ABSTRACT:I contrast an ecological account of natural agency with the traditional Cartesian conception using recent research in bacterial cognition and cellular decision making as a test case. I argue that the Cartesian conception—namely, the view that agency presupposes cognition—generates a dilemma between mechanism, the view that bacteria are mere automata, and intellectualism, the view that they exhibit full-blown cognition. Unicellular organisms, however, occupy a middle ground between these two extremes. On the one hand, their capacities and activities are too adaptive (...) to count as mere machines. On the other hand, they lack the open-ended responsiveness of cognitive agents to rational norms. An ecological conception of agency as the gross behavioral capacity to respond to affordances, I argue, does not presuppose cognition and allows for degrees of agency along a continuum, from the simplest adaptive agents, such as unicellular organisms, to the most sophisticated cognitive agents. Bacteria, I conclude, are adaptiveagents, hence not mere automata, but notcognitiveagents. (shrink)

Tradicionalmente, el patrimonio se ha relacionado con la educación histórica desde una perspectiva restrictiva que dejaba fuera a buena parte de las manifestaciones patrimoniales, entre ellas, las que se incluyen en el ámbito del patrimonio inmaterial. En este sentido, el presente trabajo se centra en la relación entre patrimonio inmaterial y pensamiento histórico dentro de la formación del profesorado de Educación Primaria. Desde el paradigma interpretativo se han analizado 27 propuestas didácticas de un total de 54 estudiantes del Grado de (...) Educación Primaria, con el propósito de conocer la percepción que poseen del uso del patrimonio inmaterial para trabajar los conceptos asociados al desarrollo del pensamiento histórico. Los datos obtenidos apuntan a la existencia de una alta consideración del patrimonio inmaterial para trabajar el pensamiento histórico en la Educación Primaria. (shrink)

What is a biological individual? How are biological individuals individuated? How can we tell how many individuals there are in a given assemblage of biological entities? The individuation and differentiation of biological individuals are central to the scientific understanding of living beings. I propose a novel criterion of biological individuality according to which biological individuals are autonomous agents. First, I articulate an ecological-dynamical account of natural agency according to which, agency is the gross dynamical capacity of a goal-directed system to (...) bias its repertoire to respond to its conditions as affordances. Then, I argue that agents or agential dynamical systems can be agentially dependent on, or agentially autonomous from, other agents and that this agential dependence/autonomy can be symmetrical or asymmetrical, strong or weak. Biological individuals, I propose, are all and only those agential dynamical systems that are strongly agentially autonomous. So, to determine how many individuals there are in a given multiagent aggregate, such as multicellular organism, a colony, symbiosis, or a swarm, we first have to identify how many agential dynamical systems there are, and then what their relations of agential dependence/autonomy are. I argue that this criterion is adequate to the extent that it vindicates the paradigmatic cases, and explains why the paradigmatic cases are paradigmatic, and why the problematic cases are problematic. Finally, I argue for the importance of distinguishing between agential and causal dependence and show the relevance of agential autonomy for understanding the explanatory structure of evolutionary developmental biology. (shrink)

The computational metaphor of organisms as phenotypic automata controlled by a genetic programme has been replaced by the cognitive metaphor of organisms as intelligent agents making decisions about how to use their genomic and environmental resources. This metaphor facilitates novel ways of thinking about organisms that defy the assumptions of the old machine metaphor. But like all metaphors, the cognitive metaphor discloses important similarities at the expense of eclipsing significant dissimilarities. I argue that although cognitivism carries with it the crucial (...) insight that living organisms are agents rather than mere automata, this metaphor distorts the nature of biological agency by over-intellectualizing, which risks eliminating the distinction between life and mind. I trace the Cartesian root of these metaphors and argue that it generates a dilemma between mechanism and intellectualism. To capture the middle path that most organisms occupy between these two extremes, I propose an ecological account of natural agency. (shrink)

A testament of love and philosophy through the relations with artificial intelligence and comparing the Robot “Murry” to human life.

