David Hernández

This article describes and analyzes the design and functioning of the Statistical Ethics System (SETE) in Colombia’s National Statistical Office. It presents the methodology and general process of planning and implementation of the System, supported by a conceptual analysis of the requirements for an ethical functioning of official statistics. The general objective of the article is to make a practical contribution to the understanding of conceptual and practical features that ought to be considered in the implementation of an ethical system in the operation of the public sector, particularly in the area of the production of official statistics. The text is divided into five parts. In the first part, we make a general introduction to the ethical value of official statistics. In the second and third parts, we make a presentation and analysis of the principles and risks that were selected as the basic ethical framework for the production of official statistics at the National Administrative Department of Statistics (DANE). The fourth section presents the conceptual and practical bases of how SETE operates. The fifth section we present some concluding remarks.

By a very long time, humankind has imagined about machines with autonomous consciousness, this ideas has become reality step by step in the last decades. But the question is still remaining, can computers think by themselves? This paper shows the principal differences between human and -a pretended- consciousness in the machines, also explains why I think that machines hasn’t get self-consciousness yet. It is worked on the idea that machines cannot have own ideas, beginning on the thought that it is necessary have a consciousness to be rational, and just then a system could create its own ideas about the world. This paper it is also based in two principal authors: John Searle and Mario Bunge, the first one to refer about the difference between syntax and semantics, and the second one to apply few of his ideas about knowing if a machine can be conscious or not.

Scholars have generally analysed Empedocles’ criticism of sacrifices through a Pythagorean interpretation context. However, Empedocles’ doctrinal affiliation with this school is problematic and also not needed to explain his rejection of the ‘unspeakable slaughter of bulls.’ His position is consistent with the wisdom tradition that emanated from the Sanctuary of Apollo in Delphi, an institution that underwent significant political and religious changes at the end of the 6th Century B.C., the impact of which was felt all over Magna Graecia. The ritual practice of sacrifice played an important role in Delphi, but the sanctuary also gave birth to a school of wisdom that was highly critical of the arrogance (hybris) of large sacrifices. Asocio-cultural analysis of the Akragas of the first half of the 5th Century B.C. provides new arguments that support this interpretation. The work of Empedocles contains more evidence of being influenced by the Delphi school of wisdom than by Orphism or Pythagoreanism.

Este artículo propone reconsiderar, en el marco de la filosofía política, el enfoque tradicional del problema del deber moral de obedecer al Estado. Se postula la relevancia de atender las objeciones del anarquismo filosófico en contra de tal deber, partiendo de algunas críticas esbozadas por R.P. Wolff y J. A. Simmons; dos de los representantes más significativos de esta rama de la filosofía en tiempos contemporáneos. Siguiendo esta línea argumental, se afirma la inexistencia del deber moral de obedecer al Estado, abogando así por una posición crítica respecto de la autoridad, sin llegar a la conclusión del anarquismo político, según la cual existe la obligación de abolir o combatir la autoridad política. Así, se propone que la pregunta por la legitimidad del Estado solo puede abordarse casuísticamente, desde un análisis de ética aplicada sobre las diferentes imposiciones de la autoridad.

En este trabajo se propone una aproximación al uso filosófico del dios griego Dioniso en la obra de Platón, con especial referencia a la vertiente pedagógicopolítica del pensamiento platónico en la República y, sobre todo, en las Leyes. se discuten brevemente los trabajos anteriores que han tratado esta cuestión, incluidos los dos más recientes que versan sobre las Leyes y sobre la faceta filosófica de Dioniso, al hilo de una propuesta de lectura de las presencias y ausencias de Dioniso en Platón a través de tres dimensiones −el simposio, los misterios y la poesía con fines educativos− que convergen en la finalidad política reformista del filósofo ateniense