, inferences, and computations. The paper concludes by briefly exploring how this ecological-enactive theory of agency can account for how socio-cultural norms shape human agency. (shrink)

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

El presente texto intenta establecer algunas bases de la filosofía social de Søren Kierkegaard. Para ello, toma el concepto de lo demoníaco, que se desarrolla en Sobre el concepto de ironía y El concepto de la angustia. En ellas, Kierkegaard señala las determinaciones de este concepto y lo enmarca dentro de las posibilidades de la subjetividad en su relación con los otros y consigo misma. En la primera, la figura de Sócrates da cuenta de lo demoníaco en el sentido del (...) surgimiento y repliegue de la subjetividad que no participa de los asuntos públicos de la polis griega. En la segunda, Kierkegaard trata la situación demoníaca como un estado psicológico donde la conciencia da cuenta de su relación forzada con el bien y de su mantenimiento en la posición del mal, que lleva al individuo a un estado de endemoniamiento caracterizado por su incomunicación, vacuidad y aburrimiento. Este diagnóstico establece, pues, que los demonios kierkegaardianos son tanto la imposibilidad de la configuración social de los individuos, como su posibilidad a través de la formación de una fuerte subjetividad. (shrink)

Representations are not only used in our folk-psychological explanations of behaviour, but are also fruitfully postulated, for example, in cognitive science. The mainstream view in cognitive science maintains that our mind is a representational system. This popular view requires an understanding of the nature of the entities they are postulating. Teleosemantic theories face this challenge, unpacking the normativity in the relation of representation by appealing to the teleological function of the representing state. It has been argued that, if intentionality is (...) to be explained in teleological terms, then the function of a state cannot depend on its phylogenetical history, given the metaphysical possibility of a duplicate of an intentional being that lacks an evolutionary history. In this paper, I present a method to produce, according to our current knowledge in genetic engineering, human-like individuals who are not the product of natural selection in the required sense. This variation will be used to shed light on the main replies that have been offered in the literature to the Swampman thought experiment. I argue that these replies are not satisfactory: representations should better not depend on natural selection. I conclude that a non-etiological notion of function is to be preferred for characterizing the relation of representation. (shrink)

Alleged self-evidence aside, conceivability arguments are one of the main reasons in favor of the claim that there is a Hard Problem. These arguments depend on the appealing Kripkean intuition that there is no difference between appearances and reality in the case of consciousness. I will argue that this intuition rests on overlooking a distinction between cognitive access and consciousness, which has received recently important empirical support. I will show that there are good reasons to believe that the intuition is (...) misguided—at least on the reading that the conceivability arguments require—and hence that the arguments are unsupported. This, in turn, alleviates the Hard Problem but leaves us with what I think is a not easy problem. (shrink)

Animal replaceability is supposed to be a feature of some consequentialist theories, like Utilitarianism. Roughly, an animal is replaceable if it is permissible to kill it because the disvalue thereby caused will be compensated by the value of a new animal’s life. This is specially troubling since the conditions for such compensation seem easily attainable by improved forms of raising and killing animals. Thus, grounding a strong moral status of animals in such theories is somewhat compromised. As is, consequently, their (...) position as an alternative to rights-based theories in animal ethics. Recognising this, some utilitarians tried to disassociate utilitarianism and replaceability. I will here add my voice to this project. However, instead of seeing the culprit in the usual suspects (hedonism, maximisation or the total view), I advance a new proposal. After identifying that the compensating value for a disvaluable action has to be its consequence, I present a restriction on consequences: consequences of sequences of actions cannot be consequences of the isolated actions in the sequences. Given this, the main argument is simple: killing an animal is permissible only if the the value of the new animal’s life is a consequence of the killing; but this value is a consequence of a sequence of actions which involves the killing plus some additional actions; therefore, since, via the restriction, such value is not a consequence of the killing, it is irrelevant to its normative status. I then present two further motivations for the restriction: firstly, it prevents the value of conditional actions from trivially influencing the value of the actions on which they are conditional; secondly, it is useful – even if not a complete solution – to reply other objections to consequentialism: the accordion effect of action and the cluelessness problem. I finally consider a couple of objections. (shrink)

