In the following pages, the main proposal is to indicate how Max Weber has dialogued directly with some prerogatives from Kant’s Critic of practical Reason, following the reception of Wilhelm Windelband’s concept of “responsibility” (Verantwortlichkeit) and his theory of values. In sight of these influences, in this paper will be argued how Weber adherence to the neo-Kantian value concept has made possible a review on the categorical imperatives, which has turned his reading from Kantian philosophy to the proposal of an (...) antinomy between the ethic of conviction and the ethic of responsibility inside the Kantian moral maxims. -/- Nessa abordagem será proposto que a recepção de Max Weber do conceito de “responsabilidade” (Verantwortlichkeit) de Wilhelm Windelband, bem como sua revisão de certos elementos da filosofia dos valores neokantiana do sudoeste da Alemanha, permitiram que Weber estabelecesse um diálogo mais direto com os pressupostos de Kant em sua Crítica da razão prática. Em vista dessas influências, o presente artigo argumentará que a maneira como Weber revisa os imperativos categóricos direcionou sua compreensão da filosofia kantiana pelo conceito de “valores”, o permitindo ainda, propor a existência de uma antinomia entre a ética da convicção e da responsabilidade no interior das máximas morais kantianas. (shrink)

Voltaire has presented in his Letters on the English different themes, from religious ethics, literacy, politics, to dramas and science. The letters present us a comparison between England and France. In this parallel we shall present how Voltaire was concerned in evaluate a high standard of taste and refinements. This paper will review some of the last letters of those, which testify about this criterion of taste as a modern point of view. We shall present in Voltaire the eminence of (...) modernity in taste, refinements and on liberty of enjoying the ecstasies of a cosmopolitan life fulfilled with entertainments and luxury. We shall present how Voltaire fought against barbarism in benefit of civilization and some how against religiosity in benefit of an ethic hedonism. (shrink)

The tragic death in Tolstoy's writings has helped both Max Weber and György Lukács in characterizing the modern pathos as a tragic contemplation of the emptiness of life. Through Tolstoy's readings, Weber and Lukács found an interesting source of denying arts and modern sciences autonomy, considering, from the aesthetics sphere, the meaningless of this new immanent reality. Both has assumed Tolstoy main theme from the same perspective, contrasting ancient and modern worldviews. Max Weber presented this theme in his disenchantment of (...) world theory and Lukács, in a very similar way, following the paradox of religious needing as a mainline. -/- O tema da morte trágica, presente nos escritos de Liev Tolstói, auxiliou tanto a Max Weber como a György Lukács a caracterizarem o pathos moderno de pressentimento da morte como uma contemplação do vazio. Weber e Lukács encontraram, através das leituras de Tolstói, uma interessante maneira de questionar a autonomia da arte e da ciência moderna, considerando pela esfera estética, como se mostra sem sentido a recente realidade imanente. Ambos assumiram o tema central das obras de Tolstói segundo uma mesma imagem, derivada do contraste entre o mundo antigo e o moderno. Max Weber adequou esse tema a sua teoria do desencantamento do mundo e Lukács, de modo muito semelhante, seguindo seu conceito do paradoxo da necessidade religiosa. (shrink)

Complex human reasoning involves minimal abilities to extract conclusions implied in the available information. These abilities are considered “deductive” because they exemplify certain abstract relations among propositions or probabilities called deductive arguments. However, the electrophysiological dynamics which supports such complex cognitive pro- cesses has not been addressed yet. In this work we consider typically deductive logico- probabilistically valid inferences and aim to verify or refute their electrophysiological functional connectivity differences from invalid inferences with the same content (same relational variables, same (...) stimuli, same relevant and salient features). We recorded the brain electrophysiological activity of 20 participants (age 1⁄4 20.35 ± 3.23) by means of an MEG system during two consecutive reasoning tasks: a search task (invalid condition) without any specific deductive rules to follow, and a logically valid deductive task (valid condition) with explicit deductive rules as instructions. We calculated the functional connectivity (FC) for each condition and conducted a seed-based analysis in a set of cortical regions of interest. Finally, we used a cluster-based permutation test to compare the dif- ferences between logically valid and invalid conditions in terms of FC. As a first novel result we found higher FC for valid condition in beta band between regions of interest and left prefrontal, temporal, parietal, and cingulate structures. FC analysis allows a second novel result which is the definition of a propositional network with operculo-cingular, parietal and medial nodes, specifically including disputed medial deductive “core” areas. The experiment discloses measurable cortical processes which do not depend on content but on truth-functional propositional operators. These experimental novelties may contribute to understand the cortical bases of deductive processes. (shrink)

