There is an ongoing debate about the meaning of lexical words, i.e., words that contribute with content to the meaning of sentences. This debate has coincided with a renewal in the study of polysemy, which has taken place in the psycholinguistics camp mainly. There is already a fruitful interbreeding between two lines of research: the theoretical study of lexical word meaning, on the one hand, and the models of polysemy psycholinguists present, on the other. In this paper I aim at (...) deepening on this ongoing interbreeding, examine what is said about polysemy, particularly in the psycholinguistics literature, and then show how what we seem to know about the representation and storage of polysemous senses affects the models that we have about lexical word meaning. (shrink)

Following some of the main arguments Derrida develops in ‘White Mythology’, in this article I propose an unexplored dialogue between Derrida and Althusser considering the use and the place that each of them gives to metaphor in their philosophical strategies. I give special attention to some rather isolated passages of ‘Elements of Self-Criticism’ and ‘Lenin and Philosophy’, where Althusser, against all evidence, seems to be quite aware of the importance of metaphor and mataphorization in every philosophical practice. As Balibar has (...) argued, contrary to the metaphysical tradition, metaphor would not be the opposite but what anticipates the concept. In this sense, it is possible to observe how Althusser’s work has continuously put into practice – as the singular signature of his theoretical practice – something that I call the ‘detour of metaphor’ as a necessary ‘deviation’ for the production of new concepts. Without any evidence that Althusser may have known Derrida’s essay, I show how Althusser’s own theoretical work, one in which ‘metaphor’ as a philosophical theme appears to be rather anecdotic, is unexpectedly close to Derrida’s own positions concerning the margins of philosophy and its ‘outside’, the relation to the metaphysical tradition, and the importance of strategy in philosophy. (shrink)

This paper presents a blueprint for an ecological cognitive architecture. Ecological psychology, I contend, must be complemented with a story about the role of the CNS in perception, action, and cognition. To arrive at such a story while staying true to the tenets of ecological psychology, it will be necessary to flesh out the central metaphor according to which the animal perceives its environment by ‘resonating’ to information in energy patterns: what is needed is a theory of resonance. I offer (...) here the two main elements of such a theory: a framework and a methodology. (shrink)

One big challenge faced by cognitive science is the development of a unified theory that integrates disparate scales of analysis of cognitive phenomena. In this paper, I offer a unified framework that provides a way to integrate neural and behavioral scales of analysis of cognitive phenomena—typically addressed by neuroscience and experimental psychology, respectively. The framework is based on the concept of resonance originated in ecological psychology and aims to be the foundation for a unified theory for radical embodiment; that is, (...) a unified theory for that dissident part of cognitive science that shares a methodological commitment to dynamic systems theory and remains skeptical about the adequacy of mechanism and representationalism as the guiding ideas in the field. In the course of my presentation, I analyze different issues regarding the requirements and constraints unification poses to radical embodiment. (shrink)

In this paper we discuss a phenomenon we call perspectival plurality, which has gone largely unnoticed in the current debate between relativism and contextualism about predicates of personal taste. According to perspectival plurality, the truth value of a sentence containing more than one PPT may depend on more than one perspective. Prima facie, the phenomenon engenders a problem for relativism and can be shaped into an argument in favor of contextualism. We explore the consequences of perspectival plurality in depth and (...) assess several possible responses on behalf of advocates of relativism. (shrink)

