The text of Ct. 1,3c-4b LXX reads: 3c διὰ τοῦτο νεάνιδες ἠγάπησάν σε καὶ 4a εἵλκυσάν σε, 4b ὀπίσω σου εἰς ὀσμὴνμύρων σου δραμοῦμεν («therefore maidens loved you, they drew you. We shall run after you into the fragrance of your anointing oils»). The Georgian textus receptus of Hippolytus’ Commentary on the Song of Songs 2, 33-34 is incomprehensible. The hypothesis of an amendment of the Georgian text presupposes an error at the Armenian level of the textual tradition between ՁԳԵՑԻՆ (...) (they drew) and ԶԳԵՑԻՆ (they clothed themselves with), with the verb forms differing only in the first letter. It is also possible to correct other details with the help of passages from Hippolytus’ works in order to offer a solution where the text makes sense. (shrink)

The activity of Wnt and Notch signalling is central to many cell fate decisions during development and to the maintenance and differentiation of stem cell populations in homeostasis. While classical views refer to these pathways as independent signal transduction devices that co‐operate in different systems, recent work has revealed intricate connections between their components. These observations suggest that rather than operating as two separate pathways, elements of Wnt and Notch signalling configure an integrated molecular device whose main function is to (...) regulate transitions between cell states in development and homeostasis. Here, we propose a general framework for the structure and function of the interactions between these signalling systems that is focused on the notion of ‘transition states’, i.e. intermediates that arise during cell fate decision processes. These intermediates act as checkpoints in cell fate decision processes and are characterised by the mixed molecular identities of the states involved in these processes.Editor's suggested further reading in BioEssays: Notch: Implications of endogenous inhibitors for therapy Abstract. (shrink)

L'ouvrage rend hommage au travail de Miguel Abensour et met en évidence les apports et innovations dans le domaine de la philosophie politique critique. Différents chercheurs de nombreux pays prolongent par leurs travaux les perspectives ouvertes par Miguel Abensour.

A systematic overview of French Philosopher Miguel Abensour's groundbreaking work and the two inseparable projects that govern it: a radical critique of all forms of domination and a search for a politics of emancipation.

En Del sentimiento trágico de la vida, Unamuno establece el fundamento de su sentimiento religioso que pueden ejercer las personas de carne y hueso, en sus palabras, sumidas en su angustia existencial. Este intento unamuniano de religión se diferencia de las opciones tradicionales que pretenden dar sentido a una vida sin fundamento. El presente artículo analiza el pensamiento de Miguel de Unamuno sobre su componente religioso. Es una presentación de Unamuno como un autor que escribe obligado por el deseo (...) de inmortalidad, que convierte el sentir trágico en una obra original nacida en un contexto pleno de contradicciones propias, existenciales y religiosas. Para explicar filosóficamente el thelos trágico, Unamuno hace de la agonía el síntoma de la vida auténtica, constitutivo de una obra que, en su caso, se fusiona en una sola realidad existencial. Culminaremos reflexionando por una religión unamuniana similar a un quijotismo. (shrink)

El tema más acuciante de Miguel de Unamuno es la supervivencia tras la muerte. Para él, Dios es el que es Inmortal y quien puede inmortalizar al hombre. Según don Miguel, los cristianos declararon Dios al Hombre Jesús en Nicea con el fin de asegurar la vida perpetua a la humanidad. Esta solución desde la fe cristiana a la principal cuestión humana es tratada por Unamuno en su magna obra filosófica Del sentimiento trágico de la vida. El Unamuno (...) racionalista adopta una postura agnóstica ante el enigma de la muerte. En su poema «El Cristo de Velázquez», en cambio, es el Unamuno de la voluntad inmortalista, el de la «cardíaca», el que intenta acceder a la inmortalidad perpetua. En el Cristo del pintor sevillano descubre Unamuno dos rasgos que superan las ansias de inmortalidad del propio Unamuno: el rostro del Nazareno («el Hombre muerto que no muere») y su cuerpo blanco («solo tu luz lunar… cuenta que vive el Sol»). (shrink)

The acknowledged masterpiece of Unamuno expresses the anguish of modern man as he is caught up in the struggle between the dictates of reason and the demands of his own heart.

