Recent research has shown that cultural, linguistic, and sociodemographic peculiarities influence the measurement of trait emotional intelligence. Assessing trait EI in different populations fosters cross-cultural research and expands the construct’s nomological network. In mental health, the trait EI of clinical populations has been scarcely researched. Accordingly, the present study examined the relationship between trait EI and key sociodemographic variables on Trait Emotional Intelligence Questionnaire datasets with mental healthcare patients from three different Spanish-speaking countries. Collectively, these datasets comprised 528 participants, 23% (...) from Chile, 28% from Peru, and 49% from Spain. The sociodemographic variables we used for trait EI comparisons were gender, age, educational level, civil status, and occupational status. Analyses involved Multigroup Exploratory Structural Equation Modelling and analysis of covariance. Our results revealed significant between-country differences in trait EI across the studied sociodemographic variables and interactions between these variables. Measurement invariance across the datasets was attained up to the scalar level regarding gender and education, although analyses on age, civil status, and occupation displayed non-invariance. The resultant psychometric evidence supports the suitability of the TEIQue-SF for the accurate cross-cultural assessment of trait EI in mental health settings. It also highlights the importance of incorporating trait EI into extant psychotherapeutic frameworks to enhance non-pharmacological treatment efficacy. (shrink)

El pasaje de la Elegía de Gray (PEG) en “On Denoting” es extremadamente obscuro y ha sido objeto de muy diversas interpretaciones. Aparentemente contiene una crítica devastadora contra la teoría de los conceptos denotativos que el propio Russell había postulado en The Principles of Mathematics (PM) (1903). En este artículo exponemos sucintamente dicha teoría semántica, examinamos detalladamente el pasaje en cuestión y exploramos algunas de las interpretaciones que pretenden desentrañar su sentido. Con ello mostramos, en primer lugar, que la crítica (...) se dirige directamente contra la teoría de PM; en segundo lugar, que no es posible hacer unos pocos cambios homogéneos para habilitar una lectura literal del pasaje; finalmente, que, si bien algunos de los argumentos que los intérpretes han aducido para abandonar la teoría de los conceptos denotativos son sólidos, no es obvio que todos ellos se encuentren en PEG. (shrink)

There are many operas that are based on false historical facts, use stage directions that contradict the libretto or make incorrect use of musical forms. This article considers whether the alteration of the empirical truth of an opera compromises or alters its ontological truth in any way, since analysing every layer of an opera is fundamental in order to understand it. As we will see in reference to the three fundamental components of opera – librettos, scores and stage designs – (...) and taking Bizet’s Carmen and Verdi’s Don Carlos as examples, this becomes problematic when the empirical criteria of truth is compromised. However, as we shall suggest throughout the article, the hermeneutic reading can be considered as the means of interpreting what truly constitutes opera as a work of art and how a truth is achieved therein that does not unfold in any other way. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Journal of the History of Philosophy 41.1 (2003) 131-132 [Access article in PDF] Christia Mercer. Leibniz's Metaphysics: Its Origins and Development. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2001. Pp. xiii + 528. Cloth, $80.00. Christia Mercer's massive study is aimed at unearthing the hidden roots of Leibniz's metaphysics by placing the German philosopher back in the intellectual context within which his thought first took shape. In so doing she stresses (...) the fundamental importance of Leibniz's early years for the development of his philosophy. In particular she convincingly argues for the key role played by Leibniz's early exposure to the thought of eclectic thinkers (including his teachers) who were trying to build a new philosophical synthesis centered around the key tenets of Christian theology and combining elements of Aristotelianism, Platonism, and (in at least some cases) the new mechanical philosophy of nature.One of Mercer's central theses is that the methodological and metaphysical commitments that Leibniz developed during his youth formed the bedrock of his mature philosophy (23). More precisely, her bold claim is that Leibniz's core metaphysics (including the complete concept account of substance) was constructed in 1668-71, re-examined and slightly developed in 1672-79, and then used for the rest of his long philosophical career (18, 470). The key inspirational forces driving the development of Leibniz's philosophy, in her view, had even earlier origins. In the mid-1660s Leibniz did not yet have a fully formulated metaphysics; but he already possessed very definite philosophical objectives which were to guide the development of his metaphysics and form the unstated assumptions underlying his mature thought (40). Mercer identifies these unstated assumptions as a "Metaphysics of Method," a "Metaphysics of Substance," and a "Metaphysics of Divinity," all of which she finds fully developed in his early thought (468-9).According to Leibniz's "Metaphysics of Method" (examined in part I), there exists a truth beneath the prominent philosophical schools which can and ought to be discovered. This conciliatory methodology was Leibniz's answer to the political, religious, and philosophical chaos around him. He was deeply convinced that his brilliantly original eclectic metaphysics would provide the foundation of philosophical, theological, and even political peace. Leibniz's "Metaphysics of Substance," Mercer argues in part II, melded an Aristotelian approach to substance with a mechanical physics and originated at the very outset of his intellectual carrier in an attempt to solve specific theological problems (e.g., those of the incarnation and resurrection). Platonism in turn offered the material for Leibniz's "Metaphysics of Divinity" (explored in part III), that is, for his conception of the relationship between God and creatures. The fourth and final part of Mercer's book takes her analysis of Leibniz's writings up to 1679 and describes the laying of the foundations of his mature metaphysics. She concludes not only that Leibniz proposed the doctrine of pre-established harmony prior to his departure for Paris in March 1672, but also, more generally, that the other tenets of Leibniz's mature thought, including his theory of truth, grew naturally out of his early metaphysics (see, in particular, 2, 15-8, 47, 52, 169-70, 250-2, 300-1, 472).Throughout the book Mercer describes her interpretation as "startling," "unfamiliar," "dramatic," and "surprising," and fears that "readers may balk" at her conclusions since "so much of Leibniz's thought has escaped us for so long" (see, for instance, 1, 9, 471). Some readers may feel, on the contrary, that she has underestimated the extent to which several of her central theses—such as the importance of the earliest stages of Leibniz's philosophical development in general and of eclecticism, theological problems, and Platonism, as well as Aristotelianism within that development in particular—are already reflected in the [End Page 131] best recent traditions of international Leibniz scholarship. But her book undoubtedly breaks new ground and remains an important contribution to an exciting field which cannot and will not be ignored. While international Leibniz scholarship may not absorb some of this book's more... (shrink)