Desde el retorno de la democracia en Chile, la alianza política que alcanzó el gobierno consolidó sus posiciones de poder e influencia sin conocer por 20 años alternancia o grandes cambios en sus formas de gestión. Aunque el control del gobierno cambió a una coalición diferente en 2010, la agrupación previa continúa existiendo y posee una significativa representación en el parlamento. ¿Qué expresa tal estabilidad? El argumento principal en este artículo es que un origen social similar de los parlamentarios unido (...) a una interacción social frecuente reduce el dramatismo de las diferencias ideológicas haciendo así más probable las transformaciones políticas o el cambio del grupo en el poder. El análisis considera datos sociodemográficos de los parlamentarios, así como datos de redes sociales de una muestra 37 parlamentarios en ejercicio y 20 que lo hicieron entre 1990 y 2004. El origen social de los parlamentarios corresponde en forma creciente a un medio social similar, caracterizado por escolarización en establecimientos privados y universidades, alcanzando un status socioeconómico relativamente alto. El mapa de sus redes sociales muestra que el clivaje ideológico entre dictadura y democracia alcanzó también las relaciones sociales, estableciendo gran distancia social entre los políticos que hoy dominan la escena. El mapa permite apreciar también un nuevo campo político socialmente más diverso, en el cual tienen relevancia políticos más jóvenes, líderes regionales y la universidad como espacio de encuentro entre políticos e intelectuales. (shrink)

La figura de Walter Benjamin ha venido adquiriendo en los últimos años una inesperada actualidad. Su contribución al pensamiento de nuestro siglo aparece hoy como una intervención singular e irrepetible, producto de una encrucijada cultural patentemente determinada por la conciencia de crisis generalizada por la modernidad. En este contexto, la presente investigación trata de ofrecer una aproximación informativa y ajustada al conjunto de la obra de Benjamin, en una lectura efectuada desde el punto de vista de la Estética. En consecuencia, (...) el libro recorre puntualmente la sinuosa trayectoria de Benjamin desde sus tempranos escritos juveniles, pasando por su maduración crítica en sus trabajos en torno al universo romántico y el barroco, hasta su conversión al materialismo histórico y su explosiva dispersión en la obra de los Pasajes. (shrink)

Considering the most recent advances in artificial intelligence and biomechanics, a hypothetical future of physicalism is explored. It is concluded that a rational and sensible extrapolation of present and expected future advances in those two areas will have vast consequences in the physicalist view. In particular, it is also argued that consciousness cannot be defined in a simple general manner, but only understood through the observable and behavioural actions of humans or sufficiently advanced robots, which may be, at some future (...) time, indistinct. This last result is established by applying what we call Plato’s trap, and our main conclusion is a defence of physicalism. It is argued that human beings are robots which soon will be indistinguishable from suitable advanced man-made robots, which will in turn render many philosophical questions and objections to physicalism irrelevant and, in fact, quite similar in sense and importance to some philosophical medieval questions about God, the soul and immortality. (shrink)

Teaching mathematics and improving mathematics competence are pending subjects within our educational system. The PEIM (Programa Evolutivo Instruccional para Matemáticas), a constructivist intervention program for the improvement of mathematical performance, affects the different agents involved in math learning, guaranteeing a significant improvement in students’ performance. The program is based on the following pillars: (a) students become the main agents of their learning by constructing their own knowledge; (b) the teacher must be the guide to facilitate and guarantee such a construction (...) by being a great connoisseur of the fundamental aspects of the development of the child’s mathematical thinking; (c) the mathematical contents must be sequenced in terms of the complexity and significance for the student as well as contextualized at all times; and (d) the classroom must have a constructivist climate highlighting cooperative work among students. The implementation of PEIM along with the empirical evaluation conducted in several centers in Madrid and Zaragoza (Spain) confirm how students improve their mathematical competence. Both first- and second-grade students in elementary education were far more effective in solving problems, highlighting the use of more advanced strategies in their resolution and a lower incidence of conceptual errors. Moreover, it was possible to verify how the students proving greater difficulty, experienced an evolution in learning similarly to those who did not present it. The program provides customized education to allow the teacher to know at all times how he should be more influential on the students’ learning through mathematical profiles. Both teaching practice and teachers were observed, being that of the experimental group more prone to analyzing processes and allowing the construction of knowledge by students, due to their psycho-developmental training. As a result, we found several improvements through the implementation of the program that may serve, for upcoming years, as a basis for the necessary changes in the teaching of mathematics. (shrink)