Many pragmatist and non-representational approaches to cognition, such as the enactivist, have focused on the relations between actions, affectivity, and habits from an intersubjective perspective. For those adopting such approaches, all these aspects are inextricably connected; however, many questions remain open regarding the dynamics by which they unfold and shape each other over time. This paper addresses a specific topic that has not received much attention: the impact on future behavior of not fulfilling possibilities for social interaction even though their (...) fulfillment is desirable within a given context. Inspired by Gibson’s theory of affordances and Dewey’s account of habits, these situations will be characterized as events where an agent does not act upon an inviting affordance for social interaction due to a conflict which he or she experiences between given concerns, needs, and social norms. This conflict leads to a sense of unfulfillment that may eventually bring about a crisis and revision of habits. Through specific examples, this work presents the potential impact of the connection between affordances, habits, and affectivity on everyday situations. It therefore represents an exploration of the common ground between pragmatism and enactivism and an attempt to contribute to a process-based approach to social interaction. (shrink)

ABSTRACT This article offers the first step in an ongoing project of revisiting the foundations of latinidad and lo latinoamericano by focusing on the exclusions enacted by the history of these concepts and the cultural and political identity that comes with them. In conversation with Susana Nuccetelli and Omar Rivera, the author focuses on two emblematic authors in the history of Latin American philosophy (Simón Bolívar and José de Vasconcelos) that are usually read as offering a novel, liberatory conception of (...) the Latin American reality/identity, categorically different from European and Anglo-American conceptions. This common reading of some of the foundational texts on Latin American identity, however, conceals not only the active, textual removal of Blackness in the construction of this identity, but also the literal subtraction of Black bodies, lives, and histories from the Latin American nations and communities. Both of these elements are an explicit part of the philosophical programs of Bolívar and Vasconcelos. The article shows how the thought and political practice of these two authors, celebrated in different ways as foundational of what we understand as Latin America today, exemplify the exclusionary historical demarcation of latinidad. (shrink)

This paper explores various notions of aesthetic affordance recently developed through embodied, situated and enactive approaches to aesthetic experience by Maria Brincker and Shaun Gallagher, and the similarities and differences between them and the idea of affective affordance put forward by Joel Krueger and Giovanna Colombetti. This discussion is a way to try to offer some answers to the question of what aesthetic affordances particularly afford compared to affective affordances. I will focus on the affordances that we perceive during various (...) aesthetic experiences in which we find ourselves more moved by the object, event or person(s) causing the experience than we had anticipated. I will argue that these experiences emerge as opportunities to carry out an active exploration of aspects of the narrative self that we feel is related to features of the experience; and that one particular brain network likely to be involved in these experiences – i.e. the default network – might help us to understand how these experiences meaningfully change our relationship with ourselves and with the social context of which we are a part. (shrink)

La Neuroteología surge como una nueva forma de explicar las relaciones entre el ser humano y Dios, las religiones y la espiritualidad en general a partir de la neurología (estudio del sistema nervioso, especialmente del encéfalo). Pero en algunos casos pretende incluso demostrar la existencia o no existencia de Dios. En este trabajo deseo exponer de qué manera algunas formas de Neuroteología manifiestan un rasgo sintomático de la cultura actual donde la ciencia actúa como un saber omnímodo que aspira explicar (...) todos los aspectos de la realidad pasando por alto sus propios límites metodológicos. Algunos investigadores transgreden los principios del método científico-experimental para extrapolarlos a cuestiones filosóficas y teológicas. De esta forma violentan las fronteras epistemológicas de los saberes para convertirse en un único tipo de conocimiento. La ciencia lleva a cabo, cuando menos, un reduccionismo naturalista. -/- Neurotheology appears as a new way to explain the relations between the human being and God, religions, and spirituality in general starting from Neurology (the study of the nervous system, especially the brain). But in certain cases it also pretends to demonstrate the existence or nonexistence of God. In this paper I would like to demonstrate how some forms of Neurotheology offer a symptomatic characteristic of our current culture, where Science acts as an all-embracing knowledge —it aspires to explain the entire aspect of reality— ignoring the limits of its method. Actually, some researchers transgress the principles of the scientific-experimental method and extrapolate to philosophical and theological issues. In this way, they overlap the epistemological limits of the different kinds of knowledge to become one only. Thus, science carries out, to say the least, a naturalist reductionism. (shrink)

I have proposed wedding the theories of belief known as dispositionalism and interpretivism. Krzysztof Poslajko objects that dispositionalism does just fine on its own and, moreover, is better off without interpretivism’s metaphysical baggage. I argue that Poslajko is wrong: in order to secure a principled criterion for individuating beliefs, dispositionalism must either collapse into psychofunctionalism (or some other non-superficial theory) or accept interpretivism’s hand in marriage.

