M. Lopez

En este artículo llevamos a cabo una extensa revisión de la literatura científica en lo relativo a los vínculos entre materialismo y felicidad, desde un enfoque multidisciplinar que incluye la psicología, la comunicación, la economía y la ética. La línea dominante en la bibliografía insiste en vincular un mayor materialismo con una menor auto-percepción de felicidad y de bienestar, y con una mayor propensión a la depresión. En esta revisión atendemos a los aspectos que así lo evidencian, al rumbo actual de las investigaciones y a los retos aún pendientes de clarificación por parte de la comunidad investigadora.

Management cybernetics has been in development since the 1960s, although its implementation has been relatively modest. Two of the best-known proposals are Beer’s Viable System Model and Steinbruner’s Cybernetic Theory of Decision. Both are homeostatic systems, inspired by living organisms. Professor Juan A. Pérez López (1934–1996) argued that homeostatic systems are not fully appropriated for human beings, and proposed instead the “Freely Adaptive System” (FAS) model to explain the dynamics of an organization formed by two dynamic human systems. This model, although it is within the management cybernetic paradigm, and does not propose any anthropological philosophy, is consistent with several features of the Aristotelian anthropological tradition, including epistemology, practical reason, and virtues. The FAS model can help as a compass for decision making by considering three basic criteria—effectiveness, internal efficiency and consistency—when two persons—an active agent and a reactive agent—interact repeatedly. The model sheds light on the interdependence of ethics and efficiency in successive interactions.

Cicero attributes an inference schema that is not logically valid to Stoic logic. This fact has been deemed as a Cicero’s mistake. However, in this paper, I assume the thesis that Cicero was not actually wrong and that, by means of his schema, he could be showing us interesting aspects of Stoicism that are not clear in the ancient sources. In this way, I use the mental models theory as a methodological tool and argue that the case of Cicero’s mistake allows us to suppose that there were six indemonstrables in Stoic logic, and not five.

The principle of explosion is a problem for the syntactic theories trying to explain and describe human reasoning. In fact, most of the formal cognitive theories tend to reject it. However, that rejection is not often based on a theoretical development of the theories, but on inductions from experimental data. In this paper, I expose Woods and Irvine’s arguments in order to show that Aristotelian logic does not have this problem, that its theoretical framework does not enable to accept the principle of explosion, and that this logic hence has, at least in a sense, certain advantages compared to the current reasoning syntactic theories.

Šiuo straipsniu mėginama parodyti, jog Indijos ir stoikų logika yra panašesnės viena į kitą nei į standartinę logiką. Šiuo tikslu analizuojama ištrauka iš Kathāvatthu, kurioje pateikiamas sąlyginio teiginio apibrėžimas dažnai interpretuojamas kaip atitinkantis modernioje teiginių logikoje vartojamą materialiosios implikacijos sampratą. Teigiama, jog tokia interpretacija nėra visiškai pagrįsta. Todėl daroma išvada, jog tai, kas iš tiesų sakoma aptariamoje ištraukoje, nuosekliai susiję su Chrisipo Soliečio pasiūlytu sąlyginio teiginio teisingumo kriterijumi.

According to standard propositional logic, the inferences in which the conditional introduction rule is used are absolutely correct. However, people do not always accept inferences of that kind. Orenes and Johnson-Laird carried out interesting experiments in this way and, based on the general framework of the mental models theory, explained clearly in which cases and under which circumstances such inferences are accepted and rejected. The goals of this paper are both to better understand some aspects of Stoic logic and to check whether or not that very logic can also offer an account on this issue. My conclusions are that, indeed, this later logic can do that, and that the results obtained by Orenes and Johnson-Laird can be explained based on the information that the sources provide on Stoic logic.

The mental models theory proposes that reasoning is not logical. From its point of view, people only regard possibilities that represent reality in an iconic way, and they draw conclusions by reviewing such possibilities. Obviously, a framework of this kind seems incompatible with the idea that the human mind thinks by means of logical forms. However, in this paper, the author tries to show that, if we accept the basic theses of the mental models theory, we must also assume that certain formal logical structures are equally part of the human intellectual machinery, even though its proponents explicitly reject any link between logic and thought. In particular, the author argues here that it is not possible to adopt the mental models theory without accepting, at the same time, some deontic propositions that are usually admitted in standard deontic logic.

The double negation has always been considered by the logical systems from ancient times to the present. In fact, that is an issue that the current syntactic theories studying human reasoning, for example, the mental logic theory, address today. However, in this paper, I claim that, in the case of some languages such as Spanish, the double negation causes problems for the cognitive theories mainly based on formal schemata and supporting the idea of a universal syntax of thought in the human mind. Thus, I propose that, given those problems, semantic frameworks such as that of the mental models theory seem to be more appropriate for explaining the human inferential activity.

La competencia léxica como parte de la competencia comunicativa contempla una serie de elementos entre los cuales el dominio de la valencia léxica constituye uno de los factores que permite distinguir los hablantes nativos de un idioma de aquellas personas que lo estudian como idioma extranjero o segunda lengua. Este artículo expone algunas consideraciones metodológicas para la implementación de un folleto sobre valencia léxica en Inglés con Fines Médicos para el perfeccionamiento del tecnolecto de los estudiantes de 5to año de la carrera de Medicina, elaborado a partir de las necesidades cognoscitivas expresadas por parte de alumnos y profesores. El folleto facilita la adquisición y práctica de términos que enriquecen el tecnolecto; de esta forma se contribuye a un aprendizaje contextualizado, rápido y más eficaz por parte de los estudiantes. Además del carácter práctico de la propuesta, su fundamentación teórica puede servir de referencia para la elaboración de otros folletos. Lexical competence, as part of communicative competence, takes into account a series of elements among which mastering lexical valence is one of the factors allowing to distinguish native language speakers from people who study a foreign or a second language. The article presents methodological considerations for the implementation of a booklet on lexical valence in English for Medical Purposes which, developed from students and professors' cognitive needs, aims to improve fifth year medical students' technolect. It makes terms enriching technolect easier to practice and to acquire; therefore contributing to a contextualized, fast and more efficient learning by students. Apart from the practical character of the proposal, its theoretical basis can be used as reference for the development of other booklets.

La Sección de Exactas de la Real Academia de Ciencias, dentro de las actividades del curso 2003-2004, ha conmemorado el sesquicentenario del nacimiento del célebre matemático francés Henri Poincaré con un ciclo de conferencias dado el 27 de mayo de 2004 en su sede, que ha contado con la intervención de los profesores de la Universidad de Valladolid José Manuel Aroca Hernández-Ros, Felipe Cano Torres y Javier de Lorenzo Martínez, del profesor de la Universidad Politécnica de Cataluña Amadeu Delshams i Valdés y de la profesora de la Universidad de Zaragoza María Teresa Lozano Imízcoz.…