This article interprets the accounts and testimonies of native Chilean Pentecostalism, from a philosophical approach. In these accounts Pentecostal dilemmas are expressed and that oppressed beings prove by the economical and social conditions that the Chilean society lived in the 20th century. These dilemmas manifest anguish produced by absurd, emptiness and loneliness; that rise due to illness, alcoholism and poverty, which leads the individual to critical situations that push him to choose being Pentecostal, stigmatized beings and socially excluded, or to (...) suffer and death. Once they have chosen being Pentecostal the symbolic exodus starts, interpreting the past, the society and individuality in a tragic way. (shrink)

Hace tan solo unos ciento sesenta años que la denominada cultura olmeca salió a la luz. En la historia de la definición de su estilo artístico ocupa un lugar destacado el artista mexicano Miguel Covarrubias. En el artículo realizamos un análisis pormenorizado de su obra, intentando mostrar la evolución de sus ideas artísticas y la importancia que tuvieron a la hora de configurar lo que hoy se denomina «estética olmeca». Se analizan sus presupuestos teóricos y la enorme influencia que (...) sus tesis tienen, aun hoy, a la hora de analizar la que muchos consideran la «cultura madre» de Mesoamérica. (shrink)

Despite the emergence of computer games as a dominant cultural industry (and the accompanying emergence of computer games as the subject of scholarly research), we know little or nothing about the ethics of computer games. Considerations of the morality of computer games seldom go beyond intermittent portrayals of them in the mass media as training devices for teenage serial killers. In this first scholarly exploration of the subject, Miguel Sicart addresses broader issues about the ethics of games, the ethics (...) of playing the games, and the ethical responsibilities of game designers. He argues that computer games are ethical objects, that computer game players are ethical agents, and that the ethics of computer games should be seen as a complex network of responsibilities and moral duties. Players should not be considered passive amoral creatures; they reflect, relate, and create with ethical minds. The games they play are ethical systems, with rules that create gameworlds with values at play. Drawing on concepts from philosophy and game studies, Sicart proposes a framework for analyzing the ethics of computer games as both designed objects and player experiences. After presenting his core theoretical arguments and offering a general theory for understanding computer game ethics, Sicart offers case studies examining single-player games (using Bioshock as an example), multiplayer games (illustrated by Defcon), and online gameworlds (illustrated by World of Warcraft) from an ethical perspective. He explores issues raised by unethical content in computer games and its possible effect on players and offers a synthesis of design theory and ethics that could be used as both analytical tool and inspiration in the creation of ethical gameplay. (shrink)

How computer games can be designed to create ethically relevant experiences for players. Today's blockbuster video games—and their never-ending sequels, sagas, and reboots—provide plenty of excitement in high-resolution but for the most part fail to engage a player's moral imagination. In Beyond Choices, Miguel Sicart calls for a new generation of video and computer games that are ethically relevant by design. In the 1970s, mainstream films—including The Godfather, Apocalypse Now, Raging Bull, and Taxi Driver—filled theaters but also treated their (...) audiences as thinking beings. Why can't mainstream video games have the same moral and aesthetic impact? Sicart argues that it is time for games to claim their place in the cultural landscape as vehicles for ethical reflection. Sicart looks at games in many manifestations: toys, analog games, computer and video games, interactive fictions, commercial entertainments, and independent releases. Drawing on philosophy, design theory, literary studies, aesthetics, and interviews with game developers, Sicart provides a systematic account of how games can be designed to challenge and enrich our moral lives. After discussing such topics as definition of ethical gameplay and the structure of the game as a designed object, Sicart offers a theory of the design of ethical game play. He also analyzes the ethical aspects of game play in a number of current games, including Spec Ops: The Line, Beautiful Escape: Dungeoneer, Fallout New Vegas, and Anna Anthropy's Dys4Ia. Games are designed to evoke specific emotions; games that engage players ethically, Sicart argues, enable us to explore and express our values through play. (shrink)

To have a virtue is to possess a certain kind of trait of character that is appropriate in pursuing the moral good at which the virtue aims. Human beings are assumed to be capable of attaining those traits. Yet, a number of scholars are skeptical about the very existence of such character traits. They claim a sizable amount of empirical evidence in their support. This paper is concerned with the existence and explanatory power of character as a way to assess (...) the possibility of achieving moral virtue, with particular attention paid to business context. I aim to unsettle the so-called situationist challenge to virtue ethics. In the course of this paper, I shall defend four claims, namely, that virtues are more than just behavioral dispositions, that at least some virtues may not be unitary traits, that psychologists cannot infer virtues from overt behavior, and that the situationist data do not account for the observational equivalence of traits. Since it rests on a misconception of what virtue is, the situationist objection remains unconvincing. (shrink)

The acknowledged masterpiece of Unamuno expresses the anguish of modern man as he is caught up in the struggle between the dictates of reason and the demands of his own heart.