This paper advances the view that the history of philosophy is both a kind of history and a kind of philosophy. Through a discussion of some examples from epistemology, metaphysics, and the historiography of philosophy, it explores the benefit to philosophy of a deep and broad engagement with its history. It comes to the conclusion that doing history of philosophy is a way to think outside the box of the current philosophical orthodoxies. Somewhat paradoxically, far from imprisoning its students in (...) outdated and crystallized views, the history of philosophy trains the mind to think differently and alternatively about the fundamental problems of philosophy. It keeps us alert to the fact that latest is not always best, and that a genuinely new perspective often means embracing and developing an old insight. The upshot is that the study of the history of philosophy has an innovative and subversive potential, and that philosophy has a great deal to gain from a long, broad, and deep conversation with its history. (shrink)

Drawing inspiration from a well-attested historical tradition, I propose an account of cognition according to which knowledge is not only prior to belief; it is also, and crucially, not a kind of belief. Believing, in turn, is not some sort of botched knowing, but a mental state fundamentally different from knowing, with its own distinctive and complementary role in our cognitive life. I conclude that the main battle-line in the history of epistemology is drawn between the affirmation of a natural (...) mental state in which there is a contact between ‘mind’ and ‘reality’ and the rejection of such a natural mental state. For the former position, there is a mental state which is different in kind from belief, and which is constituted by the presence of the object of cognition to the cognitive subject, with no gap between them. For the latter position, all our cognition is belief, and the question becomes how and when belief is permissible. (shrink)

Las circunstancias actuales que estamos viviendo a nivel global nos han llevado a revalorizar el contacto con nuestra realidad cotidiana. Al mismo tiempo constatamos cómo los rituales han ido desapareciendo y vamos sintiendo, por ello, una cierta desazón y desubicación, también en el día a día. El texto se propone en este sentido ilustrar mediante un acercamiento a la ceremonia del té japonesa cómo es posible sacralizar mediante la ritualización una experiencia cotidiana básica como es la de tomar té en (...) compañía. Para ello, se realiza una detallada aproximación histórico-filosófica, distinguiéndose los dos grandes tipos de ceremonia que se dieron en el Japón medieval (siglos XV-XVI). Tras este repaso, se concluirá poniendo de manifiesto la dimensión del servicio, el sentido de la pertenencia a una colectividad y la sensación de estar vivo como los principales beneficios y valores de esta práctica inspirada en el budismo zen. (shrink)