: This article deals with the relationship between language and thought, focusing on the question of whether language can be a vehicle of thought, as, for example, Peter Carruthers has claimed. We develop and examine a powerful argument—the “argument from explicitness”—against this cognitive role of language. The premises of the argument are just two: the vehicle of thought has to be explicit, and natural languages are not explicit. We explain what these simple premises mean and why we should believe they (...) are true. Finally, we argue that even though the argument from explicitness shows that natural language cannot be a vehicle of thought, there is a cognitive function for language. (shrink)

O projeto emancipatório moderno estabelece uma concepção otimista de desenvolvimento científico e social. Os filósofos Immanuel Kant e Karl Marx, de modo distinto, levam ao ápice tal projeto emancipatório, o primeiro, ancorado numa concepção de sujeito transcendental capaz de estabelecer verdade e validade universal, o segundo, ancorado na categoria de trabalho desenvolvida em sua doutrina do materialismo histórico. A partir do século XIX, filósofos como Nietzsche, Heidegger e Adorno/Horkheimer põem sob suspeita tal projeto ao demonstrar seus fundamentos não metafísicos. Tais (...) críticas expurgam as pretensões totalitárias do projeto emancipatório moderno, e nos remetem à sua revisão. O filósofo alemão Jurgen Habermas, considerando as críticas elaboradas pelos filósofos da suspeita, vai buscar reconstruir o projeto emancipatório moderno a partir de bases pós-metafísicas. A raiz de tal reconstrução está em Trabalho e Interação. Notas sobre a filosofia do espírito de Hegel em Jena, na qual Habermas promove o confronto da filosofia hegeliana com o pensamento de Kant e Marx, possibilitando a revisão destes. Nessa revisão Habermas desenvolve os conceitos de trabalho e interação, que ao mesmo tempo fundamentam sua crítica à tecnocracia e lançam os pilares para a posterior elaboração da Teoria da Ação Comunicativa. (shrink)

Heras-Escribano argues against the normative character of affordances from a framework that relies on a Wittgensteinian notion of normativity and the incompatibility of direct perception, ….

In this article, an epistemological and ontological view of Statistical Mechanics is presented. The author believes that this is a clear-cut example that can prove to be useful as a resource material for teachers, and also, a clear pedagogical material for science students when taking courses of Philosophy of Science. Statistical Mechanics is a regular course on most science and engineering programs, we believe that this fact facilitate the understanding of the philosophical discussion here presented.

In this paper we introduce two issues relevantly related to the cognitive phenomenology debate, which, to our minds, have not been yet properly addressed: the relation between access and phenomenal consciousness in cognition and the relation between conscious thought and inner speech. In the first case, we ask for an explanation of how we have access to thought contents, and in the second case, an explanation of why is inner speech so pervasive in our conscious thinking. We discuss the prospects (...) of explanation for both sides of the debate and argue that cognitive phenomenology defenders are in an overall advantageous position. We also propose an account of inner speech that differs from other influential explanations in some interesting respects. (shrink)

Este artículo presenta un análisis del estado de la cuestión de la investigación para la paz desde una perspectiva filosófica. Después de considerar el papel de la violencia y repasar algunas concepciones de la guerra, revisa el surgimiento dé la llamada investigación para la paz a finales de los años 50, su posterior conexión con los estudios del desarrollo, feministas, movimientos sociales y teoría de las relaciones internacionales, su implantación en España y la situación después de la Guerra Fría. Analiza (...) el surgimiento de la cultura para la paz en los años 90 y en el nuevo milenio y el impacto del 11 de septiembre y el 11 de marzo, en el marco de una crítica a la falta de compromiso político de los países ricos para afrontar la pobreza, marginación y exclusión de los paises y colectivos empobrecidos. (shrink)

Much of what we say is never said aloud. It occurs only silently, as inner speech. We chastise, congratulate, joke and cajole, all without making a sound. This distinctively human ability to create public language in the privacy of our own minds is no less remarkable for its familiarity. And yet, until recently, inner speech remained at the periphery of philosophical and psychological theorizing. This essay collection, from an interdisciplinary group of leading philosophers, psychologists, and neuroscientists, displays the rapidly growing (...) interest among researchers in the puzzles surrounding the nature and cognitive role of the inner voice. Questions explored include: the aids and obstacles inner speech presents to self-knowledge; the complex relation it bears to overt speech production and perception; the means by which inner speech can be identified and empirically assessed; its role in generating auditory verbal hallucinations; and its relationship to conceptual thought itself. (shrink)