Resumen: En este trabajo se indaga en las respuestas que Miguel de Unamuno ofrece al problema de la conciencia de ser como parte esencial de la construcción biográfica. A partir de algunas de sus obras más representativas pero, sobre todo, a través la más genuinamente existencialista, Del sentimiento trágico de la vida, tratamos de esclarecer los códigos argumentales sobre los que Unamuno desarrolla, a veces abruptamente, las ideas de memoria, intimidad o mismidad así como las tribulaciones que estas le (...) provocan respecto de dos de los ámbitos doctrinales que más le definen como filósofo: la doctrina del hombre de carne y hueso y la doctrina de la inmortalidad. Constatamos cómo ambas doctrinas, singularmente construidas a partir de la noción de conciencia encarnada, se resuelven a través de la conciencia de singularidad y esta, a su vez, como volición de pervivencia corpórea.: In this work, the answers that Miguel de Unamuno offers to the problem of the consciousness of being as an essential part of the biographical construction are explored. From some of his most representative works but, above all, through the most genuinely existentialist, Del sentimiento trágico de la vida, we try to clarify the argumentative codes on which Unamuno develops, sometimes abruptly, the ideas of memory, intimacy or sameness, as well as the tribulations that these provoke him with regard to two of the doctrinal areas that most define him as a philosopher: the doctrine of man in flesh and bone and the doctrine of the immortality of the flesh. We note how both doctrines, uniquely constructed from a notion of incarnate consciousness, are resolved as a volition of corporeal survival. (shrink)

In a provocative essay published for the first time in English, Miguel Abensour questions the idea that there is an irreducible antinomy between utopia and democracy. He challenges the common misconception that utopianism can only lead to totalitarianism and instead attempts to restore the usefulness of the concept of utopia as a tool for transforming society. Exploring the contrast between the exuberance of utopia and the sobriety of democracy and inspired by the new utopian spirit that has appeared in (...) many thinkers since the mid-nineteenth century, he argues that democracy and utopia need one another and calls us to democratize utopia and utopianize democracy. Abensour rethinks the relationship between democracy and utopia and argues that their point of contact is in their connection with the human, which is unpredictable and heterogeneous. (shrink)

Selon l'opinion du jour, Hannah Arendt serait connue et reconnue pour avoir élaboré sur des grandes philosophies politiques du temps présent. Cette appréciation a pour défaut d'occulter l'hostilité déterminée d'Hannah Arendt à ce qu'il est convenu d'appeler "philosophie politique". Hannah Arendt a explicitement avoué qu'elle prenait toujours soin de mentionner l'opposition qui existe entre philosophie et politique. De là, sinon l'ouverture d'un réquisitoire, tout au moins la mise en lumière de ce qui fait obstacle à une fusion harmonieuse entre philosophie (...) et politique. (shrink)

Machiavelli's influence on modern politics and the importance of his thought for the development of modern political ideas has long been universally acknowledged. The Prince has become a key text in Philosophy and Political Theory, one that is widely read and studied. Machiavelli's most important work is a hugely exciting, yet challenging, piece of philosophical writing. In Machiavelli's 'The Prince': A Reader's Guide, Miguel Vatter offers a clear and thorough account of this key philosophical work. Setting Machiavelli's text in (...) its historical and philosophical context, the book offers a detailed review of the key themes (epistemological, social, ethical and theological-political) and a lucid commentary that will enable readers to rapidly navigate the text. Geared towards the specific requirements of students who need to reach a sound understanding of the text as a whole, the guide explores the complex and important ideas inherent in the text and provides a cogent survey of the reception and influence of Machiavelli's work. This is the ideal companion to study this most influential of texts. (shrink)

Philosophers of mathematics commonly distinguish between explanatory and non-explanatory proofs. An important subclass of mathematical proofs are proofs by induction. Are they explanatory? This paper addresses the question, based on general principles about explanation. First, a recent argument for a negative answer is discussed and rebutted. Second, a case is made for a qualified positive take on the issue.