In having an experience one is aware of having it. Having an experience requires some form of access to one's own state, which distinguishes phenomenally conscious mental states from other kinds of mental states. Until very recently, Higher-Order (HO) theories were the only game in town aiming at offering a full-fledged account of this form of awareness within the analytical tradition. Independently of any objections that HO theories face, First/Same-Order (F/SO) theorists need to offer an account of such access to (...) become a plausible alternative. My aim in this paper is twofold. In the first place, I wish to widen the logical space of the discussion among theories of consciousness by offering a distinction, orthogonal to that between F/SO and HO theories, between what I will call 'Self-Involving' (SI) and 'Mental-State-Involving' (MSI) theories and argue in favor of the former one. In the second place, I will present the basics of a characterization of such a Self-Involving theory in Same-Order terms. (shrink)

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

One challenge faced by aesthetics is the development of an account able to trace out the continuities and discontinuities between general experience and aesthetic experiences. Regarding this issue, in this paper, I present an enactive model of some raw cognitive dynamics that might drive the progressive emergence of aesthetic experiences from the stream of general experience. The framework is based on specific aspects of John Dewey’s pragmatist philosophy and embodied aesthetic theories, while also taking into account research in ecological psychology, (...) cognitive sciences, and dynamic systems theory. The model focuses on dynamically relevant nodes at the pre-reflective and the reflective side of experience that would work as nested rhythmic constraints at different cognitive timescales with the potential to shunt experiences toward the aesthetic in everyday situations. My proposal constitutes a way to explore aesthetic experiences from an enactive perspective that regards them as transformative events in which cognitive processes entrain and are entrained by changes taking place in the environment, the brain, and the body. (shrink)

Introductory but opinionated essay on what (and why) minds are.

Recension of the 2023 book "Ethics and Time in the Philosophy of History" an interesting book on metaphysics, moral philosophy, existentialism, and speculative philosophy of history.

El hematoma subdural agudo es la acumulación de sangre en el espacio subdural debido a una ruptura de los vasos sanguíneos, es el resultado principal de un traumatismo craneoencefálico y se considera el más letal ya que daña las células cerebrales provocando su muerte, por lo que un mejor abordaje en el cuidado enfermero de estos pacientes representa una mejora en su salud y se optimizan los recursos disponibles A partir de esta definición, la investigación tiene como objetivo la implementación (...) un método para evaluar el cuidado enfermero en el manejo del Hematoma Subdural. Las acciones del personal de enfermería destinadas al paciente con hematoma subdural son ampliamente efectivas ya que permiten un abordaje holístico centrado en satisfacer las necesidades del paciente, especialmente en el aspecto neurológico, mismas que están enfocadas en monitorear el estado de conciencia, proporcionar comodidad y confort físico durante su permanencia hospitalaria, mantener permeabilidad de la vía aérea, entre otras. (shrink)

Recent years have seen a heightened focus on the study of minimal forms of awareness during sleep to advance the study of consciousness and understand what makes a state conscious. This focus draws on an increased interest in anecdotical descriptions made by classic Indian philosophical traditions about unusual forms of awareness during sleep. For instance, in the so-called state of witnessing-sleep or luminosity sleep, one is said to reach a state that goes beyond ordinary dreaming and abide in a state (...) of just awareness, a state in which one is not aware of anything else other than one’s own awareness. Moreover, for these traditions, this state is taken to be the essence or background of consciousness. Reports on such a state opens the door to exciting new lines of research in the study of consciousness, such as inquiry into the so-called “objectless” awareness during sleep—states of awareness that lack an ordinary object of awareness. In this two-staged research project, we attempted to find the phenomenological blueprints of such forms of awareness during sleep in 18 participants by conducting phenomenological interviews, informed by a novel tool in qualitative research, the micro-phenomenological interview (MPI) method. Following a phenomenological analysis, we isolated a similar phase across 12 reported experiences labelled as ‘nothingness phase’ since it described what participants took to be an experience of ‘nothingness’. his common phase was characterised by minimal sense of self—a bodiless self, yet experienced as being ‘somewhere’—, the presence of non-modal sensations, relatively pleasant emotions, an absence of visual experience, wide and unfocused attention, and an awareness of the state as it unfolded. (shrink)