Of all the thinkers of the century of genius that inaugurated modern philosophy, none lived an intellectual life more rich and varied than Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz. Maria Rosa Antognazza's pioneering biography provides a unified portrait of this unique thinker and the world from which he came. At the centre of the huge range of Leibniz's apparently miscellaneous endeavours, Antognazza reveals a single master project lending unity to his extraordinarily multifaceted life's work. Throughout the vicissitudes of his long life, Leibniz (...) tenaciously pursued the dream of a systematic reform and advancement of all the sciences. As well as tracing the threads of continuity that bound these theoretical and practical activities to this all-embracing plan, this illuminating study also traces these threads back into the intellectual traditions of the Holy Roman Empire in which Leibniz lived and throughout the broader intellectual networks that linked him to patrons in countries as distant as Russia and to correspondents as far afield as China. (shrink)

This paper aims to show that a proper understanding of what Leibniz meant by “hypercategorematic infinite” sheds light on some fundamental aspects of his conceptions of God and of the relationship between God and created simple substances or monads. After revisiting Leibniz’s distinction between (i) syncategorematic infinite, (ii) categorematic infinite, and (iii) actual infinite, I examine his claim that the hypercategorematic infinite is “God himself” in conjunction with other key statements about God. I then discuss the issue of whether the (...) hypercategorematic infinite is a “whole”, comparing the four kinds of infinite outlined by Leibniz in 1706 with the three degrees of infinity outlined in 1676. In the last section, I discuss the relationship between the hypercategorematic infinite and created simple substances. I conclude that, for Leibniz, only a being beyond all determinations but eminently embracing all determinations can enjoy the pure positivity of what is truly infinite while constituting the ontological grounding of all things. (shrink)

Este trabajo trata de las aguas termales explotadas en dos contextos nacionales diferentes: en la ciudad argentina de Nueva Federación y en el municipio catarinense de Santo Amaro da Imperatriz, dialogando con una amplia literatura sobre este tema, y destacando sus múltiples usos, centrados para la salud, para actividades de ocio y religiosas. Además, estas aguas son asumidas como patrimonio natural y cultural, como fuente de identificación y referencia simbólica, y como el centro de las disputas en "campos sociales de (...) conflicto", relativos al poder de su uso y su apropiación. También se destacan, más allá de la similitud en la forma en que las aguas termales son explotadas y pensadas en los referidos contextos, las especificidades que marcan ambos balnearios. Por último, se subraya la importancia del termalismo tanto para la Provincia de Entre Ríos como para el Estado de Santa Catarina. (shrink)

Throughout his long intellectual life, Leibniz penned his reflections on Christian theology, yet this wealth of material has never been systematically gathered or studied. This book addresses an important and central aspect of these neglected materials—Leibniz’s writings on two mysteries central to Christian thought, the Trinity and the Incarnation. -/- From Antognazza’s study emerges a portrait of a thinker surprisingly receptive to traditional Christian theology and profoundly committed to defending the legitimacy of truths beyond the full grasp of human reason. (...) This view of Leibniz differs strikingly from traditional perceptions of the philosopher as a “hard” rationalist and quasi-deist. Antognazza also sets Leibniz’s writings in the context of the important theological controversies of his day. (shrink)

What are intuitions? Do they exist as distinctive mental states? Do they have an epistemic function? Can we discern specific features that characterize intuitions? Questions like these are widely d...

In this paper I argue that, in Leibniz’s mature metaphysics, primary matter is not a positive constituent which must be added to the form in order to have a substance. Primary matter is merely a way to express the negation of some further perfection. It does not have a positive ontological status and merely indicates the limitation or imperfection of a substance. To be sure, Leibniz is less than explicit on this point, and in many texts he writes as if (...) primary matter were a positive constituent of a substance. It seems to me, however, that the view most in keeping with the thrust of his mature philosophical system is that captured by a striking remark of 1695: “Materia rerum est nihilum: id est limitatio [The matter of things is nothing: that is, limitation].” This becomes especially apparent in texts showing that Leibniz’s conception of primary matter corresponds to his conception of creaturely limitation. I start by discussing the notion of primary matter in the scholastic tradition. I then show that although Leibniz places the scholastic terminology of primary matter at a crucial juncture of his metaphysics, he thinks of primary matter in a way which significantly deviates from earlier scholastic views. I conclude that despite his adoption of distinctive terminology of Aristotelian scholasticism, instead of holding a broadly Aristotelian concept of primary matter as the ultimate subject of inherence, Leibniz thinks of primary matter according to a Neoplatonic blue-print in which matter is non-being, privation, mere absence of perfection. (shrink)