Sanciona este trabajo la confusión cayetanista en la inspección del actus essendi como esse actualis existentiae, defendiendo el valor del esse desde una recta lectura a propósito de la división capreolista, más ajustada al dictado del Aquinate: ser formal como complementum substantiae y esse como complementum suppositi. El esse recobra la dignidad metafísica que le otorga Aquino, más densa que el simple valor de existencia, con la diferenciación de una vertiente de composición sustancial y una línea de composición entitativa en (...) la que el esse adquiere relevancia como actus essendi asimilativo, plegados a tal fórmula actus informandi simpliciter y actus subsistendi. (shrink)

In this article some intriguing aspects of electromagnetic theory and its relation to mathematics and reality are discussed, in particular those related to the suppositions needed to obtain the wave equations from Maxwell equations and from there Helmholtz equation. The following questions are discussed. How is that equations obtained with so many irreal or fictitious assumptions may provide a description that is in a high degree verifiable? Must everything that is possible to deduce from a theoretical mathematical model occur in (...) the world? Does everything that takes place in the world have a mathematical description? (shrink)

Se presenta el argumento de W. T. Stace sobre el realismo señalando no que éste sea falso sino solamente que no hay absolutamente ninguna razón para considerar que sea verdadero y por tanto no tenemos por qué creerlo. Esto se aplica a la discusión de la pregunta: ¿Cómo sabemos que los átomos existen? Haciendo referencia a algunas de las respuestas científicas más importantes conocidas que son en orden cronológico: i) La ley de las proporciones definidas o Ley de Proust, ii) (...) la teoría cinética de los gases, iii) el movimiento Browniano y, iv) imágenes de microscopio de efecto túnel. (shrink)

A partir de un enfoque internalista para los estados mentales, se propone que los términos metafísicos son el resultado de estados mentales que, a su vez, son propiedades emergentes de sistemas dinámicos caóticos con atractores coexistentes en el cerebro. Se sugiere que esto proporciona una explicación física para los conceptos metafísicos. Esto se hace a partir de la propuesta de que todos los sistemas dinámicos con atractores coexistentes caóticos, como el cerebro, presentan propiedades emergentes. Obtenemos así una explicación no reductiva (...) de los estados mentales y su alta sensibilidad al ruido y a las condiciones iniciales. (shrink)

One of the most important characteristics of modern science is its replicability and objectivity. This means that a scientific result is taken as such only when it has been reproduced by other scientists. Indeed, the replicability of a scientific result in an objective and independent way by members of a scientific community is the cornerstone of science. Experimental laser physics is an example of “normal” science, where it is no doubt that the phenomenon could be replicated; however, the replication process (...) may not be straightforward since it requires a good understanding of the physics behind it, as well as good technical skills. In this article, two laboratory cases of experiments on laser physics are presented: the first one deals with a Nitrogen N2 laser with a Polloni excitation circuit, and the second one deals with a transversally excited TEA carbon dioxide laser. For the nitrogen laser, it will be shown that reproducibility failed, and therefore, the reported experiment cannot be taken as a valid contribution to the advancement and understanding of nitrogen laser physics and technology. On the other hand, for the case of the TEA carbon dioxide laser, several comments are presented on the development of this finally successful experiment. Both cases show the importance of being technically up-dated in order to reproduce or improve the results reported by other researchers. Finally, a discussion about: What can we learn about the research practice from these two cases? It is presented, as well as the conclusions about the case studies; we hope they may be useful to philosophers of science and young scientists alike. (shrink)

El artículo aborda el comportamiento de los precios, salarios y deuda morosa de las familias como una aproximación a la comprensión de las causas de la movilización social en Chile desde 2019. Si bien este país ha mostrado sólidos fundamentos macroeconómicos durante los últimos treinta años, estos han escondido importantes cuellos de botella para las familias como alzas de precios de bienes y servicios sensibles para la población, salarios estancados, una de las distribuciones del ingreso más desiguales del mundo, un (...) mercado laboral heterogéneo y el crecimiento galopante de la deuda morosa de los mayores de dieciocho años. Se plantea que estas insatisfacciones económicas han puesto en apuro a las familias chilenas, especialmente a las más vulnerables y la clase media, las que exigen cambiar el modelo de desarrollo. (shrink)

info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion.

