This article presents the incidence of the symbol through Latin-American philosophical reflection. It is possible to think of a philosophical activity through the symbol, as a place of a multiplicity of meanings and senses. A new understanding of the symbol lead to re-discover it from the experience of the indigenous Andean communities and Latin American baroque art. The incidence of the symbol in the educational process is performed through an ethical perspective and hermeneutics that focuses on new alternatives for teaching (...) philosophy in the classroom. (shrink)

This article values the importance of symbolic language through an Analog Hermeneutics and Communication Community. This philosophical itinerary starts in a collective subject called “Us” (“nosotros”) from the Latin American philosophical reflection. The symbol, such as meaningful space for semantics, shows up in a symbolic language that includes a variety of rationalities. This inclusion through symbolic language allows strengthening the “a priori” of a Communication Community that supports and ethical and historical “us”. For this purpose, an Analog Hermeneutics is presented (...) as a valid method for philosophical thinking around the symbolic language. The analogy allows considering the ambiguous and unambiguous of languages and the hermeneutics through the symbol allows us to speak and think beyond what is stated. The Analog Hermeneutics invites to recover the different meanings and to interpret the senses through the symbol in different cultures. The symbol is a new inspiration for traditional Philosophy because it recovers wisdoms, customs, images and traditions. (shrink)

In a paper recently published in this journal, Navin and Largent argue in favour of a type of policy to regulate non-medical exemptions from childhood vaccination which they call ‘Inconvenience’. This policy makes it burdensome for parents to obtain an exemption to child vaccination, for example, by requiring parents to attend immunization education sessions and to complete an application form to receive a waiver. Navin and Largent argue that this policy is preferable to ‘Eliminationism’, i.e. to policies that do not (...) allow non-medical exemptions, because Inconvenience has been shown to maintain exemption rates low while not harming parents by forcing them to do something that goes against their beliefs. We argue that it is at least doubtful that Inconvenience is ethically preferable to Eliminationism: while the latter disregards the value of liberty, Inconvenience disregards the value of fairness in the distribution of the burdens entailed by the preservation of a public good like herd immunity. We propose a variant of Inconvenience, which we call ‘Contribution’, which we think is preferable to the versions of Inconvenience discussed by Navin and Largent in that it successfully strikes a balance between the values of parents’ liberty, fairness and expected utility. (shrink)

Kant claims that the nominal definition of truth is: “Truth is the agreement of cognition with its object”. In this paper, I analyse the relevant features of Kant's theory of definition in order to explain the meaning of that claim and its consequences for the vexed question of whether Kant endorses or rejects a correspondence theory of truth. I conclude that Kant's claim implies neither that he holds, nor that he rejects, a correspondence theory of truth. Kant's claim is not (...) a generic way of setting aside a correspondence definition of truth, or of considering it uninformative. Being the nominal definition of truth, the formula “truth is the agreement of cognition with its object” illustrates the meaning of the predicate “is true” and people's ordinary conception of truth. True judgements correspond to the objects they are about. However, there could be more to the property of truth than correspondence. (shrink)

This article focuses on an Ethno philosophy through intercultural philosophy and dialogue. This philosophical reflection stands on an historical, cultural and ethical subject known as “us” in the Latin American experience. From an intercultural dialog and its philosophy, there will be an approach of Ethno philosophy as a new way of thinking and doing philosophy from interculturalism, the recovery of ancestral knowledge and the dialogue of different forms of knowledge from the diversity of worldviews of different cultures and ethnic groups.

Many scholars claimed that, according to Immanuel Kant, some judgements lack a truth-value: analytic judgements, judgements about items of which humans cannot have experience, judgements of perception, and non-assertoric judgements. However, no one has undertaken an extensive examination of the textual evidence for those claims. Based on an analysis of Kant's texts, I argue that: (1) according to Kant, only judgements of perception are not truth-apt. All other judgements are truth-apt, including analytic judgements and judgements about items of which humans (...) cannot have experience. (2) Kant sometimes states that truth-apt judgements are actual bearers of truth or falsity only when they are taken to state what is actually the case. Kant calls these judgements assertoric. Other texts ascribe truth and falsity to judgements, regardless of whether they are assertoric. Kant's views on truth-aptness raise challenges for correspondentist and coherentist interpretations of Kant's theory of truth; they rule out the identification of Kant's crucial notion of objective validity with truth-aptness; and they imply that Kant was not a verificationist about truth or meaning. (shrink)