Young people’s skills and attitudes must be observed, studied and evaluated in order to create appropriate models that would serve an educational purpose. In this paper, we propose a decision-making model with the aim to detect certain attitudinal and behavioral patterns of actively engaged young people. The data used in this research resulted from a questionnaire drawn up by a group of researchers from six European countries with the aim to investigate the youth’s awareness about the Sustainable Development Goals and (...) their engagement as active agents of development and change at regional level. For the purpose of this study, we selected the regional results obtained from administering this questionnaire in Dolj County (Romania) and La Rioja (Spain). We developed a neutrosophic model that determines the Mindchanger profile of the respondents based on a minimal set of questions, which is dependent on the inclusion or exclusion of the nationality-specific traits. The resulting decisions were then compared with the respondents’ self-evaluations, yielding high precisions (more than 0.83) for all the investigated evaluation scenarios. Our results were significantly better than the ones provided by several machine learning models applied on the same set of data. A direct impact of our model is that it can be applied to questionnaires which include linguistic responses that express, among others, unclear or vague thoughts. Additionally, it offers the possibility to identify the minimal set of questions that impact the respondent’s answer choice to a target question. (shrink)

Desde las atalayas del proceso globalizador se ha tratado de finiquitar la historia, pero la respuesta ha sido la destrucción del propio intento: la historia les ha devuelto la pelota. La modernidad se ha construido sobre dos pilares -léase torres- que han caído por tener los pies de barro, como el gigante del libro de Daniel. Sujeto y Razón, sesgados desde una comprensión miope, han sido los sustentos ideológicos de todo el proceso que ha llevado a la construcción de un (...) magno imperio en occidente, pero sus días han tocado a su fin, no porque sus propuestas no tuvieran validez fáctica, sino porque no podían responder a la necesidad humana de felicidad perenne. (shrink)

Se ensaya en este artículo una suerte de mapa de la obra de Gustavo Bueno en el que se indican los nódulos centrales y las obras más relevantes. A tal fin se toma como referencia la clasificación de las disciplinas filosóficas tal como la propuso el mismo Bueno en el Diccionario filosófico de Pelayo García (1999) y también ciertos artículos de 2004, escritos por el filósofo desde la atalaya de sus ochenta años, en la intención de mantenernos lo más (...) cerca posible de una perspectiva emic. En la segunda parte, se intentará justificar, hasta donde sea posible, una elección personal de los libros juzgados como los más indicados para iniciarse en el estudio de la obra de Gustavo Bueno. (shrink)

El contenido y la interpretación de las tragedias griegas fue, durante un tiempo, como el ensayo, la sustancia viva de la filosofía. El ser humano, aquel que por ser como es —no ser ya animal, no ser aún Dios— está abocado a la reflexión filosófica, está abocado a su vez a un sentimiento trágico irremediable que impulsa a la pregunta por el sentido de la vida y del mundo. La tragedia griega, género teatral nacido en la antigua Grecia, encontró su (...) inspiración en mitos y representaciones sagradas que cimentaban gran parte de las cosmovisiones tanto helenas como anatolias. Este género asumió su forma a través de un corpus de obras que, aunque basadas en el mito, desarrollaron una nueva dimensión en la comunicación escénica. El motivo de la tragedia griega, al igual que el de la épica, radica en el mito; no obstante, en la tragedia, el mythos (μύθος) se fusiona con la acción, entendida como representación directa (δρᾶμα, drama), donde el público, desde su atalaya, contempla con sus propios ojos a personajes que, lejos de ser meras abstracciones, emergen como entidades autónomas que operan de forma independiente sobre el escenario (σκηνή). Desarticular la desdicha (δυστυχής), domesticar el caos (Χάος) —un espacio que se abre, una 'hendidura'— y construir un horizonte donde todo lo articulado por la razón se extienda hasta los límites mismos de nuestra percepción... -/- Así pues, el objetivo del presente ensayo es desglosar y exponer la composición trágica, considerando el valor y origen ético-político de las diferentes genealogías de las tragedias griegas en relación con la filosofía como forma de vida. (shrink)

