Relationships between degree/area of academic formation and religious and Darwinian views are controversial. This study aimed to compare the religious beliefs and acceptance of Darwinian evolution between two contrasting South American scientific communities (Chile and Colombia), accounting for different degrees and areas of academic formation. In 2018, 115 last year bachelor students (surveyed as freshmen in 2014 for a previous study) from Chile, and 283 first/last year bachelor students, graduate students, and professors from Colombia, all belonging to biology, chemistry, or (...) physics, were surveyed. Chilean students/faculty were significantly more agnostic/atheist, more accepting of Darwinian evolution, and less creationist than their Colombian counterparts. Academic degree and area differently affected these views in both countries, as only in Chile there was a clear tendency among biologists and physicists with higher degrees to hold less religious and creationist views. Marked differences between the history, socioeconomic contexts, and especially in high school and university curricula of both countries might explain these results. (shrink)

"A philosophical exploration of Miguel de Unamuno's theory of reality, in regard to man, nature, and God, by examining the famed Spanish philosopher-writer's published works and his correspondence.".

The meanings of utterances and thoughts are commonly regarded in philosophical semantics as abstract objects, called «propositions», which account for how different utterances and thoughts can be synonymous and which constitute the primary truth-bearers. I argue that meanings are instead natural properties that play causal roles in the world, that the kind of «One over Many» thinking underlying the characterization of shared meanings as abstract objects is misguided and that utterances and thoughts having truth-values in virtue of their meanings does (...) not entail that meanings themselves are truth-bearers. (shrink)

The logicality of language is the hypothesis that the language system has access to a ‘natural’ logic that can identify and filter out as unacceptable expressions that have trivial meanings—that is, that are true/false in all possible worlds or situations in which they are defined. This hypothesis helps explain otherwise puzzling patterns concerning the distribution of various functional terms and phrases. Despite its promise, logicality vastly over-generates unacceptability assignments. Most solutions to this problem rest on specific stipulations about the properties (...) of logical form—roughly, the level of linguistic representation which feeds into the interpretation procedures—and have substantial implications for traditional philosophical disputes about the nature of language. Specifically, contextualism and semantic minimalism, construed as competing hypotheses about the nature and degree of context-sensitivity at the level of logical form, suggest different approaches to the over-generation problem. In this paper, I explore the implications of pairing logicality with various forms of contextualism and semantic minimalism. I argue that to adequately solve the over-generation problem, logicality should be implemented in a constrained contextualist framework. (shrink)

Recent work in formal semantics suggests that the language system includes not only a structure building device, as standardly assumed, but also a natural deductive system which can determine when expressions have trivial truth-conditions (e.g., are logically true/false) and mark them as unacceptable. This hypothesis, called the `logicality of language', accounts for many acceptability patterns, including systematic restrictions on the distribution of quantifiers. To deal with apparent counter-examples consisting of acceptable tautologies and contradictions, the logicality of language is often paired (...) with an additional assumption according to which logical forms are radically underspecified: i.e., the language system can see functional terms but is `blind' to open class terms to the extent that different tokens of the same term are treated as if independent. This conception of logical form has profound implications: it suggests an extreme version of the modularity of language, and can only be paired with non-classical---indeed quite exotic---kinds of deductive systems. The aim of this paper is to show that we can pair the logicality of language with a different and ultimately more traditional account of logical form. This framework accounts for the basic acceptability patterns which motivated the logicality of language, can explain why some tautologies and contradictions are acceptable, and makes better predictions in key cases. As a result, we can pursue versions of the logicality of language in frameworks compatible with the view that the language system is not radically modular vis-a-vis its open class terms and employs a deductive system that is basically classical. (shrink)

Las preguntas que animan el presente libro se ven atravesadas por el espíritu del tiempo de incertidumbre en el que nos encontramos, pero de manera especial por la incertidumbre misma, ajena a cualquier tiempo, encarnada en ese vínculo que ha establecido desde siempre la filosofía con la literatura. ¿Cuáles siguen siendo hoy día estas relaciones de la literatura con la filosofía? ¿De qué manera se gana o se pierde fuerza semántica con la desaparición de fronteras disciplinares precisas?Estas son algunas cuestiones (...) sobre las que reflexionan el elenco de poetas, escritores y filósofos que colaboran en el libro ofreciendo una incuestionable aportación crítica contra los distintos procesos culturales de secuestro de la palabra. (shrink)

Analiza la forma en que el pensamiento baconiano -alianza entre ciencia, matemática y filosofía- se instituye en ideología de la modernidad y en referente universal de todo tipo de conocimiento. La epistemología positiva pretende la depuración del conocimiento científico, la demarcación entre la ciencia y pseudociencia, así como la apoteosis de la razón instrumental. El libro analiza algunas de las alternativas al positivismo: Lakatos, Kuhn, Habermas, además de la sociología cognitiva de la ciencia. Se propone un programa basado en la (...) recuperación del control social de la ciencia y la tecnología. (shrink)