Priest's theory of motion is based on Leibniz's Continuity Condition (LCC), which states that any state that exists at each instant in a continuous set of moments also exists at its temporal limit. If we accept the CCL, a free-falling pen would have to be simultaneously in motion and at rest at the instant of change: the critical moment when it hits the ground, thus passing from the state of motion to that of rest. This seems to be a contradictory (...) state of affairs, which is precisely what Priest claims to be the case. In this article, I discuss the logical possibility of empirically testing whether such a contradictory state of affairs occurs. (shrink)

This article intend to elucidate how Wilhelm Windelband employed the Kantian critic method without devoid its typical features, going through this, what is fundamental for the approach from speculative reason to practical reason would be identified. We understand that practical reason, as a theoretical interest, is prefigured on the first critic, and that the Kantian system suffers mutations until his second critic formulation. Windelband’s critical view, can offer the tips of how to interpreter Kant’s passage from speculative to practical reason, (...) observing the elements witch are kept, as constant elements, the third antinomy for stance, and witch one changes among the course, as the ideas of liberty and nature in both theoretical and practical sense. Windelband can unfold to notice those variations and help to understand them in the development of Kantian theories as elements not contradictories with the canon of speculative reason. (shrink)

Comments on the paper: Pluralismo y absolutismo en la crítica. Dialéctica reflexiva y política democrática a partir de M. Horkheimer y Th. W. Adorno, by Emiliano Matías Gambarotta.

Esta coletânea é um tributo a Peter Frederick Strawson pelo centenário de seu nascimento (1919-2019). Diferentemente de outras coletâneas, esta propõe colocar em relevo a interlocução de Strawson com a tradição filosófica. Em outras palavras, por um lado, queremos evidenciar as discussões que Strawson travou com os seus contemporâneos (Austin, Quine, Russell e Wittgenstein), e, por outro, a influência que recebeu e as críticas que dirigiu àqueles que o precederam na história da filosofia (Aristóteles, Descartes, Hume, Kant). Poderíamos ter enriquecido (...) a lista acima com o nome de muitos outros filósofos com os quais Strawson teve contato, mas julgamos que o trabalho ficaria bastante extenso. Por esse motivo, optamos por aqueles nomes mais significativos que figuram na construção da história intelectual de Strawson. O presente volume reúne nove capítulos que levam como título o nome de Strawson e do filósofo com o qual ele dialogou ao longo de suas obras. Essa opção na nomeação dos capítulos por si só já permite colocar em evidência os principais filósofos pelos quais Strawson se interessou e com os quais se confrontou ao longo de seu trabalho filosófico. Com exceção do capítulo sobre Wittgenstein, que é uma versão revisada de um texto publicado anteriormente, todos os outros capítulos são inéditos e foram escritos especialmente para esta coletânea. O volume inclui na abertura a tradução de “Um fragmento de autobiografia intelectual”, de P. F. Strawson. Quando elegemos como título desta obra, Strawson e a tradição filosófica, não estamos insinuando que Strawson é um historiador da filosofia e muito menos que se interesse por historiografia. O título desta obra apenas quer indicar que Strawson, por um lado, transita na história da filosofia com alguma facilidade, além de nutrir um grande apreço por ela e, por outro, que ele discute com os principais nomes da história da filosofia no que concerne aos temas de seu interesse. A sua proposta filosófica é alimentada e irrigada por esse conhecimento, o que lhe dá a possibilidade de assumir na maioria das vezes posições ponderadas e equilibradas acerca de temas complexos por ele tratados. ​ ISBN: 978-85-5696-689-6. Nº de pág.: 244. (shrink)