En el artículo se traza una genealogía de la Cátedra Francisco Suárez, estructura sobre la que nació esta revista. Parte de una primera etapa desde su creación hasta 1948 (sus directores fueron Corts Grau y Gómez Arboleya), en la que se configuró como un aparato ideológico de la dictadura franquista: se trataba de dibujar una historia, buscar unos orígenes donde anclar la legitimidad del nuevo Estado. Tras un paréntesis de poca actividad, la siguiente etapa, 1957-1967 (director Asís Garrote), fue un (...) intento de apertura más allá de la escolástica, editándose a partir de 1961 los Anales de la Cátedra Francisco Suárez. Finalmente, en la última etapa (1967-1985), con la llegada de López Calera a la Universidad de Granada, se produce un cambio de orientación: se abandonaron los objetivos fundacionales, dejando de ser un aparato ideológico del franquismo para convertirse, por medio de la revista, en una atalaya desde donde divisar las corrientes y problemáticas actuales en la Filosofía del Derecho. (shrink)

Tras décadas de deterioro de sus elementos exteriores, el sevillano templo de San Bartolomé ha visto por fin iniciada la restauración del más significativo de ellos, que no es otro que su esbelta e inacabada torre. Sobre la singular atalaya, compuesta en la actualidad sólo por fuste y cuerpo de campanas, se acometerán en una primera fase labores de consolidación estructural y de recuperación de sus revestimientos, estando prevista posteriormente la reposición del remate perdido a mediados del siglo pasado. (...) Dicho remate sería, según la memoria del proyecto de restauración, el originalmente proyectado para coronar la torre. Sin embargo, tanto el análisis del proceso constructivo del templo como el conocimiento de la arquitectura diocesana de la época, aspectos que desarrolla el presente artículo, así como algún testimonio gráfico coetáneo, llevan a datarlo indefectiblemente en una fecha muy posterior. El debate, pues, está servido. (shrink)

La fundación de la revista La Ciencia Tomista se debe a los superiores de la Provincia dominicana de España. Con ella pretendían hacerse presentes en el mundo de la cultura española, a semejanza con otras revistas entonces publicadas por las instituciones religiosas renovadas tras el Concordato de 1851. Y también pretendían integrarse en el tomismo renovado bajo los auspicios de León XIII. El primer director de la revista fue el Fr. Alonso-Getino, quien le confirió su carácter de revista de alta (...) divulgación científica, filosófica y teológica y de atalaya de los movimientos culturales en España. El director de la revista fue elegido contando con sus méritos de joven profesor e investigador en el área de la historia de la teología española. Esos méritos se acrecentaron con los años y se convirtió en adalid de la investigación histórica dominicana. Su brillante carrera quedó, sin embargo, truncada por los acontecimientos de la guerra civil española y por la condenación por la S. C. del Santo Oficio de una obra suya en la que había puesto sus mejores sentimientos.La Ciencia Tomista journal was created by the religious superiors of the Province of Spain. They tried with it to be present in the world of the Spanish culture, as other journals published then by religious institutions renewed after the 1851 concordat did. They also tried to integrate into an updated Thomism sponsored by Leo XIII. Fr Alonso-Getino was the Director of the journal and the one who gave it the character of a high popular scientific, philosophical and theological journal, being a watchtower of the cultural movements in Spain. The journal director was chosen taking in account his merits as a young professor and researcher into the history of the Spanish theology. Those merits increased year after year and he became a leader of the Dominican historical investigation. However, his brilliant career was cut short by the Spanish war and the censure by the Sacred Congregation of the Holy Office of one of his books in which he had set his best feelings. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Learning Music:Embodied Experience in the Life-WorldEva Alerby and Cecilia FermIn the present age, which is often signified as post-modern or knowledge-intensive, the calls for learning echo loud. Discussions of learning, as well as teaching, permeate almost all levels and arenas of our society, and have a sure place in every-day conversation as well as scientific debate. The concept of learning can be understood and explained in many different ways. (...) Our intention in this article is to make visible and discuss how learning music can be understood and explained from a life-world approach.By life-world approach we mean that learning is constituted by the experiences that we are having in the world. From that perspective it can be seen as a process which leads to some kind of change, whose utmost purpose is—consciously or unconsciously—to create meaning and make managing the world possible. In addition, we stress that learning does not arise nor is formed in a vacuum, but instead is found in complex contexts. In turn this creates the necessity of making learning situated and contextualized.1How one understands how music is learned is consequently influenced not only by what fundamental assumptions one holds about learning but also by prevailing views of music. Furthermore, how musical ability is regarded and whether musicality is accepted as an emotional or cognitive phenomenon is also [End Page 177] important. Other assumptions that need to be considered are whether or not it is possible to divide musicality into smaller parts and if that is the case, what is the relationship between these parts. One further question that has to be illuminated is the question about biological and social influences on musicality.2 According to Sture Brändström,3 musicality is sometimes divided into two categories—absolute contra relativistic musicality. The first category implies that musicality is regarded as a native ability, already existing within the human being, an ability that some people have and others lack. The second category reflects an approach that assumes that musicality is something everybody can acquire, it can be learned and appropriated. We will return later to this issue.These questions reveal a dualistic approach, specifically: whether musicality is an emotional or a cognitive phenomenon, or absolute or relative, which in turn leads to the question of whether or not learning music is constituted within or outside the human being. To expose problems related to this dualistic approach in music education, we will examine musical learning using life-world phenomenology as a theoretical framework, a brief description of which follows.Phenomenology: A Way of ThinkingAt the turn into the twentieth century, the German philosopher, Edmund Husserl (1859-1938), named his philosophical approach phenomenology, and with that the development of modern phenomenology began. Phenomenology is both a method and a way of thought.4 He distinguished the fundamental principle of phenomenology as—'back to the things themselves.' According to Husserl it is through experiences that we gain access to things themselves. The concept of experience was essential to his formulation, and it became a key signature for the whole of phenomenology. His starting-point was how the world is experienced in a subjective way, and the aim was to find a way to describe the meaning of these subjective experiences. In other words, phenomenology has been summarized as a description of how the world is experienced by the person in the world.Various thinkers have interpreted phenomenology in different ways. Jan Bengtsson5 emphasized that phenomenological method should be named in the plural as methods. The phenomenology of the life-world, which was developed as an alternative to the so-called epoché, the special method of transcendental phenomenology, is a philosophy of the life-world without transcendental reduction. It is the life-world that constitutes the basis of our lives. It is the everyday world of our experiences, which we take for granted and where we live our lives. In other words it is the life-world that constitutes people's being-in-the-world.6 Through our existence we experience the concrete world in all its complexity, which is both historically and contextually dependent. Consequently... (shrink)