De maneira reconhecida ou não, a presença de Górgias, e suas teses, no corpus platônico transcende os limites da presença da personagem Górgias nos sete diálogos em que este é mencionado por Platão. Diante de uma influência multifacetada – que abarca desde questões relativas à linguagem, passando pela metafísica, política e estatuto da arte – faz-se necessário um recorte para melhor evidenciar a apropriação e reelaboração platônica do quadro conceitual gorgiano. A pretensão é fazer uma releitura de alguns momentos do (...) texto platônico por meio de um destaque às referências, diretas e indiretas, que nele estão contidas, tanto da sofística de um modo geral, como de Górgias de Leontinos de modo específico. A tese que se pretende defender é a de que as principais hipóteses teóricas apresentadas pelos sofistas, e por Górgias de modo proeminente, devem ser consideradas imprescindíveis para a construção da filosofia platônica – ainda que esta constitua-se como reação ou apropriação seletiva daquelas. Assim, a indústria platônica não se constitui apenas em desqualificar o edifício filosófico gorgiano, a fim de erguer suas teses sobre as ruínas deste, mas também utilizar alguns conceitos da empresa filosófica de Górgias como vigas-mestras da nova perspectiva reflexiva que o discípulo de Sócrates comprometeu-se a desenvolver. Palavras-chave: Górgias; Platão; Sofística; Platonismo; Discurso. (shrink)

Se analiza la importancia de Bataille en El Anti Edipo de Deleuze y Guattari, para mostrar la deuda o filiación entre la noción de “gasto improductivo” y la noción de “producción deseante”. Explicando el sentido de la primera en el marco de una economía general, se muestran afinidades entre dicha reflexión y la propuesta de D-G en AE, en relación con una lectura de la tesis marxiana sobre la identidad entre hombre y naturaleza. Se concluye con posibles inscripciones que los (...) trabajos de Bataille y de D-G pueden tener en la trayectoria del marxismo y del pensamiento contemporáneo. (shrink)

A virada neopragmática, crítica avassaladora da função fundante dos saberes autodefendida pela filosofia, radical ao ponto de incluir a própria vertente analítica de onde se originou, é, inexoravelmente, a fronteira atual do conhecimento filosófico, o golpe do movimento neopragmático à filosofia e à razão; contudo, deve ser avaliado como positivo. Ele possibilitou o retorno à consciência das matrizes conceituais genuínas desse saber ao apontar as propostas de superação do impasse: naturalismo estrito, naturalismo fraco, idealismo objetivo, contextualismo. Contribuíram, inquestionavelmente, para esse (...) desfecho, os estudos históricos e sociológicos da ciência pós-kuhnianos, inspirados em sua filosofia da ciência. Inserindo-se tangencialmente nesse debate, o objeto de reflexão deste estudo é contrapor o ponto de vista da sociologia da ciência ao realismo e ao idealismo. Nosso intuito é demonstrar que o construtivismo que caracteriza seu modelo de inquirição não nega, como ingênua ou maliciosamente entendem seus críticos, a função determinante da natureza na construção da ciência. A força do nosso argumento emergirá da análise realizada pelos expoentes do strong programme em sociologia da ciência, Barry Barnes, David Bloor e John Henry, no livro “ Scientific Knowledge: a sociological analysis ”, de um estudo de caso controverso da história da física: os experimentos que o físico norte-americano Robert Millikan realizou para estabelecer a carga do elétron. (shrink)