Approach to the thought of Fernando Vallejo through the reading of \u27El Desbarrancadero\u27

The article aims to interpret (and to some extent comment on) some of Fernando Vallejo\u27s thoughts contained in his novel El Desbarrancadero. The Colombian author\u27s text includes deep reflections on essential issues of human existence and their fundamental circumstances. Throughout the pages of El Desbarrancadero, ideas about life are exposed in their most critical aspect, masterfully described by Vallejo. They are subjects that often –though they are all well-known– are nevertheless little commented, due to what some might call a certain conceptual hardness and rigor. The author of Medellín is characterized by his freedom in saying what he thinks. That frankness (after all, courage), and that depth and literary beauty at the same time, make El Desbarrancadero one of the most important philosophical novels ever written in Spanish. Abstracto: El artículo pretende interpretar (y en alguna medida comentar) los pensamientos de Fernando Vallejo contenidos en su novela El Desba-rrancadero. El texto del autor colombiano incluye reflexiones profundas sobre temas esenciales de  la existencia humana y de sus circunstancias fundamentales. A lo largo de las páginas de El desbarrancadero se van exponiendo ideas sobre la vida en su aspecto más crítico, descritas de forma magistral por Vallejo. Son temas que a menudo  –pese a ser  son de todos conocidos­– son sin embargo poco comentados, debido a lo que algunos podrían llamar una cierta dureza y rigor conceptuales.   Caracteriza al autor el Medellín su libertad al decir lo que piensa. Esa franqueza (al cabo, valentía), y esa profundidad y la vez belleza literarias, hacen de El Desbarrancadero una de las más importantes novelas “de ideas” que se han escrito en lengua castellana. Notes: 1. Article Language="Primarily Spanish, with abstract in English and Spanish" 2. Article title in Spanish : Aproximación al pensamiento de Fernando Vallejo a través de la lectura de ‘El Desbarrancadero’   DOI: 10.5958/2347-6869.2017.00024.3 &nbsp

On the Intractable ontology of Species

‘Species’ is a tricky, but unavoidable term which makes biologists disagree with each other in their attempts to define it. The disagreement actually stems from the intractable ontological nature of species. Not only biologists but also philosophers are engaged in the endeavour to understand species. The former attempt to define species while the latter try to determine its ontology. As a result, antinomies such as monism/pluralism or realism/antirealism come into the picture. Our sense of ‘intractability’ grows along with the increasing debate between these antinomies. The present paper sketches out the intractable nature of species through a historical account of the species problem. Through this paper, we have tried to decipher a ‘common thread’ that, perhaps, binds all our ideas of species together. This has been arrived at after noticing that when we confront the term species we all know what it refers to but we are confused when it comes to answering the question ‘what it means’. DOI: 10.5958/2347-6869.2017.00020.

Conceptualization of Scientart: The interaction between the Worlds of Science and Art

Scientart might be defined as an interaction between the worlds of art and science. Three types of these interactions might be considered: artistically-inclined scientific activities, science-minded artistic activities, and intertwined artistic and scientific activities. In this conceptualization different disciplines such as physics, metaphysics, economics, and medicine could be counted as science. Furthermore, we consider literature as art. The artistically-inclined science can be seen in scientists leading an art program, such as what happened in the artists\u27 program to document NASA missions. Science-minded art could be regarded in the artworks include scientific themes. These artworks might be inspired by science or inspire scientists. An instant of intertwined artistic and scientific activities could be seen in the occult treatises describe philosophical subjects and rational issues in fictions. DOI: 10.5958/2347-6869.2017.00018.

Causeway to the Cosways: Establishing Connection between Forms of Identity and Consequent Reconstruction of Destiny through Subversion of the Bildungsroman in Wide Sargasso Sea

Jean Rhys’ Wide Sargasso Sea has usually been regarded as a postcolonial offset to its 19th century ‘Grand Narrative’ – Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre. Both the texts have been by and large examined by critics as texts employing the format of the Bildungsroman, also popularly known as the ‘coming-of-age’ novel. Rhys’ work, through the account of Antoinette Cosway’s life, subverts this typically linear, male-centric genre, to formulate what we may phrase as the Anti- or Reverse- Bildungsroman. In conjunction with the previous perspective, this paper shall explore how Wide Sargasso Sea overturns even the Reverse-Bildungsroman at the end of the novel to set up the groundwork for yet another sub-genre, the Kunstlerroman, or the novel that documents the formation of an artist, and the simultaneous subversion of the associated tenet of the ‘double’ in Victorian Sensation formula, when Antoinette paradoxically gains a form of identity, an autonomy over her own life, and appropriates active agency, much like an artist, through madness, and ultimately, death. DOI: 10.5958/2347-6869.2018.00005.5 &nbsp

Pythagorean Self-Awareness serves effectively for Stress Management on Freshmen: A quasi-experimental study