Sumário. Apresentação. PARTE I. 1. O legado filosófico de P. F. Strawson, Itamar Luís Gelain e Jaimir Conte; 2 . Strawson e o caso dos metafísicos descritivos, Itamar Luís Gelain; 3. Metafísica e linguagem comum: sobre uma conturbada herança wittgensteiniana de Strawson, Jônadas Techio; 4. Strawson e Descartes, Albertinho Luiz Gallina; 5. Strawson: sobre Kant e Berkeley, Robert Calabria; 6. O empirismo pós-kantiano de Strawson, Wenceslao J. González; 7. Reabilitando Strawson, Marco Antonio Franciotti; 8. Strawson e o ceticismo em Individuals, (...) Plínio Junqueira Smith; 9. Strawson e a causação visível, João Paulo Monteiro; 10. A verdade dos fatos, Susana Badiola; 11. Estabelecer limites: implicações epistemológicas da lógica, Roberta Corvi; 12. Referência e termos singulares, Carlos E. Caorsi; 13. Strawson: da experiência possível para a ação possível, Márlon Henrique Teixeira; 14. Atitudes reativas e responsabilidade moral, Cristina de Moraes Nunes; 15. Strawson e Hume: uma comparação a propósito de “Moralidade social e ideal individual”, Amán Rosales Rodríguez; PARTE II. 16. Liberdade e ressentimento, P. F. Strawson. Tradução: Jaimir Conte; 17. Moralidade social e ideal individual, P. F. Strawson, Tradução: Jaimir Conte. Seleção bibliográfica. (shrink)

Coletânea de textos: 1.Idealismo transcendental, naturalismo e um pouco de história, Adriano Naves de Brito; 2. Ceticismo e a reconstrução de P.F. Strawson da dedução kantiana das categorias, Pedro Stepanenko; 3. Dedução Transcendental e Ceticismo, Marco Antonio Franciotti; 4. Strawson e Kant sobre a dualidade entre intuições e conceitos, Roberto Horácio de Sá Pereira; 5. Princípio de significatividade em Kant e Strawson, Cristina de Moraes Nunes; 6. Strawson e Kant sobre a Liberdade, Albertinho Luiz Gallina e Cecília Rearte Terrosa; 7. (...) Argumentos Transcendentais e Metafísica Descritiva em P. F. Strawson, Itamar Luís Gelain; 8. Breve consideração sobre o problema da tese da aprioridade do espaço e do tempo, Juan Adolfo Bonaccini; 9. Os novos fundamentos da metafísica estabelecidos por Kant, Peter F. Strawson, Trad. Jaimir Conte; 10. Imaginação e percepção, Peter F. Strawson, Trad. Ítalo Lins Lemos. (shrink)

Esta coletânea sobre a filosofia de Strawson é composta de dezesseis textos, dentre os quais oito são inéditos. Inclui também a tradução de dois importantes ensaios de autoria do próprio Strawson – Liberdade e ressentimento e Moralidade social e ideal individual – duas de suas principais contribuições para a filosofia moral. A presente coletânea nasce do desejo de tornar disponível em língua portuguesa uma obra sobre o pensamento do autor. Embora o estudioso da filosofia de Strawson já encontre algumas de (...) suas obras traduzidas para o português, bem como algumas dissertações e teses, ou ainda artigos publicados em revistas especializadas, este volume constitui um empreendimento inédito no Brasil, uma vez que reúne, na forma de livro, uma série de ensaios que comentam e discutem a filosofia de Strawson. (shrink)

In the realm of the philosophy of sounds and auditory experience there is an ongoing discussion concerned with the nature of sounds. One of the contestant views within this ontology of sound is that of the Property View, which holds that sounds are properties of the sounding objects. A way of developing this view is through the idea of dispositionalism, namely, by sustaining the theory according to which sounds are dispositional properties (Pasnau 1999; Kulvicki 2008; Roberts 2017). That portrayal, however, (...) is not sufficient, as it has not inquired the metaphysical debates about dispositions beyond the conditional analysis. In this paper, I try to advance this view by including recent developments (for instance Bird 2007; Vetter 2015) in the field of dispositionalism and I analyse whether this new version can sort out known and new objections to Property View. (shrink)

This essay aims to contribute comparative points of contact between two influential figures of nineteenth century aesthetic reflection; namely, Victor Hugo’s artful considerations on architecture in his novel Notre-Dame de Paris and G.W.F. Hegel’s philosophical appraisal of the artform in his Lectures on Fine Art. Although their individual views on architecture are widely recognized, there is scant comparative commentary on these two thinkers, which seems odd because of the relative convergence of their historically situated observations. Owing to this shortage, I (...) note that, while certainly not identical, Hugo and Hegel share an aesthetic family resemblance in how they hold similar ideas on architecture’s symbolic function, cognitive content, and, ultimately, how the artform’s ability to remain a standing paragon of meaning was razed by successive modes of cultural communication. Consequently, the essay works to show some congruent aesthetic affinities between these two great figures, but which appears to be overlooked in the literature. (shrink)