L'objectiu d'aquest article és oferir un anàlisi dels arguments principals del Tractat sobre els Principis del Coneixement Humà, de G. Berkeley. Aquests arguments -que es troben a I, §4, I, §5-7 i I, §23 de l'obra de Berkeley- tenen como a objectiu demostrar la inconcebibilitat d'un món extern de caràcter físic. Argumentaré que la validesa d'aquests tres arguments depèn del anomenat «principi de semblança». La conclusió a la que arribaré és que l'acceptació del principi de semblança -i, en conseqüència, dels (...) arguments que d'ell en depenen- es problemàtica, però que, en qualsevol cas, el principi es manté com a una bona crítica reductiva al materialisme representacionalista de John Locke, en tant que aquest no pot negar les premisses que duen a la seva justificació i que la seva defensa contra dit principi presenta un seguit de problemes als quals sembla no haver-hi resposta. (shrink)

Kant's writings on logic illustrate the comparison argument about truth, which goes as follows. A truth-bearer p is true if and only if it corresponds, or it agrees, with a portion of reality: the object(s), state(s) of affairs, or event(s) p is about. In order to know whether p agrees with that portion of reality, one must check if that portion of reality is as p states. Using the terms of the comparison argument, one must compare p with that portion (...) of reality. This is impossible, because the only knowledge of reality we can have is in the form propositions, beliefs, or judgments, whose agreement with reality is as much in need of justification as the agreement of p with reality. Therefore, it is impossible to know which truth-bearers are true. This paper reconstructs Kant's version of the comparison argument. It is argued that, according to Kant, the argument is sound only under the assumption of transcendental realism. Transcendental idealism avoids the sceptical consequences of the comparison argument. (shrink)

Technological developments involving robotics and artificial intelligence devices are being employed evermore in elderly care and the healthcare sector more generally, raising ethical issues and practical questions warranting closer considerations of what we mean by “care” and, subsequently, how to design such software coherently with the chosen definition. This paper starts by critically examining the existing approaches to the ethical design of care robots provided by Aimee van Wynsberghe, who relies on the work on the ethics of care by Joan (...) Tronto. In doing so, it suggests an alternative to their non-principled approach, an alternative suited to tackling some of the issues raised by Tronto and van Wynsberghe, while allowing for the inclusion of two orientative principles. Our proposal centres on the principles of autonomy and vulnerability, whose joint adoption we deem able to constitute an original revision of a bottom-up approach in care ethics. Conclusively, the ethical framework introduced here integrates more traditional approaches in care ethics in view of enhancing the debate regarding the ethical design of care robots under a new lens. (shrink)

In this paper, I will claim that fictional works apparently about utterly immigrant objects, i.e., real individuals imported in fiction from reality, are instead about fictional individuals that intentionally resemble those real individuals in a significant manner: fictional surrogates of such individuals. Since I also share the realists’ conviction that the remaining fictional works concern native characters, i.e., full-fledged fictional individuals that originate in fiction itself, I will here defend a hyperrealist position according to which fictional works only concern fictional (...) individuals. (shrink)

In this paper I argue for a syncretistic theory of depiction, which combines the merits of the main paradigms which have hitherto faced themselves on this issue, namely the perceptualist and semioticist approaches. The syncretistic theory indeed takes from the former its stress on experiential factors and from the latter its stress on conventional factors. But the theory is even more syncretistic than this, for the way it accounts for the experiential factor vindicates several claims defended by different perceptualist theories. (...) In a nutshell, according to the syncretistic theory a picture depicts its subject iff i) it is transformed into an entity-cum-meaning and ii) one has the twofold experience of seeing that subject in the picture qua noninterpreted entity, the image, just in case one consciously misrecognizes it in consciously seeing that image, for that subject resembles the image in some grouping properties (originally labelled Gestalt-qualities in psychology). By appealing to objective resemblance in grouping properties, the theory can vindicate what are nowadays taken to be the most neglected doctrines in the perceptualist camp: objective resemblance theories. By appealing, moreover, to conscious misrecognition, the theory not only squares with both the seeing-in and the recognition theories of depiction, but it also shows the grain of truth in illusion theories of depiction, since conscious misrecognition is a kind of perceptual illusion. (shrink)