Miguel Pina e Cunha and Marco Berti understand serendipity as a processProcess that requires the right combination of effortEffort(ful)and luckLuck (also, Epistemic Luck, Moral Luck). In this chapter, they suggest that organizations are better off embracing or “cultivating” serendipity as learning opportunities. Their approach is to frame serendipity as a “negative capabilityNegative capability, i.e. a capacityCapacity to pursue a vision that leads to confusion and uncertaintyUncertainty rather than to certainty and clarity.” Their argument sets out by making a distinction (...) between the mechanisticMechanistic view and the organismicOrganism(ic) view of organization. In contrast to mechanisticMechanisticviews, organismicOrganism(ic) views acknowledge the unpredictability and uncontrollability of the environmentEnvironment external to the organization and, thus, its serendipitous potential. Cunha and Berti lament that organizational cultures rather engage in a paradoxical strategyStrategy, of trying to predict what their competitors will do, while at the same time trying to remain unpredictable to them. They suggest several ways in which effortEffort(ful) towards serendipity can be realized, including generative doubtDoubt (Generative)—the fostering or embracing of a state of not-knowing, and peripheral vision—paying more attention to areas outside the organization’s attention. Conclusively, Cunha and Berti argue that while not being controlled, serendipities’ probability can be increased. (shrink)

The generation of the 98 (specially Miguel Unamuno) initiates in Spain the rupture with the modern philosophy following a scheme similar to the Hegel’s Fenomenology of Spirit. They present a spiritualist philosophy, that defends the concrete, vital and historical reality of the man similarly to Simmel, Bergson, etc. in Europe.

Identifies immanence as the original impetus and the driving force behind Deleuze's philosophy In 5 chapters dealing with the status of thought itself, ontology, logic, ethics and aesthetics, de Beistegui reveals how immanence is realised in each of these classical domains of philosophy. Ultimately, he argues, immanence is an infinite task, and transcendence the opposition with which philosophy will always need to reckon.

The orthodox account of the morality of war holds that the responsibility for resorting to war rests on the state’s political authorities and the responsibility for how the war is waged rests only on the state’s army and, thus, business firms have no special obligations in wartime. The purpose of this article is to reconsider the ethical responsibilities of business firms in wartime. I defend the claim that a plausible standard of liability in war must integrate the degree of the (...) agent’s contributions to posing an unjust threat, the nature of agent's behavior, and his/her intentions. If these premises are correct, it follows that the moral obligations of civilians and business corporations are fundamentally altered by war. Taking into consideration their relative contributions to the war effort, a taxonomy of business firms is developed. (shrink)

Entrevista a Miguel Valderrama por Raúl Rodríguez Freire.

Read Miguell Ramirez's original paper Credit, Indebtedness and Speculation in Marx's Political Economy Read Stavros Mavroudeas' comment on Miguel Ramirez' paper Comment on Miguel Ramirez's paper, 'Credit, Indebtedness and Speculation in Marx's Political Economy'...

A strikingly original work, Friends of Interpretable Objects re-anchors aesthetics in the object of attention even as it redefines the practice, processes, ...

Miguel de Unamuno, perhaps the most influential author of modern Spain, wrote his _Treatise on Love of God_ at the height of his career after suffering a crisis of religious faith. Like Saint Augustine’s _Confessions_ and much of Kierkegaard, the _Treatise_ is a study of religious inwardness and proposes to analyze how God can be found within as a beloved person. Not content with simple introspection, Unamuno considers Church fathers such as Athanasius, Origen, and Tertullian as well as modern (...) religious scholars including Albrecht Ritschl, Auguste Sabatier, and Ernest Renan. Although Unamuno abandoned plans to publish the _Treatise_ after Pope Pius X issued an encyclical against modernist theology, it deserves serious study as a prelude to his immensely successful _Tragic Sense of Life_ and the concentrated work of a great thinker on a deeply serious subject. (shrink)

This essay reconstructs Agamben’s theory of bare life as an example of an affirmative biopolitics, a politics of life that lies beyond sovereignty. The essay shows that his account of bare life constitutes a reworking of four central motifs found in Marx’s historical materialism: the facticity of alienated existence, the fetishism of commodities, the profanity of bourgeois society, and the nihilism of revolution. Agamben’s renewal of historical materialism explicitly turns on an innovative and controversial synthesis of Benjamin and Heidegger. This (...) essay argues that such a synthesis relies, implicitly, on the negative dialectics developed by Adorno. If correct, this interpretation suggests a way of understanding Agamben’s political thought as a particularly radical and consequent continuation of the project of critical theory. (shrink)