This contribution discusses Leibniz’s conception of the Christian church, his life-long ecumenical efforts, and his stance toward religious toleration. Leibniz’s regarded the main Christian denominations as particular churches constituting the only one truly catholic or universal church, whose authority went back to apostolic times, and whose theology was to be traced back to the entire ecclesiastical tradition. This is the ecclesiology which underpins his ecumenism. The main phases and features of his work toward reunification of Protestants and Roman Catholics, and (...) unification of Protestant churches are briefly explored, before turning to the issue of religious toleration. It is argued that a remarkably inclusive conception of toleration can be gleaned from a broad sample of Leibniz’s writings and correspondence. It is thanks to the philosophical and theological grounds of this conception that toleration can in principle be extended, for Leibniz, to all men and women of good will, including non-Christians, pagans, and atheists. (shrink)

The last ten years have seen particularly strong changes in corporate social responsibility (CSR), with the introduction of new instruments such as the UnitedNations Global Compact (UNGC) in 2000 and the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) Sustainability Reporting Guidelines in 1998. These instruments propose voluntary tools to address CSR. In November 2010, the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) released the new social responsibility guidance under ISO 26000. It is important to understand the contribution of ISO 26000 to already existing CSR instruments (...) and the connections between them. This article discusses whether companies need ISO 26000 if they already implemented UNGC and GRI: is there redundancy or complementarity? (shrink)

Desde las filosofías de la imaginación y vitalista, María Zambrano habla del exilio político. Lo protagonizan los bienaventurados, a saber, los fieles a sus ideales, unos seres libres que no mienten porque no necesitan los disfraces de la maldad. Las fases del exilio son: 1) el destierro o pérdida d..

Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz was a man of extraordinary intellectual creativity who lived an exceptionally rich and varied intellectual life in troubled times. More than anything else, he was a man who wanted to improve the life of his fellow human beings through the advancement of all the sciences and the establishment of a stable and just political order. In this Very Short Introduction Maria Rosa Antognazza outlines the central features of Leibniz's philosophy in the context of his overarching intellectual (...) vision and aspirations. Against the backdrop of Leibniz's encompassing scientific ambitions, she introduces the fundamental principles of Leibniz's thought, as well as his theory of truth and theory of knowledge. Exploring Leibniz's contributions to logic, mathematics, physics, and metaphysics, she considers how his theories sat alongside his concerns with politics, diplomacy, and a broad range of practical reforms: juridical, economic, administrative, technological, medical, and ecclesiastical. Discussing Leinbniz's theories of possible worlds, she concludes by looking at what is ultimately real in this actual world that we experience, the good and evil there is in it, and Leibniz's response to the problem of evil through his theodicy. ABOUT THE SERIES: The Very Short Introductions series from Oxford University Press contains hundreds of titles in almost every subject area. These pocket-sized books are the perfect way to get ahead in a new subject quickly. Our expert authors combine facts, analysis, perspective, new ideas, and enthusiasm to make interesting and challenging topics highly readable. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Why Iberia?María Rosa Menocal (bio)My first instinct was to correct the title and rename this essay “Why Medieval Spain?” rather than “Why Iberia?” After all, I never say I work on or teach about “Iberia.” And yet the editors have got it just right to signal—using the geographic Iberia instead of the national Spain—that the terrible difficulty of finding worthy names is at the heart of the (...) matter here, at the heart of why it is that the study of the cultures and peoples of the Iberian peninsula during the medieval period is as exacting, as stimulating, as important as it is. It is easy enough, and accurate enough too, to point out that the study of all premodern cultures brings with it comparable difficulties, that, for example, before there was a France or an Italy, it is also misleading to talk about what might have been French or Italian, and yet medievalists in those areas, as well as the man on the street, regularly do so. But in the case of the Iberian peninsula the misprisions reflected in the confusion of terms—when we call a Christian kingdom “Spanish” but an Islamic one “Moorish,” to take only one of dozens of egregious examples—are confusions both more severe and more meaningful. It is true that Dante is not an Italian, but rather a Florentine, and the distinction is far from trivial—indeed, for Dante, central. And yet the comparable distinctions in the Iberian peninsula are likely to be more searing, because they involve not just political but religious and ethnic distinctions. If we call Rodrigo Diaz, the Cid, a Spaniard, why not his contemporary Judah Halevi? And why do we so often—even among those of us who “know better”—persist in calling the Muslims of the Iberian peninsula “Moors” or even “Arabs”—thus grossly confusing religion and ethnicity and suggesting, every time we do, that to be a Muslim was always not to be a Spaniard, in the way that being a Christian was, or that confession is equivalent to ethnicity?Of course, at this late date we all know the largest answer to these and other comparable questions: Spain defined itself as a modern nation through the expulsion not only of its Jewish and Muslim citizens but especially through the expulsion of the memory that they had ever been a part of the real body politic of “Spain.” It is not merely that after 1492 and 1609 (and everything in between) to be a Spaniard was aggressively defined as those who were not (and, better still, had never been) Christian; it is that this early modern definition of the national identity was transferred to the medieval past, and the medieval past rewritten and reimagined accordingly, as if the twelfth century were already longing for the sixteenth. This obliteration of the historical memory of the cultural and religious complexities of the medieval Iberian universe has long meant that the parameters that define how we talk about its languages and cultures are profoundly misshaped, which I mean not as a moral but as a historical statement: Alfonso X would no doubt have been startled by the suggestion that Arabic was not a vital part of the Castilian cultural universe or that Jews were not Toledanos or Sevillanos, nor citizens of his “Spain.” [End Page 7]It is of course the singular fact in European history—and now the word is out, almost everyone knows it—that the three Abrahamic religions long coexisted, in highly complex and always-shifting ways, in the Iberian peninsula. This has for some years now been both the distinction and the bane of “our” medieval studies, since not only the terminology but the most fundamental epistemological categories at our disposal—things as basic as the languages that are considered the legitimate or necessary ones for a medievalist to study in a department in which Spanish medievalists are trained—are still almost invariably at odds with what, explicitly echoing Americo Castro, we might call la realidad historica. Thus part of the answer to the “Why Iberia” question is that the moment is clearly at hand to begin to undo the damage... (shrink)