G.W.F. Hegel argues that a philosophy of history should engender comprehension of evil in the world. And yet some commentators have charged his philosophy with transcending mere explication by justifying the existence of these evils. In defense of his words, Hegel famously characterizes evil as a modal mismatch; namely, as the incompatibility between what is given and what ought to be the case. Unfortunately, some readers of Hegel’s grand narrative either continue to struggle with or overlook this fine distinction. Against (...) such readings, I organize my paper into three sections that speak directly to these concerns. In §1, against the concern that Hegel’s view of the “actual world” justifies suffering, it is shown that his philosophy does not endorse the merely extant world, which is a whole world apart from the actual world. In §2, I articulate the premises of Hegel’s Doppelsatz to argue that the famous slogan is not, as some commentators take it, an endorsement of “things as they are.” And in §3, I expose a category error that mistakes an epistemological claim made by Hegel about contingency as a metaphysical assertion in support of evil. Ultimately, I argue that Hegel views evil as neither actual nor necessary nor justified. (shrink)

Tradução para o português do ensaio "Freedom and Resentment”, de P. F. Strawson. Publicado originalmente em Proceedings of the British Academy, v. 48, 1960. Republicado em Freedom and Resentment and Other Essays. Londres: Methuen, 1974. [Routledge, 2008, p. 2-28]. Publicado na coletânea: Ensaios sobre a filosofia de Strawson: com a tradução de Liberdade e ressentimento & Moralidade social e ideal individual. Organizadores: Jaimir Conte & Itamar Luís Gelain. Editora da UFSC, 2015. ISBN: 9788532807250.

Tradução para o português do ensaio "Social Morality and Individual Ideal”. Publicado originalmente em Philosophy: The Journal of the Royal Institute of Philosophy, vol. XXXVI, n. 136, p. 1-17, Jan. 1961. Republicado em: STRAWSON, P. F. Freedom and Resentment and Other Essays. Londres: Methuen, 1974. [Routledge, 2008, p. 26-44]. ]. Publicado na coletânea: Ensaios sobre a filosofia de Strawson: com a tradução de Liberdade e ressentimento & Moralidade social e ideal individual. Organizadores: Jaimir Conte & Itamar Luís Gelain. Editora da (...) UFSC, 2015. ISBN: 9788532807250. (shrink)

In this historical article, Newton da Costa discusses Francisco Miró Quesada’s philosophical ideas about logic. He discusses the topics of reason, logic, and action in Miró Quesada’s work, and in the final section he offers his critical view. In particular, he disagrees with Miró Quesada’s stance on the historicity of reason, for whom “reason is essentially absolute”, whereas for da Costa it “is being constructed in the course of history”. Da Costa concludes by emphasizing the importance of Miró Quesada’s theory (...) of logic and reason, despite it still being incomplete. -/- Historical article by Newton da Costa, annotated and translated by J. C. Cifuentes and L. F. Bartolo Alegre. (shrink)

Prefácio ao livro Peter F. Strawson: Metafísica e Ceticismo, de Itamar Luís Gelain.

Abstracting away from its various particular versions, contemporary externalism about knowledge can be broadly characterized as the rejection of two central ideas: that knowledge is incompatible with reflective awareness of the possibility of error, and that knowledge is necessarily tied to the resources that are available from within the first-person perspective. In this brief introduction, I outline five distinctly externalist accounts of knowledge, and two distinctly externalist methodological approaches to knowledge, all fitting this general description.

Ever since John Locke, philosophers have discussed the possibility of a normative epistemology: are there epistemic obligations binding the cognitive economy of belief and disbelief? Locke's influential answer was evidentialist: we have an epistemic obligation to believe in accordance with our evidence. In this dissertation, I place the contemporary literature on agency and reasons at the service of some such normative epistemology. I discuss the semantics of obligations, the connection between obligations and reasons to believe, the implausibility of Lockean evidentialism, (...) and some of the alleged connections between agency and justification. (shrink)