En 1723, quince años después de la muerte de Tschirnhaus, se publicó en Görlitz un Catálogo de su Biblioteca, que el 23 de agosto y días sucesivos iba a ser subastada al mejor postor. Ignoramos quién se hizo con ella y cuál fue su destino. Miguel Á. Granada encontró una mención de ese catálogo en un artículo de E. Winter y finalmente pudo localizar el Catálogo en la Sächsische Landesbibliothek –Staats– und Universitätsbibliothek de Dresde, donde se ofrece una copia (...) digitalizada del ejemplar conservado en la Biblioteca Albertina de Leipzig. Comentado el descubrimiento con Pablo Montosa, ambos coincideron en la importancia del Catálogo para la mejor evaluación de la cultura subyacente a la Medicina mentis y para la historia intelectual de Tschirnhaus. Dada la parquedad de los registros de las obras en el Catálogo, se hizo ver de inmediato la necesidad de proceder a la identificación y registro bibliográfico completo de los títulos del Catálogo, empresa que acometió Pablo Montosa con la ayuda puntual de Miguel Á. Granada. Ofrecemos al lector el resultado de esta tarea minuciosa en una transcripción del Catálogo que no ha conseguido identificar y describir todos los títulos, pero sí la gran mayoría y desde luego los más importantes. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: Warming Up Seeking Early Solace Experience and Thought So Be It Against Lukewarmness Pragmatic Use of Belief.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The Happiness of “Those Who Lack the Use of Reason”Miguel J. RomeroHuman beings would have been created uselessly and in vain were they unable to attain happiness, as would be the case with anything that cannot attain its ultimate end.(De Malo, q. 5, a. 1, ad 1)A STUDY OF “those who lack the use of reason” in the thought and spirit of St. Thomas Aquinas has much to (...) offer the patient reader. We better understand what it means to be a rational animal, the image of triune God, when we investigate why, exactly, “mindless persons” (amentes) are not exceptions or even outliers in Aquinas’s account of the creaturely dignity and perfectibility of the human being.Aquinas remarks with some regularity on persons afflicted with the condition amentia, which is variously and inconsistently interpreted (in translation) as “imbeciles,” “fools,” “madmen,” “lunatics,” “the demented,” or “the insane.” The amentes are persons who lack the use of reason in a profound and debilitating way; and, as I will show, the fact that we are sometimes found in this state informs Aquinas’s analysis of human nature and, in particular, Aquinas’s teaching on the good wrought by Christ for the members of his body. Our guiding question is this: Thinking with Aquinas, how do we account for the natural and supernatural happiness of those of us who lack the use of reason?My purpose in this article is to explore what Aquinas has to say about the happiness of persons who are baptized and [End Page 49] confirmed by the Church, and who have what neuro-psychologists would describe as a profound cognitive impairment. The question is particularly striking when we recall that, for Aquinas, the distinguishing aptitude of the human being (proper to our intellectual nature and coordinate with our creaturely perfection) is the operation of an incorruptible intellectual capacity—a capacity, however, that is only reduced from potentiality to act when the corruptible “internal sense organ” is disposed to receive, in terms of health and circumstance, a coordinated sense impression of material species. Thus, a further question emerges: According to Aquinas, what is the perfective effect of grace in this life upon the nature of a person who completely lacks the use of reason due to an organic corruption or disorder of the ‘internal sense organ’?The discussion is divided into five parts. I begin (part I) by locating those who “lack the use of reason” within the theological infrastructure of Aquinas’s moral psychology and I identify the main problematic. With respect to that problematic, the principal conceptual resources provided by Aquinas are then outlined and two challenges are identified (part II).The first challenge is methodological, concerning the speculative import of the sacramental life of the Church. Francisco de Vitoria’s Relectio de eo ad quod tenetur homo veniens ad usum rationis (1534) highlights for us (part III) a constellation of judgments relevant to interpreting Aquinas on these themes, in particular, Aquinas’s formulation of prerational intellectual acts vis-à-vis the participation and membership of “mindless persons” in the sacramental life of the Body of Christ.The second challenge is to show the continuity between Aquinas’s account of the human being and his practical remarks on those who lack the use of reason. Specifically, given the various ways that, and degrees to which, the human being can lack the use of reason, I trace (part IV) Aquinas’s analysis of the power and operation of intellect, focusing on the intellectual acts which can be impaired and, concurrently, the intellectual acts which cannot be impaired in a living human being. Aquinas’s remarks on those latter acts not only reflect the [End Page 50] significance of the doctrine of the image of God in his account of human nature, but, even more, they shed light on the prosthesis of sacramental grace in his understanding of the properly human happiness capacitated and purposed in all whom God has called in Christ—a call to discipleship and devotion that includes those of us who have a profound, lifelong cognitive impairment (Rom 8:28; 9:11; Eph 1:3-14; II Tim 1:8-11).I conclude... (shrink)