This article offers an interpretation of Descartes’s method of doubt. It wields an examination of Descartes’s pedagogy—as exemplified by The Search for Truth as well as the Meditations—to make the case for the sincerity (as opposed to artificiality) of the doubts engendered by the First Meditation. Descartes was vigilant about balancing the need to use his method of doubt to achieve absolute certainty with the need to compensate for the various foibles of his scholastic and unschooled readers. Nevertheless, Descartes endeavored (...) to instill willful, context-independent, universal doubt across his readership. If all goes well, readers of the Meditations are like method actors; the Meditator is the character they are meant to bring to life, via the method of meditating on reasons for doubt. The article concludes with the suggestion that Descartes was the same kind of skeptic as the early Academic skeptics Arcesilaus and Carneades. (shrink)

Los sótanos del universo plantea la necesidad de cambiar la epistemología del conocimiento apodíctico científico-filosófico basado en la certidumbre por la “epistemología del riesgo”. Asimismo, sugiere un mayor acercamiento entre ciencia y filosofía para superar la actual confusión y estancamiento que afectan a estos saberes. Este artículo analiza ambos temas. -/- Los Sótanos del Universo proposes the necessity of changing the epistemology of apodictic scientific-philosophical knowledge, based on certainty, for the “epistemology of risk”. Furthermore, it suggests a better approach between (...) philosophy and science in order to surpass the confusion and standstill that affect these disciplines today. This paper analyses both matters. (shrink)

En la siguiente entrevista, la poeta costarricense Mía Gallegos comenta cómo inició su gusto por la Literatura y, en especial, por la creación literaria. Para ello, incorpora elementos autobiográficos que permiten constatar algunos de sus poemarios, previos a su publicación. Además de ello, la escritora explicará cómo se desempeña en la Academia Costarricense de la Lengua para impulsar el fomento y la preservación de las letras en general. En ese sentido, este trabajo tiene el propósito de conocer el mundo interno (...) de la poeta costarricense para que sirva de aliciente para la escritura creativa de los narradores coetáneos. (shrink)

Considerando el contexto bélico y el surgimiento de las vanguardias a inicios del siglo XX, fundamento en este trabajo las razones por las cuales la presencia del concepto de nivola, atribuida por Miguel de Unamuno para hacer referencia a la técnica literaria que emplea en su novela Niebla (1914), suscita una confrontación posible entre universos compuestos por elementos de la realidad y lo virtual. En ese sentido, será propicio explicar el procedimiento que origina esa colisión de planos establecidos. Para (...) ello, recurriré a categorías literarias que sustentan las teorías de la ficción, según la percepción de Thomas Pavel y Marie-Laure Ryan. (shrink)

Basándome en la explicación que hace Jean-Paul Sartre de la violencia, sostengo que no solo la mala fe es inevitable en la práctica, sino que una mala fe limitada es necesaria para la autenticidad. Aunque violar la libertad de otros es mala fe, es imposible no violar nunca la libertad de alguien. Además, y de manera fundamental, la estructura ontológica del para-sí implica que este solo puede ser auténtico en el modo de no ser auténtico. Tratar de evitar por completo (...) la mala fe es, en sí mismo, un acto de mala fe, porque es un intento de constituirse como esencialmente auténtico, pero el para-sí no tiene esencia preexistente. Sin embargo, al reconocer la total responsabilidad de uno por elegir la mala fe, se limita su alcance. Esta mala fe limitada es, de hecho, necesaria para la autenticidad, un proyecto vivido en situaciones concretas y no una ley moral categórica que prohíbe la mala fe. [This is a Spanish translation by Leandro Sánchez Marín of the article "The Authentic Person's Limited Bad Faith".]. (shrink)