Adjustment to conditions surrounding the first year of studies in tertiary education can be highly stressful. Because of the pertinent challenges, University freshmen evidently run risks for developing mental and physical ailments probably undermining their entire wellbeing. Aims: This study evaluates effects of two preventive or/and corrective intervention methods dealing with their difficulties. Sample: Freshmen (N=60). Methods: In a parallel quasi-experimental design the above freshmen were randomly sub-grouped for attending to 8 consecutive weekly sessions of either Pythagorean Self-Awareness Intervention (PSAI) or Stress Management Techniques Intervention (SMTI). Several self-report measures were administered at pre- and post-intervention phases. Assessment included various factors: (a) psychological: stress, anxiety, depression, anger, emotionality, (b) physiological: Body-Mass-Index (BMI) via engaging in healthy habits, lifestyle, sleep, (c) basic cognitive: visuospatial memory, verbal learning and (d) complex mental: fatigue-vs-coherence, speed processing, self-efficacy. Results: Significant post-intervention improvements were noted for most dimensions, irrespective of group allocation. SMTI was superior to PSAI for reducing BMI and improving basic cognitive features, whereas PSAI was superior for improving psychological and complex mental processes. Conclusions: Results are encouraging to suggest these interventions be introduced in academic settings as effective meta-cognitive multifaceted procedures for stress management, to help students become more successful in their personal as well as academic lives. Article DOI : 10.5958/2347-6869.2017.00012.

Freedom of Expression through Social Media and the Political Participation of Young Voters: A Case Study of Elections in Jakarta, Indonesia

Freedom of expression in social media with ease to express an opinion, comment, be a friend, a follower of the candidate, as well as easy to share links and to post \u27like\u27, encouraging young voters to participate in the election and influencing their decision to vote. Young people are often considered as a group that does not matter even tend apathetic towards politics because they think their voices will not be heard by the authorities. However, advances in technology have removed this presumption by breaking down barriers to freedom of expression. The survey conducted on 385 university students in Jakarta and the Jakarta gubernatorial elections in 2012 and 2017 to a research context. Freedom to obtain information that is not limited and interaction in social media also encourage young voters to participate in elections

Black Consciousness in James Baldwin’s Go Tell It on the Mountain

Black Consciousness implies the consciousness of being an African American and of being sensitively aware of the culture, history and all that is connected to the African American with present, past and the future. Black consciousness grew out of the unrelieved suffering and psychological traumas of a group of people who were subjected to overt and covert racism in the USA for about four centuries. It gives us an insight into their predicaments. In a way, it is a counter-culture to racism and definitely not a means to hatred, but is aiming at social change. Hansberry introduces spirituals, Jazz and blues and other aspects of African American culture throughout Raisin. He feels that the liberation that the Africans need is not a religious conversion which leads to further exploitation, but political freedom. Article DOI : 10.5958/2347-6869.2017.00011.

City-Governance: conceptualizing digital maturity model

The article aims to outline the role of ICT in urban management. The digital segment is presented as significant for making cities sustainable, and for expanding access to basic services for large numbers of people. The matrix of ICT-tools in relation to sustainable cities development targets is developed. The comparative review of Digital City, Intelligent City, and Smart City is provided. The municipal e-government data of international ratings are analyzed with the special focus on aspects of online services management. The existing digital gaps between cities are pointed out in terms of e-governance maturity. It is proposed the maturity model of the municipal digital office, which it consists eight levels of the functional responsibility for urban online services development. Article DOI : 10.5958/2347-6869.2017.00016.

Aristotle\u27s concept of the state

In contrast to a little bit utopian standpoint offered by Plato in his teachings about the state or politeia where rulers aren`t “in love with power but in virtue”, Aristotle\u27s teaching on the same subject seems very realistic and pragmatic. In his most important writing in this field called "Politics", Aristotle classified authority in the form of two main parts: the correct authority and moose authority. In this sense, correct forms of government are 1.basileus, 2.aristocracy and 3.politeia. These forms of government are based on the common good. Bad or moose forms of government are those that are based on the property of an individual or small governmental structures and they are: 1.tiranny, 2.oligarchy and 3.democracy. Also, Aristotle\u27s political thinking is not separate from the ethical principles so he states that the government should be reflected in the true virtue that is "law" or the "golden mean"

Euthanasia Or Death Assisted to (It\u27s) Dignity

The paper attempts to conceptualise the “ancient” issues of human death and human mortality in connection to the timely and vital subject of euthanasia. This subject forces the meditation to actually consider those ideological, ethical, deontological, legal, and metaphysical frameworks which guide from the very beginning any kind of approach to this question. This conception – in dialogue with Heideggerian fundamental ontology and existential analytics – reveals that, on the one hand, the concepts and ethics of death are originally determined by the ontology of death, and, on the other hand, that, on this account, the question of euthanasia can only be authentically discussed in the horizon of this ontology. It is only this that may reveal to whom dying – our dying – pertains, while it also reveals our relationship to euthanasia as a determined human potentiality or final possibility. Thus euthanasia is outlined in the analysis as the possibility of becoming a mortal on the one hand, while on the other hand, it appears in relation to the particularities of its existential structure, which essentially differ from the existential and ontological structure of any other possibility of dying. This is why it should not be mixed up with, or mistaken for, any of these