Alireza Bagheri supports a policy on organ procurement where individuals could choose their own definition of death between two or more socially accepted alternatives. First, we claim that such a policy, without any criterion to distinguish accepted from acceptable definitions, easily leads to the slippery slope that Bagheri tries to avoid. Second, we suggest that a public discussion about the circumstances under which the dead donor rule could be violated is more productive of social trust than constantly moving the line (...) between life and death. (shrink)

In his essay against Eberhard, Kant denies that there are innate concepts. Several scholars take Kant’s statement at face value. They claim that Kant did not endorse concept innatism, that the categories are not innate concepts, and that Kant’s views on innateness are significantly different from Leibniz’s. This paper takes issue with those claims. It argues that Kant’s views on the origin of the intellectual concepts are remarkably similar to Leibniz’s. Given two widespread notions of innateness, the dispositional notion and (...) the input/output notion, intellectual concepts are innate for Kant no less than for Leibniz. (shrink)

The purpose of this article is to inquire into the perception and sense of what is considered sacred by youth mediated by the use of technology, the internet and social media. Based on an approximation to digital young generations and theirperception of what is considered sacred, there is an approach to investigatereligion and digital culture. What is sacred is built and showed in alternativespaces out of traditional institutions, such as the internet and social media. Thecyberspace allows what is sacred to (...) get closer to the human being in his pursueof God. (shrink)

The aim of this chapter is to analyse the concept of love —understood in the broad and Christian-inspired sense of love as agape-charis love— in relation to the animes Dragon Ball and Dragon Ball Z. I first comment on the character of Piccolo —and how his friendship with Son Gohan— leads to him losing all his original villainous traits. I argue that the evolution of the character of Piccolo through his friendship with Son Gohan illustrates the philosophical claim that a (...) loving and giving of oneself to the other —far from being a sign of weakness— is a courageous and self-affirming exercise. The result may move the individual to an inner transformative experience that leads to the enjoyment of a renewed and authentic life that is worth living. I then argue that Son Goku’s respectful attitude towards his opponents is ultimately a loving attitude. Last, I argue that it is the inspiring and loving example of Son Goku that ultimately explains why characters such as Vegeta —who are at first presented as villains— end up losing their villainous traits after fighting against Son Goku. (shrink)

This paper discusses Immanuel Kant’s views on the role of experiments in natural science, focusing on their relationship with hypotheses, laws of nature, and the heuristic principles of scientific enquiry. Kant’s views are contrasted with the philosophy of experiment that was first sketched by Francis Bacon and later developed by Robert Boyle and Robert Hooke. Kant holds that experiments are always designed and carried out in the light of hypotheses. Hypotheses are derived from experience on the basis of a set (...) of heuristic principles. The function of experiments is testing hypotheses in order to either reject them as false, or else to transform them into empirical laws of nature. To this end, we must integrate the hypotheses that are confirmed by experiments with the a priori principles which are the foundations of natural science. Compared with Bacon, Boyle, and Hooke, Kant has elaborate views on the one hand, on how our theoretical and pre-theoretical assumptions bear on experimental practice, and on the other hand, on how the results of experimental activity can be integrated with theories to advance our knowledge of nature. However, Kant overstates the dependence of experiments on theories. (shrink)