O ceticismo é por vezes descartado como uma doutrina absurda e merecedora do seu lugar distante na antiguidade. Nada poderia ser menos correto. O ceticismo continua extremamente relevante para o pensamento filosófico e científico de hoje, servindo como um lembrete de que a sabedoria não é barata nem segura. Nesse texto, o meu objetivo principal é reproduzir o raciocínio das discussões clássicas sobre o ceticismo, mas de uma maneira coloquial e contemporânea. Após seguir as linhas de pensamento de Sexto Empírico, (...) René Descartes, e David Hume, eu vou extrair e identificar claramente as teses centrais que marcam as suas ideias. A minha intenção, porém, não é a de sugerir que as suas teses são auto-evidentes, ou incontestáveis, ou até hoje ainda incontestadas. Muito pelo contrário. A minha intenção é produzir um aperitivo ao debate e um convite a discussão. (shrink)

Are philosophy and literature allies or enemies in Jorge Luis Borges's fictions? In this paper, I argue that Borges can satisfy membership in the allies camp because his fictions provide the imaginative scenarios the allies believe are so necessary to this coalition; however, because his stories question philosophy's hold on reality, they can also seem to fall into the enemies camp by countervailing any claim philosophy has on reality and truth; although, ultimately, the manner in which Borges forges an (...) alliance between philosophy and literature will be for reasons not traditionally accepted by those in either the allies or enemies camps. (shrink)

To most of us – believers and non-believers alike – the possibility of a perfect God co-existing with the kinds of evil that we see calls out for explanation. It is unsurprising, therefore, that the belief that God must have justifying reasons for allowing all the evil that we see has been a perennial feature of theistic thought. Recently, however, a growing number of authors have argued that the existence of a perfect God is compatible with the existence of gratuitous (...) evil. Given powerful, millenia-long sensibilities about power and love and justice, it isn’t hard to find that suggestion simply incredible. Nonetheless, in this paper I will argue that the most prominent theistic alternatives to what has seemed incredible to most of us throughout most of history are themselves patently unacceptable for the theist as well. On any of the most widely accepted accounts of how God could have justifying reasons for permitting some evils, God’s existence means that we have justifying reasons for perpetrating and allowing every evil that we see. That's hard to swallow too. If I’m right about all of this, then two competing outcomes seem to present themselves as a possible result. On the one hand, for the theist, the apparently outrageous suggestion that the existence of a perfect God is compatible with gratuitous evil no longer looks like it faces a formidable, hard-to-resist alternative. On the other hand, some like me might think that my arguments go no distance at all towards dispelling the incredibility of the gratuitous evil nouvelle vague. On this line, theism may seem now to be between the rock and the hard place: it seems hard to make sense of the existence of a perfect God whether or not He has justifying reasons for allowing all the evil that we see. (shrink)

Summary: A review of the cognitivist/extended cognition and extended mind landscape.

Paul Silva has recently argued that doxastic justification does not have a basing requirement. An important part of his argument depends on the assumption that doxastic and moral permissibility have a parallel structure. I here reply to Silva's argument by challenging this assumption. I claim that moral permissibility is an agential notion, while doxastic permissibility is not. I then briefly explore the nature of these notions and briefly consider their implications for praise and blame.

Given plausible assumptions about the nature of evidence and undercutting defeat, many believe that the force of the evidential problem of evil depends on sceptical theism’s being false: if evil is...

In this paper I present reasons for us to accept the hypothesis that suspended judgment has correctness conditions, just like beliefs do. Roughly put, the idea is that suspended judgment about p is correct when both p and ¬p might be true in view of certain facts that characterize the subject’s situation. The reasons to accept that hypothesis are broadly theoretical ones: it adds unifying power to our epistemological theories, it delivers good and conservative consequences, and it allows us to (...) assess processes of reasoning involving attitudes of suspended judgment. (shrink)

Deontological evidentialism is the claim that we ought to form and maintain our beliefs in accordance with our evidence. In this paper, I criticize two arguments in its defense. I begin by discussing Berit Broogard’s use of the distinction between narrow-scope and wide-scope requirements against W.K. Clifford’s moral defense of. I then use this very distinction against a defense of inspired by Stephen Grimm’s more recent claims about the moral source of epistemic normativity. I use this distinction once again to (...) argue that Hilary Kornblith’s criticism of Richard Feldman’s defense of is incomplete. Finally, I argue that Feldman’s defense is insensitive to the relation between normative requirements and privileged values: values that have normative authority over us. (shrink)

Aesthetic subjectivism takes the truth of aesthetic judgments to be relative to the individual making that judgment. Despite widespread suspicion, however, this does not mean that one cannot be wrong about such judgments. Accordingly, this does not mean that one cannot gain higher-order evidence of error and fallibility that bears on the rationality of the aesthetic judgment in question. In this paper, we explain and explore these issues in some detail.