Este artículo plantea que ciertas situaciones en las que nos vemos obligados a prestar atención a los riesgos que tomamos al confiar, como la amenaza de violencia o la ruptura de la confianza, motivan una forma particular de confianza en la cual nos interesa tomar consciencia de las creencias, valoraciones e intenciones prácticas implicadas al confiar. Tras describir fenomenológicamente, desde una perspectiva husserliana, la estructura de esta forma de confianza, denominada confianza reflexiva o racional, se expone por qué su análisis (...) filosófico puede contruibuir a aclarar problemáticas epistemológicas y éticas que se desprenden del carácter social de nuestra existencia. En la parte final del artículo se sugiere que el concepto de confianza reflexiva o racional puede servir para entender problemáticas relacionadas con la posverdad y para discernir algunas formas básicas de dominación y de complicidad con la dominación. (shrink)

The classification of ageing as a disease is fundamental to developing new pharmacological strategies that can target said phenomenon. The European Medicines Agency does not do this and maintains a questionable perspective based on the traditional naturalistic argument and the value-free ideal. An alternative is proposed which, inspired by consequentialism, is committed to considering ageing as a disease in European regulatory contexts as long as the ethical consequences are desirable. Within a realistic framework, I show that making this decision would (...) have moderate positive effects such as increased knowledge about antiageing pharmacology or potential greater chances of completing vital projects. Furthermore, we will see that the main arguments used by critics to show that the negative effects outweigh the positive ones are not sound. Therefore, I conclude that it would be beneficial for the European Medicines Agency to change its position on ageing. (shrink)

We present a mathematical approach to defeasible reasoning based on arguments. This approach integrates the notion of specificity introduced by Poole and the theory of warrant presented by Pollock. The main contribution of this paper is a precise, well-defined system which exhibits correct behavior when applied to the benchmark examples in the literature. It aims for usability rather than novelty. We prove that an order relation can be introduced among equivalence classes of arguments under the equi-specificity relation. We also prove (...) a theorem that ensures the termination of the process of finding the justified facts. Two more lemmas define a reduced search space for checking specificity. In order to implement the theoretical ideas, the language is restricted to Horn clauses for the evidential context. The language used to represent defeasible rules has been restricted in a similar way. The authors intend this work to unify the various existing approaches to argument-based defeasible reasoning. (shrink)

A large part of technological advances, especially in the field of industry, have been focused on the optimization of productive processes. However, the detection of anomalies has turned out to be a great challenge in fields like industry, medicine or stock markets. The present work addresses anomaly detection on a control level plant. We propose the application of different intelligent techniques, which allow to obtain one-class classifiers using real data taken from the correct plant operation. The performance of each classifier (...) is assessed and validated with real created faults, achieving successful overall results. (shrink)

En partant de la notion de « jargon » mobilisée par Adorno dans son livre contre Heidegger, cet article entend contribuer à une histoire sociale du concept d’authenticité, dans une perspective critique qui s’intéresse à ses usages au sein de différents milieux musicaux et musicologiques. Le rock et la pop, les musiques ethniques et/ou traditionnelles, les musiques anciennes, sont autant de contextes où dans la deuxième moitié du vingtième siècle ont pris forme de manière indépendante ce qu’on peut appeler des (...) querelles de l’authenticité. Nous faisons l’hypothèse que cela s’explique moins pour des raisons techniques communes à ces différents types de musiciens que parce que la diffusion de l’existentialisme et la vogue de la contreculture dans les années 1960 ont installé dans le sens commun l’idée qu’une vie authentique est l’un des noms contemporains de la vie bonne. (shrink)

KOINONIA/ASETT MINGA/MUTIRÃO DE REVISTAS DE TEOLOGIA LATINO-AMERICANAS Teología de la Liberación y movimiento ecuménico: breve reflexión desde una práctica (Liberation Theology and ecumenical movement: a brief reflection from praxis).

Seventeen essays make up the body of this anthology. Most of the authors are Latin Americans (although some of them work in other regions), and thus we might say that this volume is, in a very approximate sense, a showcase of recent Latin-American ontology and metaphysics. The remaining authors—Pierre Aubenque, Barry Smith, Lorenzo Peña and James Hamilton—are distinguished teachers who have had important contacts with the Latin-American philosophical community. The articles in this anthology address some of the central questions in (...) ontology and metaphysics: the possibility of a science of being (Aubenque), the different possible approaches to ontology (Hurtado), the recent application of ontology to informatics (Smith), guise theory and its Leibnizian antecedents (Herrera), the reduction of space and time to phenomenological properties (Rodríguez Larreta), the Newtonian ontology of space and time (Benítez and Robles), the relation between truth and the so-called “truth-makers” (Rodríguez Pereyra), the ontological position of the Pyrrhonic skeptic (Junqueira Smith), the limits and difficulties of metaphysical realism (Cabanchik, Pereda), the defense of physicalist or emergentist positions regarding the mental (Pérez), the metaphysical nature of persons (Naishtat), the ontology of cultural entities (Peña), political ontology (Nudler), the relation between ontology and literature (Hamilton), the ontology of art (Tomasini). Some of the works (e.g., those Aubenque and Robles) approach the question from a historical perspective: others examine the most recent philosophical literature on the problems focalized (e.g., those by Pérez and Rodríguez Pereyra), and others offer new approaches (e.g., those of Rodríguez Larreta, Peña or Nudler) to a specific problematic area. (shrink)