En su anterior estudio sobre la recepción de Vico en el s. XIX español, el autor analizó los casos de importantes intelectuales como Juan Donoso Cortés, Jaime Luciano Balmes, Juan Valera, Marcelino Menéndez Pelayo, Alfredo Adolfo Camus y Nicolás Serrano. Con ello se cumplió parte del plan de desmontar la tesis frecuentemente aceptada de una "ausencia" de Vico en España. Este plan se viene a desarrollar ahora con una nueva aportación investigadora en la que el autor muestra y analiza tres (...) importantes casos más de recepción viquiana: la del ecléctico historiador Fermin Gonzalo Morón, la del renovador neoescolástico Ceferino González, y la del fundador de la escuela jurídica catalana Manuel Durán y Bas. Con ellos el autor confirma su tesis de que Vico es apreciado, tanto desde la recepción positiva como desde la crítica, como un pensador modemo y heterodoxo de considerable valía.In his former paper on Vico’s reception during the XIX century in Spain, the author reviewed such significant intellectuals as Juan Donoso Cortés, Jaime Luciano Balmes, Juan Valera, Marcelino Menéndez Pelayo, Alfredo Adolfo Camus and Nicolás Serrano. In so doing, the task of dislodging the thesis so frequently held that there is a Vico’s "absence" in Spain was partially accomplished. This task is taken up again in a recent investigation where the author analyzes and assesses three further important cases related with the Spanish Vichian reception: that of eclectic historian Femín Gonzalo Morón, the neo-scholastic Ceferino González and finally the Catalan legal school founder Manuel Durán y Bas. With those examples the author aims to validate his claim that Vico was indeed acknowledged both as a modern and heterodox thinker by the positive as well as by the critical reception. (shrink)