Foundational ontologies, central constructs in ontological investigations and engineering alike, are based on ontological categories. Firstly proposed by Aristotle as the very ur- elements from which the whole of reality can be derived, they are not easy to identify, let alone partition and/or hierarchize; in particular, the question of their number poses serious challenges. The late medieval philosopher Dietrich of Freiberg wrote around 1286 a tutorial that can help us today with this exceedingly difficult task. In this paper, I discuss (...) ontological categories and their importance for foundational ontologies from both the contemporary perspective and the original Aristotelian viewpoint, I provide the translation from the Latin into English of Dietrich's De origine II with an introductory elaboration, and I extract a foundational ontology–that is in fact a single-category one–from this text rooted in Dietrich's specification of types of subjecthood and his conception of intentionality as causal operation. (shrink)

This is not a guide for your writing process. You should write in whatever way expressing and making sense of your ideas feels most natural and most productive to you. This is a guide for organizing your ideas, after you have captured some of them in fits and starts of prose, into a particular kind of final product: the basic philosophy paper.

Ontologies are some of the most central constructs in today's large plethora of knowledge technologies, namely in the context of the semantic web. As their coinage indicates, they are direct heirs to the ontological investigations in the long Western philosophical tradition, but it is not easy to make bridges between them. Contemporary ontological commitments often take causality as a central aspect for the ur-segregation of entities, especially in scientific upper ontologies; theories of causality and philosophical ontological investigations often go hand-in-hand, (...) and were essentially inseparable in medieval thought. This constitutes the foundation for a bridge, and this article analyzes the causality-based ontology of the late medieval philosopher Dietrich of Freiberg from the viewpoint of today's upper-ontology engineering. In this bridging attempt, it offers a translation into English of the first part of Dietrich's De origine (abbreviated title) that is a compromise between traditional scholarly translations of medieval Latin philosophical texts and contemporary ontology. (shrink)

James Sterba has recently argued that the free will defense fails to explain the compossibility of a perfect God and the amount and degree of moral evil that we see. I think he is mistaken about this. I thus find myself in the awkward and unexpected position, as a non-theist myself, of defending the free will defense. In this paper, I will try to show that once we take care to focus on what the free will defense is trying to (...) accomplish, and by what means it tries to do so, we will see that Sterba’s criticism of it misses the mark. (shrink)

The van Wijngaarden grammars are two-level grammars that present many interesting properties. In the present article I elaborate on six of these properties, to wit, (i) their being constituted by two grammars, (ii) their ability to generate (possibly infinitely many) strict languages and their own metalanguage, (iii) their context-sensitivity, (iv) their high descriptive power, (v) their productivity, or the ability to generate an infinite number of production rules, and (vi) their equivalence with the unrestricted, or Type-0, Chomsky grammars.

Logic arguably plays a role in the normativity of reasoning. In particular, there are plausible norms of belief/disbelief whose antecedents are constituted by claims about what follows from what. But is logic also relevant to the normativity of agnostic attitudes? The question here is whether logical entailment also puts constraints on what kinds of things one can suspend judgment about. In this paper I address that question and I give a positive answer to it. In particular, I advance two logical (...) norms of agnosticism, where the first one allows us to assess situations in which the subject is agnostic about the conclusion of a valid argument and the second one allows us to assess situations in which the subject is agnostic about one of the premises of a valid argument. (shrink)