Based on an ethnographic case study, we describe the family experiences and the access to formal education of 30 Paraguayan women to show how these factors influence their labor insertion at the Paraná Tri-Border Area. We will start by reviewing the theoretical debates about gender inequality in labor insertion in border territories. Then, we will explain the study’s methodology and the profile of the interviewees. The analysis consists in describing the relationship between the rural origins of these women and gender (...) inequalities; we will establish how these inequalities are related to low access to formal education and the precariousness of their insertion into the job market. In addition, we will show how these circumstances imply a contradiction in their work experience on the border, between the abuses suffered and the autonomy gained; and we will analyze the expectations of transgenerational transformation that our protagonists project in their children. (shrink)

Nowadays, the quality standards of higher education institutions pay special attention to the performance and evaluation of the students. Then, having a complete academic record of each student, such as number of attempts, average grade and so on, plays a key role. In this context, the existence of missing data, which can happen for different reasons, leads to affect adversely interesting future analysis. Therefore, the use of imputation techniques is presented as a helpful tool to estimate the value of missing (...) data. This work deals with the academic records of engineering students, in which imputation techniques are applied. More specifically, it is assessed and compared to the performance of the multivariate imputation by chained equations methodology, the adaptive assignation algorithm based on multivariate adaptive regression splines and a hybridization based on self-organisation maps with Mahalanobis distances and AAA algorithm. The results show that proposed methods obtain successfully results regardless the number of missing values, in general terms. (shrink)

The use of batteries became essential in our daily life in electronic devices, electric vehicles and energy storage systems in general terms. As they play a key role in many devices, their design and implementation must follow a thorough test process to check their features at different operating points. In this circumstance, the appearance of any kind of deviation from the expected operation must be detected. This research deals with real data registered during the testing phase of a lithium iron (...) phosphate—LiFePO4—battery. The process is divided into four different working points, alternating charging, discharging and resting periods. This work proposes a hybrid classifier, based on one-class techniques, whose aim is to detect anomalous situations during the battery test. The faults are created by modifying the measured cell temperature a slight ratio from their real value. A detailed analysis of each technique performance is presented. The average performance of the chosen classifier presents successful results. (shrink)

Este trabajo desarolla un análisis comparativo de ciertos temas comunes a las teorías de la percepción de Aristóteles y de Merleau-Ponty. Se sostiene que, de distintos modos y discutiendo en cada caso con diferentes doctrinas «intelectualistas», ambas teorías atribuyen a la percepción sensible capacidades complejas de discriminación, unificación y autopercatación sin mediación de funciones intelectuales. A partir de estos elementos comunes a ambas teorías es posible esbozar una consideración del cuerpo sentiente que no lo reduce a su materialidad, así como (...) una concepción de un sí mismo no restringido al pensamiento. (shrink)

En este trabajo se pretende mostrar el sentido político que adquirió la defensa de la teoría por parte de Adorno en los últimos años de su vida. él empleó esta defensa como una respuesta a los imperativos de los estudiantes de izquierda de plegar la teoría crítica a la intervención práctica inmediata. Para justificar esta tesis se atiende no sólo a lo que decía, sino también, en un nivel discursivo diferente, a lo que estaba haciendo cuando empleaba concentraciones de términos (...) y enunciados densos y eruditos para manifestarse. Esto lleva a incluir las reflexiones y valoraciones de Adorno referentes a la actitud teorética y a la praxis, principalmente aquellas esbozadas en Dialéctica negativa, en un contexto más amplio. This work pretends to show the political sense that the defense of the theory by Adorno acquired in the last years of his life. He used this defense as an answer to the students's imperatives of applying the critical theory to the immediate practical intervention. In order to justify this thesis will be considered not only what Adorno said, but also, in a different discursive level, what he was doing on having used concentrations of terms and dense and erudite declarations. This entails, then, to relate Adorno's reflections and assessments concerning to the theoretical and practical approach -specially those outlined in Negative Dialectic- to a broader contextual framework. (shrink)

El presente trabajo aborda lo que Hegel denomina ‘método de ejecución’ en la Introducción de la Fenomenología del Espíritu. Lo que me propongo es dar una explicación acerca de cómo opera este método tal que logre cumplir las metas que Hegel mismo se propone. En particular, pretendo explicar por qué el objeto para cada figura de la conciencia es cada vez uno distinto y por qué el nuevo objeto surge a partir de la corrección del saber que se encarna en (...) una cierta figura de la conciencia. Me centro en criticar las respuestas a estas preguntas que extraigo de varios autores, con especial atención en cuatro de ellos: Kenneth Westphal (1998), Robert Brandom (2019), Stephen Houlgate (2013) y Robert Pippin (1989). Luego, propongo un bosquejo de mi propia explicación, la cual recurre al uso de un criterio interno de la verdad análogo al que Spinoza emplea para su filosofía. (shrink)