Aunque no es posible ofrecer aquí un análisis detallado de las diferentes cues tionesimplicadas en la teoría de las representaciones en la Modernidad, sí pode mos atender auno de sus aspectos más relevantes, presente en la exposición de Leibniz, Wolff,Baumgarten y Kant, a saber: el reconocimiento progresivo y la vin dicación de unconocimiento específicamente sensible como un tipo específico de conocimiento en lafilosofía escolar alemana del siglo XVIII. A pesar de que Leibniz atribuye al conocimiento claro y confuso el grado (...) más bajo en su esquema de los niveles del conocimiento, tambiénes cierto que su exposición apunta ya a la irre ductibilidad de este ámbito en unconocimiento finito como el humano. Por lo demás, lo confuso aquí adquiere sentido en elsistema del saber en la medida en que Leibniz considera que todos los conocimientos obre cuestiones de hecho, si bien falibles, se encuentran en conexión con la verdad en lamedida en que parti cipan de la misma, al expresar el fundamento último de lo real y sersusceptibles de perfectibilidad en el seno de una subjetividad dinámica que comienza aser entendida como unidad vital. En Wolff y Baumgarten se profundiza en la vía que esabierta ya por Leibniz: la exposición de los niveles de conocimiento en el marco de unaimbricación de la lógica de la representación con una psicología vitalista, en la que sereconocerá la experiencia del sentimiento como expresión subjetiva de la perfectibilidaddel conocimiento humano. Aunque la filosofía de Kant supondrá una ruptura con laexposición escolar de esta teoría de los niveles de conocimiento o los tipos derepresentación, lo cierto es que el nacimiento de su teoría de la sensi bilidad tiene lugar enel marco histórico de esta concepción tradicional. (shrink)

“Conciencia”, la sección inicial de la Fenomenología de Hegel, se ocupa de la comprensión del mundo físico que nos rodea. La sección siguiente, “Autoconciencia”, comienza a considerar nuestra comprensión de nosotros mismos y de los otros. Este orden de discusión no es ni arbitrario ni meramente conveniente. Por el contrario, una de las principales lecciones que hemos de aprender hacia el final del desarrollo de la “conciencia” es que nuestra mejor concepción del mundo que es el objeto de nuestras actividades (...) cognitivas es inteligible solo como una parte de un relato que además considera la naturaleza del sujeto que se dedica a tales actividades. La razón para esta transición expositiva es un aspecto importante en el idealismo de Hegel. En este capítulo ofrezco una reconstrucción racional de un argumento que veo como el soporte de esta transición y del tipo de idealismo que esta implica. (shrink)

En este texto nos proponemos abordar la última clase del semanario de Deleuze sobre el poder en Foucault a partir de dos momentos. El primero tiene que ver con el concepto de imagen y la interpretación sobre el cine que ya venía siendo una constante —aunque marginalmente— en estas clases de Deleuze. Seguidamente, el segundo momento tiene que ver con la relación entre poder y resistencia que arroja como resultado una interpretación del pensamiento de Foucault por parte de Deleuze como (...) una obra viva y en constante construcción. Así, cumpliremos con la exigencia de una lectura que invita a pensar en los conceptos como herramientas de análisis integradas al desarrollo de situaciones donde el poder se presenta como noción central. (shrink)

It has been widely acknowledged that indexical thought poses a problem for traditional theories of mental content. However, recent work in philosophy has defied this received view and challenged its defenders not to rely on intuitions but rather to clearly articulate what the problem is supposed to be. For example, in “The Inessential Indexical”, Cappelen and Dever claim that there are no philosophically interesting or important roles played by essential indexical representations. This paper assesses the role of essential indexicality in (...) understanding the content of perception and argues that, if the perceptual experiences of different subjects can have the same phenomenology, and thus share a representational content (phenomenal content)—assumptions shared by a well-established research project, including a wide variety of theories—, then phenomenal content exhibit a particular kind of essential indexicality (perspectival). I also discuss how the argument is immune to Cappelen and Dever’s objections to the idea that the content of perceptual experiences is essentially indexical. (shrink)

There has recently been emphasis put on providing two-factor accounts of monothematic delusions. Such accounts would explain (1) whether a delusional hypothesis (e.g. someone else is inserting thoughts into my mind) can be understood as a prima facie reasonable response to an experience and (2) why such a delusional hypothesis is believed and maintained given its implausibility and evidence against it. I argue that if we are to avoid obfuscating the cognitive mechanisms involved in monothematic delusion formation we should split (...) the first factor (1 above) into two factors: how abnormal experience can give rise to a delusional ‘proto-hypothesis’ and how a ‘proto-hypothesis’ in consort with normal experiences and background information, can be developed into a delusional hypothesis. In particular I will argue that a schizophrenic is faced with the unusual requirement of having to identify an introspectively accessible thought as one's own, and that this requirement of identification is the central experiential abnormality of thought insertion, auditory verbal hallucination, and alien control (i.e. passivity symptoms). Additionally, I will consider non-experiential factors which are required for the formation of a delusional hypothesis. (shrink)