This paper traces the ancestry of a familiar historiographical narrative, according to which early modern philosophy was marked by the development of empiricism, rationalism, and their synthesis by Immanuel Kant. It is often claimed that this narrative became standard in the nineteenth century, due to the influence of Thomas Reid, Kant and his disciples, or German Hegelians and British Idealists. The paper argues that the narrative became standard only at the turn of the twentieth century. This was not due to (...) the influence of Reid, German Hegelians, or British Idealists as they did not endorse the narrative, although Thomas Hill Green may have facilitated its uptake. The narrative is based on Kant’s historiographical sketches, as corrected and integrated by Karl Leonhard Reinhold. It was first fleshed out into full-fledged histories by two Kantians, Wilhelm Gottlieb Tennemann and Johann Gottlieb Buhle. Numerous historians, several of whom were not Kantians, spread it in the English-speaking world. They include Kuno Fischer, Friedrich Ueberweg, Richard Falckenberg, and Wilhelm Windelband. However, the wide availability of their works did not suffice to make the narrative standard because, until the 1890s, the Hegelian account was at least as popular as theirs. Among the factors that allowed the narrative to become standard are its aptness to be adopted by philosophers of the most diverse persuasions, its simplicity and suitability for teaching. (shrink)

En la consideración de numerosos asuntos y respecto de muy variadas exposiciones, el uso de expresiones como "filosófica" sugiere que debemos remitirnos a procederes, preguntas o exigencias especiales. Rabossi propone un modo de caracterizar el sentido con que usamos esas expresiones y, sobre esa base, concluye que la filosofía tal como se la practica desde hace doscientos años pretende ser una disciplina profesional pero no puede serlo debido a la índole de la preceptiva que la constituye. En este artículo se (...) examinan sus argumentos y se sostiene que, aunque no parecen suficientes para la conclusión a la que apuntan, hay razones para modificarlos de cierto modo que conducen a ese resultado. Whenever expressions like "X is philosophical" appear in different questions and assorted statements, the reference to special kinds of actions, questions or demands are suggested by these uses. Rabossi propounds a way for characterizing the sense of our using such expressions and, based on it, he states that philosophy, as it is accomplished from the last two centuries up to now, pretends to be a professional discipline but she cannot to be as such because the nature of its precepts. Rabossi's arguments are examined and it is maintained that although they do not seem to be sufficient for the pursued conclusion, there are reasons to modify them such a way to come to that conclusion. (shrink)

Conscientious objection in health care is a form of compromise whereby health care practitioners can refuse to take part in safe, legal, and beneficial medical procedures to which they have a moral opposition (for instance abortion). Arguments in defense of conscientious objection in medicine are usually based on the value of respect for the moral integrity of practitioners. I will show that philosophical arguments in defense of conscientious objection based on respect for such moral integrity are extremely weak and, if (...) taken seriously, lead to consequences that we would not (and should not) accept. I then propose that the best philosophical argument that defenders of conscientious objection in medicine can consistently deploy is one that appeals to (some form of) either moral relativism or subjectivism. I suggest that, unless either moral relativism or subjectivism is a valid theory—which is exactly what many defenders of conscientious objection (as well as many others) do not think—the role of moral integrity and conscientious objection in health care should be significantly downplayed and left out of the range of ethically relevant considerations. (shrink)

El objetivo de este artículo es clarificar la noción de «vida auténtica» tal y como es descrita por Joan Roura-Parella en su última obra Tema y variaciones de la personalidad (1950). Por «vida auténtica» se entiende una vida autogobernada, que permite al individuo realizar su propia singularidad y, por tanto, preservar su autonomía y dignidad como persona. Una vida dominada por factores ajenos al propio individuo, sean cuales sean éstos, es una vida alienada, que no permite el desarrollo del individuo (...) en tanto la persona que es. Se señala la relevancia filosófica de la propuesta de Roura-Parella, que es la de ofrecer una justificación no-evidencial para una forma de vida cristiana, agapística. De acuerdo con Roura-Parella, una forma de vida basada en la entrega amorosa para con el prójimo está justificada en tanto que ésta es el resultado último de nuestra propia condición natural, constituyendo así un acto de afirmación personal y siendo, por tanto, condición necesaria para gozar de una vida auténtica — «la vida alcanza su hondo sentido al salirse de sí misma para darse a los demás» (Roura-Parella, Tema y variaciones de la personalidad, 1950, p. 229). Se señalan las diferencias y semejanzas de la propuesta de Roura-Parella con respecto a las de Miguel de Unamuno y Joaquim Xirau, autores que fueron cercanos a Roura-Parella y quienes, aunque partiendo de razonamientos distintos a los de Roura-Parella, también concibieron la entrega amorosa para con el prójimo como un acto de afirmación personal. (shrink)