SINGULARIDAD: 12 Preceptos para la Vida Trascendental | © 2023 Cromwell Black Publishing House | Obra original por Luis Herrera. -/- Vivir trascendentalmente no es lo mismo que 'tener las respuestas a la vida.' La intención con la que se ha escrito este libro es ayudarte a identificar a Dios dentro de ti. La religión es una señal, pero no es la respuesta. La filosofía es una señal, pero no es la respuesta. Las personas que se identifican en exceso (...) con un grupo o tribu por razones ideológicas, inevitablemente se encuentran con la decepción porque siempre habrá algunos principios con los que internamente se opongan y estén en desacuerdo. Aun así, ignoran su voz interior para 'encajar con los demás.' El hombre es un animal social y la excomunión de la tribu ha sido equivalente a la extinción de nuestra línea desde nuestros días como cazadores y recolectores. Al vivir trascendentalmente, he aprendido a reconocer, acoger y aceptar el espacio entre mí y mi tribu. Te invito a hacer lo mismo. -/- Aprendiendo a escuchar al Dios que está dentro, puedo confiar más en mi voz interior porque hay un mensaje hablado allí, único para mí, que nunca será impreso en las páginas de la Biblia, el Corán, el Tao Te Ching o cualquier otro libro. Solo hay un TÚ. Otros pueden tener tu nombre, pero no tu identidad. Pueden compartir tu fecha de nacimiento y hospital, pero no tus padres. Pueden compartir tus padres, pero no tu nombre. ¿Ves a lo que me refiero aquí? Por lo tanto, ¿cómo puede una religión, educación o filosofía 'talla única' responder a la pregunta sobre el significado de la vida? No hay un significado de la vida, porque no hay una vida. Hay vidas infinitas, para las cuales deben proporcionarse significados infinitos. De ahí la importancia de aprender a confiar en ti mismo, tu voz interior, tu conciencia, el Dios que está dentro de ti. (shrink)

One of the few points of agreement between most theists and non-theists working on the problem of evil is that the existence of a perfect God is incompatible with the existence of pointless evil. In a series of influential papers, however, Peter van Inwagen has argued that careful attention to the reasoning behind this claim reveals fatal difficulties related to the Sorites Paradox. In this paper, I explain van Inwagen’s appeal to sorites reasoning, distinguish between two different arguments in his (...) work, and argue that they both commit the same so-far-unnoticed mistake. (shrink)

SINGULARITY: 12 Precepts for Transcendental Living | © 2022 Cromwell Black Publishing House | Original work by Luis Herrera. -/- Living transcendentally is not the same as ‘having the answers to life.’ The intention with which this book is written is to help you identify the God within yourself. Religion is a guidepost, but not the answer. Philosophy is a guidepost, not the answer. People that over-identify with one group or tribe for ideological reasons invariably meet with disappointment because (...) there will always be some tenets they internally oppose and disagree with. Yet they ignore their inner voice in order to ‘fit in with the rest.’ Man is a social animal and excommunication from the tribe has been tantamount to extinction of our lineage since our days as hunters and gatherers. By living transcendentally I have learned to acknowledge, welcome and accept the space between myself and my tribe. I invite you to do the same. -/- Learning to listen to the God within, I can trust my inner voice more because there is a message spoken there, uniquely for me, that will never be printed on the pages of the Bible, or the Koran, or the Tao Te Ching, or any other book for that matter. There’s only one YOU. Others may have your name, but not your identity. They may share your birth date and hospital, but not your parents. They may share your parents, but not your name. Do you see what I’m getting at here? Therefore how can a ‘one-size fits all’ religion, education or philosophy possibly answer the question to your meaning of life? There is no the meaning of life, because there is no the life. There are infinite lives, for which infinite meanings must be furnished. Hence the importance of learning to trust yourself, your inner voice, conscience – the God within. (shrink)

Why should we avoid incoherence? An influential view tells us that incoherent combinations of attitudes are such that it is impossible for all of those attitudes to be simultaneously vindicated by the evidence. But it is not clear whether this view successfully explains what is wrong with certain akratic doxastic states. In this paper I flesh out an alternative response to that question, one according to which the problem with incoherent combinations of attitudes is that it is impossible for all (...) of those attitudes to be simultaneously knowledgeable. This alternative response explains what is wrong with akratic combinations of attitudes using commonly accepted epistemological theses. The paper still shows how this proposal is able to explain the badness of incoherent combinations involving the absence of attitudes, suspended judgment and credence. These explanations deploy the notions of knowledge and being in a position to know, instead of the notion of responding properly to the evidence. Finally, I suggest that this picture can be generalized to the realm of practical rationality as well. (shrink)

Deontological evidentialism is the claim that S ought to form or maintain S’s beliefs in accordance with S’s evidence. A promising argument for this view turns on the premise that consideration c is a normative reason for S to form or maintain a belief that p only if c is evidence that p is true. In this paper, I discuss the surprising relation between a recently influential argument for this key premise and the principle that ought implies can. I argue (...) that anyone who antecedently accepts or rejects this principle already has a reason to resist either this argument’s premises or its role in support of deontological evidentialism. (shrink)

W.K. Clifford’s famous 1876 essay The Ethics of Belief contains one of the most memorable lines in the history of philosophy: "it is wrong always, everywhere, and for anyone, to believe anything upon insufficient evidence." The challenge to religious belief stemming from this moralized version of evidentialism is still widely discussed today.