Este artículo indaga sobre la percepción de las publicaciones en la actualidad, puesto que prevalecen obstáculos que impiden una asimilación convincente y generalizada de los textos a los que se les quiere designar forzosamente literarios. Al respecto, Vargas Llosa muestra un panorama editorial impertinente por la globalización y la difusión de lo audiovisual y lo virtual, junto con otras ebulliciones mediáticas, como la defectuosa comprensión lectora, la pésima interpretación textual, los canales poco fidedignos de propagación o las limitaciones económicas para (...) adquirirlos. Para ello, se corroborará con los planteamientos de Miguel Ángel Huamán, que buscan una solución a esta problemática. (shrink)

According to F. Adams [this journal, vol. 68, 2018] cognition cannot be realized in plants or bacteria. In his view, plants and bacteria respond to the here-and-now in a hardwired, inflexible manner, and are therefore incapable of cognitive activity. This article takes issue with the pursuit of plant cognition from the perspective of an empirically informed philosophy of plant neurobiology. As we argue, empirical evidence shows, contra Adams, that plant behavior is in many ways analogous to animal behavior. This renders (...) plants suitable to be described as cognitive agents in a non-metaphorical way. Sections two to four review the arguments offered by Adams in light of scientific evidence on plant adaptive behavior, decision-making, anticipation, as well as learning and memory. Section five introduces the ‘phyto-nervous’ system of plants. To conclude, section six resituates the quest for plant cognition into a broader approach in cognitive science, as represented by enactive and ecological schools of thought. Overall, we aim to motivate the idea that plants may be considered genuine cognitive agents. Our hope is to help propel public awareness and discussion of plant intelligence once appropriately stripped of anthropocentric preconceptions of the sort that Adams' position appears to exemplify. (shrink)

Recent experimental studies indicate that epistemically irrelevant factors can skew our intuitions, and that some degree of scepticism about appealing to intuition in philosophy is warranted. In response, some have claimed that philosophers are experts in such a way as to vindicate their reliance on intuitions—this has become known as the ‘expertise defence’. This paper explores the viability of the expertise defence, and suggests that it can be partially vindicated. Arguing that extant discussion is problematically imprecise, we will finesse the (...) notion of ‘philosophical expertise’ in order to better reflect the complex reality of the different practices involved in philosophical inquiry. On this basis, we offer a new version of the expertise defence that allows for distinct types of philosophical expertise. The upshot of our approach is that wholesale vindications or rejections of the expertise defence are shown to be unwarranted; we must instead turn to local, piecemeal investigations of philosophical expertise. Lastly, in the spirit of taking our own advice, we exemplify how recent developments from experimental philosophy lend themselves to this approach, and can empirically support one instance of a successful expertise defence. (shrink)

Ecological psychology is one of the most influential theories of perception in the embodied, anti-representational, and situated cognitive sciences. However, radical enactivists claim that Gibsonians tend to describe ecological information and its ‘pick up’ in ways that make ecological psychology close to representational theories of perception and cognition. Motivated by worries about the tenability of classical views of informational content and its processing, these authors claim that ecological psychology needs to be “RECtified” so as to explicitly resist representational readings. In (...) this paper, we argue against this call for RECtification. To do so, we offer a detailed analysis of the notion of perceptual information and other related notions such as specificity and meaning, as they are presented in the specialized ecological literature. We defend that these notions, if properly understood, remain free of any representational commitment. Ecological psychology, we conclude, does not need to be RECtified. (shrink)

The notion of the human embryo is not immutable. Various scientific and technological breakthroughs in reproductive biology have compelled us to revisit the definition of the human embryo during the past 2 decades. Somatic cell nuclear transfer, oocyte haploidisation and, more recently, human stem cell-derived embryo models have challenged this scientific term, which has both ethical and legal repercussions. Here, we offer a legal perspective to identify a universally accepted definition of ‘embryo’ which could help to ease and unify the (...) regulation of such entities in different countries. (shrink)

Many philosophers and scientists have argued that the difference between phenomenally conscious states and other kind of states lies in the implicit self-awareness that conscious states have. Higher-Order Representationalist theories, attempt to explain such a self-awareness by means of a higher-order representation. Consciousness relies on our capacity to represent our own mental states, consciousness depends on our Theory of Mind. Such an ability can, at least conceptually, be decomposed into another two: mindreading and metacognition. In this paper I will argue (...) that consciousness cannot depend on mindreading. The tenability of HOR theories depends, therefore, on the relation between mindreading and metacognition. I analyze several views on such a relation and argue that none of them seem to be a plausible option for HOR theories. (shrink)