Jorge Gonzalez

Metaphors are valuable epistemological tools for understanding leadership. This paper presents a study on the metaphors employed by Thomas Aquinas to conceptualise and educate for leadership, based on the work De Regno (ca. 1266) addressed to King Hugh II of Cyprus, following the ‘mirror of prince’ genre. Aquinas employs mainly the metaphor of the pilot guiding a ship to a safe harbour. In addition, he utilises other metaphors (e.g. the divine government, the rational soul, the organization of bees or the armourer), along with verbs associated with leadership that carry implicit metaphorical significance. Thomas Aquinas can be regarded as a pioneering theorist of leadership, avant la lettre, whose ideas provide valuable insights into the conceptualisation of leadership. In affinity with the thought of Aquinas, we offer a definition of leadership as guiding others towards a common good. This definition allows us to discuss the nature of leadership and its end, with applications in the field of education, particularly in leadership education and the common good.

The growing use of artificial intelligence (AI) in environmental governance is transforming how climate risks are monitored, modeled, and managed. However, most AI-based systems remain grounded in Western epistemological frameworks, frequently overlooking Indigenous knowledge systems (IKS) that provide place-based, relational, and long-term understandings of ecological change. This article examines the opportunities and challenges of integrating Indigenous knowledge into AI-driven approaches to climate resilience. Using an interdisciplinary qualitative methodology that combines critical literature review, comparative case analysis, and environmental justice theory, the study analyzes documented initiatives from Indigenous territories in the Global South. These cases illustrate how automated tools—such as climate prediction models, resource monitoring platforms, and conservation algorithms—can either reinforce data extractivism and epistemic marginalization or contribute to more inclusive and context-sensitive forms of environmental governance. The article argues that meaningful integration of Indigenous knowledge into AI systems requires more than technical adaptation. It demands ethical governance frameworks that recognize epistemic plurality, community consent, and Indigenous data sovereignty. By critically assessing both risks and enabling conditions, this study contributes to emerging debates on decolonial AI and highlights pathways through which AI-based environmental governance can support climate resilience while respecting Indigenous rights and knowledge systems.

ABSTRACT This article presents a theoretical justification and a proposal that seeks to educate university students in leadership through virtues and personal competencies. A distinction is offered between virtues and competencies without opposing them. Subsequently, a leadership education model based on virtues and personal competencies is offered. This proposal applies the Aristotelian-Thomistic tradition of education in virtues considering the contributions of psychology and leadership theory. The leadership model includes eight competencies linked to the cardinal virtues, which are grouped into three domains: understanding reality, relating to others and dedication to the task. Finally, some guidelines for the further development of assessment instruments and for leadership education of university students are offered.

This paper reports on the meeting of the Sounding Board of the EU Reprogenetics Project that was held in Budapest, Hungary, 6–9 November 2005. The Reprogenetics Project runs from 2004 until 2007 and has a brief to study the ethical aspects of human reproductive cloning and germline gene therapy. Discussions during The Budapest Meeting are reported in depth in this paper as well as the initiatives to involve the participating groups and others in ongoing collaborations with the goal of forming an integrated network of European resources in the fields of ethics of science.

Con el presente artículo se pretende revisar el concepto de sociedad civil que subyace al pensamiento hegeliano y que distintas corrientes de pensamiento han tildado de antiliberal. Para tal revisión se lleva a cabo, en primer lugar, un estudio del carácter histórico de la idea de sociedad civil en el trabajo desarrollado por Hegel, en segundo lugar, una aproximación a su conceptualización como esfera de intereses mutuamente conflictos y, en tercer lugar, un examen de la doble validez moral de la sociedad civil en tanto ámbito de realización del individuo así como de búsqueda de individualidad. Con esta revisión se muestra que la importancia de Hegel radica en que en él encontramos un cambio de modelo de filosofía política que encontrándose en los márgenes de un pensamiento liberal propone soluciones que van más allá del liberalismo clásico.

Open peer commentary on the article “Exploring the Depth of Dream Experience: The Enactive Framework and Methods for Neurophenomenological Research” by Elizaveta Solomonova & Xin Wei Sha. Upshot: Enaction and neurophenomenology are indeed appropriate and productive theoretical and methodological tools for studying perception. But moving from the perceptual domain to the hallucinatory and dreaming domain with these tools requires a prior careful examination of the similarities and differences across these domains. The authors point in the right direction for studying dream experience, but underestimate the objective and subjective differences between domains, producing thereby both an unwarranted blurring of their boundaries and an unnecessary explanatory burden on the approach defended.

When receiving the Nobel Prize, Hurwicz took up the question "who is watching the guards?" and considered two approaches. One pessimistic, inspired by Juvenal, which leads to an infinite sequence of guards, and one idealistic, derived from the Platonic dialogues. The guard cannot get drunk, and if he does, he should resign. Although this closure of first instance does not happen in the real world, neither does Juvenal's pessimism make sense. Society always finds a reasonable closure instance, but this solution is suboptimal and is plagued with impurities and illegalities. The leading strategy may be part of a set of illegal alternatives. Implementation is successful if the equilibrium corresponds to the legislator's purposes. Every implementation can be improved and it is never entirely successful. Implementation mechanisms determine how the social welfare function is reached, which affects at the same time the private property prices and the consumption structure, so the market configuration depends on the kind of implementation and how the close of the last instance is made.

This article has been developed within the project "A utilidade do conhecimento tradicional das Plantas Medicinais em Saúde Pública" within the scope of the Instituto Politécnico de Portalegre (IPP), Escola Superior de Saúde. Project approved by Conselho Técnico-científico of the IPP and Unidade de Investigação do IPP-VALORIZA. We are grateful for the opportunity provided by the University of Cadiz to carry out this work within the framework of several research licenses during the 2021-2022, 2022-2023, and 2023-2024 courses (Free Movers International program). Likewise, we express our gratitude to the management of the IPP for the facilities given to carry out this research and its attentive treatment in the in-person visits, as well as in all meetings and online activities. Traditional knowledge about medicinal plants, and the biocultural heritage derived from them, can be a useful tool for curricular design in health sciences. Research on this topic oriented toward university students has an interesting potential from a multidisciplinary or transdisciplinary treatment. This field allows for establishing relationships between socioeconomic and environmental problems and the health and well-being of people from the perspective of the intangible heritage of rural communities. On the other hand, traditional knowledge draws from very diverse sources such as empirical, magical, and religious components, primitive medicines, and even from academic medicine itself when it ceases to be scientific. Methodological triangulation is used in terms of data (times, spaces, and people), as well as researchers from different areas of knowledge integrating approaches with an interpretive purpose. Located in a European transboundary territory, the study area contains the mountain ranges of Alor (Spain) and São Mamede (Portugal), two cross-border areas where key informants have been interviewed. The observation unit is people who perform traditional practices to gather natural products, and other randomly selected informants. The study was completed with information collected from the undergraduates of the Escola Superior de Saúde de Portalegre (Portugal). The purpose of this work was to highlight the application of traditional knowledge based on medicinal plants in university studies of health sciences. Based on the results obtained and an epistemological discussion, we propose an educational intervention to broaden the professional mindset from a biocultural perspective. Our proposal directs the student's gaze toward the investigation of medical history and biocultural heritage to understand the determinants of health and to respect the idiosyncrasies of their communities.