Este trabajo se centra en la acción dialógica y comunicativa entre las personas con la intención de mejorar su educación. Para ello se ha adaptado el formato de las tertulias literarias dialógicas al contenido de las obras musicales. Los principales objetivos han sido: desarrollar las competencias comunicativa, lingüística y musical a través del diálogo interactivo; aumentar el grado de motivación e incrementar la cultura musical de los futuros docentes hacia la música clásica. Se combina una metodología cualitativa con cuantitativa y (...) el método investigación-acción. La muestra han sido 136 estudiantes, futuros docentes en formación. Los principales resultados ofrecen datos positivos. (shrink)

Cuando la humanidad adquirióel se.ntidohist6ricoalcanz6 concienciade lahistoncidad de su vida. Supo entonces que el pasado va influyendo en unos presentes, y se abocó con empeño a seguir los pasos del sentido que marchan del ayer a un hoy siempre en curso, siempre en fuga. En particular..

Con un altero de filósofos contemporáneos y sus obras, el Dr. Mario Teodoro Ramírez Cobián se asoma al cambio del paradigma nomológico al sistémico, sin declararlo. Hablar de sistemas es hablar de relaciones, hablar de quiasmo es hablar del entrecruce entre lo natural y lo cultural; entre lo fenoménico y los productos humanos; entre el sujeto y el objeto; entre facultades y emociones... Enamorado de la estética y de las artes, Merleau- Ponty. Para llegar a estos hallazgos, este filósofo francés (...) analizado bajo la lupa de Mario Teodoro, se colocó al lado de la corporalidad que toma sus formas intensasen las percepciones y el juicio del gusto. El quiasmo (chiasmón, del griego), intermedio. En retórica es el entrecruce de dos estructuras paralelas donde la segunda invierte el orden de la primera. Quiasmo también es el vínculo entre el lector y el texto o herme-néutica. Como historicista y fenomenólogo, llega al holon, a la gestalt, a la vida la creación y auto creación que revela el determinismo, del azar. Merleau-Ponty toma el lado de la corporalidad que construye y destruye con el quiasmo semiótico, entre cruza sentido, y al arte cuyo centro está en todas partes y su circunferencia en ninguno. Considera el cuerpo como la potencia que ve, toca, oye; de lo consciente e inconsciente. Leer los escritos de Mario Teodoro sobre Merleau- Ponty nos enseña el holon, el vitalismo histórico, lo consciente e inconsciente. (shrink)

Argues that academics’ intellectual engagement with a public beyond the walls of their own specialties, and even beyond the walls of the academy, was long a commonplace and significant part of the work of professors and writers in the humanities.

This contribution discusses Leibniz’s conception of faith and its relation to reason. It shows that, for Leibniz, faith embraces both cognitive and non-cognitive dimensions: although it must be grounded in reason, it is not merely reasonable belief. Moreover, for Leibniz, a truth of faith (like any truth) can never be contrary to reason but can be above the limits of comprehension of human reason. The latter is the epistemic status of the Christian mysteries. This view raises the problem of how (...) it can be determined whether a doctrine above the full grasp of human reason does or does not imply contradiction. The notion of ‘presumption’ and the ‘strategy of defence’ are presented and discussed as Leibniz’s way to tackle this issue. Finally, the article explores the ‘motives of credibility’ which, according to Leibniz, can and should be produced to uphold the credibility of a putative divine revelation, including his account of miracles. (shrink)