Deontological internalism is the family of views where justification is a positive deontological appraisal of someone's epistemic agency: S is justified, that is, when S is blameless, praiseworthy, or responsible in believing that p. Brian Weatherson discusses very briefly how a plausible principle of ampliative transmission reveals a worry for versions of deontological internalism formulated in terms of epistemic blame. Weatherson denies, however, that similar principles reveal similar worries for other versions. I disagree. In this article, I argue that plausible (...) principles of ampliative transmission reveal a worry for deontological internalism in general. (shrink)

3rd ed, 2021. A circumscription of the classical theory of computation building up from the Chomsky hierarchy. With the usual topics in formal language and automata theory.

This paper defends a novel account of how to determine the intrinsic value of possible worlds. Section 1 argues that a highly intuitive and widely accepted account leads to undesirable consequences. Section 2 takes the first of two steps towards a novel account by clarifying and defending a view about value-contribution that is based on some of W. D. Ross’ claims about the value of pleasure. Section 3 takes the second step by clarifying and defending a view about value-suppression that (...) is based on Ross’ claims about the interplay between prima-facie duties. Section 4 states and defends the account that I call Rossian Totalism. According to this account, the atoms of intrinsic value within a world only sometimes contribute their intrinsic value to the value of that world. (shrink)

For millennia, knowledge has eluded a precise definition. The industrialization of knowledge (IoK) and the associated proliferation of the so-called knowledge communities in the last few decades caused this state of affairs to deteriorate, namely by creating a trio composed of data, knowledge, and information (DIK) that is not unlike the aporia of the trinity in philosophy. This calls for a general theory of knowledge (ToK) that can work as a foundation for a science of knowledge (SoK) and additionally distinguishes (...) knowledge from both data and information. In this paper, I attempt to sketch this generality via the establishing of both knowledge structures and knowledge systems that can then be adopted/adapted by the diverse communities for the respective knowledge technologies and practices. This is achieved by means of a formal–indeed, mathematical–approach to epistemological matters a.k.a. formal epistemology. The corresponding application focus is on knowledge systems implementable as computer programs. (shrink)

My starting point is what I call the Normative Authority Conception of justification, where S is justified in their belief that p at t (to some degree n) if and only if their believing that p at t is not ruled out by epistemic norms that have normative authority over S at t. With this in mind, this paper develops an account of doxastic justification by first developing an account of the normative authority of epistemic norms. Drawing from work in (...) political philosophy, I argue that (a) the cognitive and evaluative commitments and concerns behind our actual practices of holding each other and ourselves accountable for our beliefs reveal which epistemic norms we have consented to be under, and that (b) it is because we have consented to be under the authority of these norms – by actually holding ourselves and others accountable to them – that they in turn have normative authority over us. By connecting the authority of epistemic norms to the authority we have over ourselves in this way, the resulting account of doxastic justification (i) explains why it can be appropriate to criticize, resent, or sanction someone for having unjustified beliefs, (ii) avoids the phenomena of normative alienation and normative parochialism, and (iii) respects the social and collective nature of epistemic justification. (shrink)

In this paper, I offer two counterexamples to the so-called ‘Uniqueness Thesis.’ As one of these examples rely on the thesis that it is possible for a justified belief to be based on an inconsistent body of evidence, I also offer reasons for this further thesis. On the assumption that doxastic justification entails propositional justification, the counterexamples seem to work.

Skeptical theism, broadly construed, is an attempt to leverage our limited cognitive powers, in some specified sense, against “evidential” and “explanatory” arguments from evil. Since there are different versions of these kinds of arguments, there are correspondingly different versions of skeptical theism. In this paper, I briefly explain three versions of these arguments from evil (two from William Rowe and one from Paul Draper) and the three versions of skeptical theism tailor-made to block them (from Stephen Wykstra, Michael Bergmann, and (...) Peter van Inwagen). (shrink)