In this paper I want to show that the idea supporters of traditional creationism (TC) defend, that success of a fictional character across different works has to be accounted for in terms of the persistence of (numerically) one and the same fictional entity, is incorrect. For the supposedly commonsensical data on which those supporters claim their ideas rely are rather controversial. Once they are properly interpreted, they can rather be accommodated by moderate creationism (MC), according to which fictional characters arise (...) out of a reflexive stance on a certain make-believe process. For MC, success of a fictional character across different works amounts to the fact that, first, different work-bound ficta are related with each other by means of a relation weaker than numerical identity, transfictional sameness, and second, that all those ficta are related by transfictional inclusion to a fictum that in some sense gather them all, the so-called general character. Since a general character is an abstract constructed entity, moreover, the more those particular ficta are generated, the more general fictional characters including all of them arise. (shrink)

Il est rare, en philosophie, qu'on rencontre un problème ayant reçu une solution définitive. Dans le cadre de la philosophie contemporaine du langage, cependant, la critique de Russell à Meinong fait souvent figure d'exception à la règle - ce que l'on ne peut, eu égard à certains aspects de la philosophie de Meinong, que déplorer. Selon l'interprétation courante, la théorie des descriptions définies de Russell - que Ramsey qualifia de “paradigme de philosophie” - aurait mis hors jeu une fois pour (...) toutes la doctrine ontologique de Meinong, caractérisée par des thèses d’apparence paradoxale telles que : “il y a des choses telles qu’il n’y a pas de telles choses”, “l’objet est au-delà de l’être et du non-être”, “l’être-ainsi [le fait d’avoir des propriétés] précède l’existence (Dasein)”. Récemment pourtant, on a tenté, de toutes parts, de faire revivre la doctrine meinongienne. Je pense ici aux diverses propositions, toutes d’inspiration meinongienne, avancées par Castañeda 1989, Parsons 1980, Rapaport 1978, Routley 1980 et Zalta 1983. Mais bien que toutes ces propositions aient développé certaines intuitions meinongiennes de manière certainement plus raffinée d’un point de vue formel que Meinong lui-même, elles ont été perçues comme de purs modèles théoriques sans aucun doute intéressants, mais incapables en tant que tels de déplacer les termes de la question, comme Russell l’avait fait à l’égard de Meinong. Ainsi naît l’exigence de repenser le thème complet et d’évaluer dans quelle mesure la critique de Russell pose vraiment de sérieuses difficultés aux thèses meinongiennes. Nous verrons ainsi ce qu’il faut, dans ces dernières, considérer comme mort, et ce qui, au contraire, jouit toujours d'une validité objective. Si ce qui suit est plausible, nous découvrirons que ces thèses résistent pour la plupart aux critiques de Russell, à condition qu’on les considère de façon adéquate. (shrink)

Several scholars have criticized the histories of early modern philosophy based on the dichotomy of empiricism and rationalism. They view them as overestimating the importance of epistemological issues for early modern philosophers (epistemological bias), portraying Kant's Critical philosophy as a superior alternative to empiricism and rationalism (Kantian bias), and forcing most or all early modern thinkers prior to Kant into the empiricist or rationalist camps (classificatory bias). Kant is often said to be the source of the three biases. Against this (...) criticism, this paper argues that Kant did not have the three biases. However, he promoted a way of writing histories of philosophy from which those biases would naturally flow. (shrink)

In 1930, the Spanish philosopher Miguel de Unamuno (1864–1936) wrote one of his most well-known novels, San Manuel Bueno, mártir [Saint Manuel Bueno, Martyr]. The novel is about the fictional character Manuel Bueno, a catholic priest from a small Spanish village who, despite being unable to believe the Christian claim that there is an after earthly death life, devotes himself to the spiritual care of his people, being thereby sanctified after his death. The aim of this paper is to show (...) that the guideline of San Manuel Bueno, mártir is the expression, in fictional, non-philosophical language, of the conception of religious faith Unamuno had already defended in his major philosophical work, Del sentimiento trágico de la vida en los hombres y los pueblos [The Tragic Sense of Life in Men and Nations]. (shrink)

Spanish translation and introductory study on Louis Pojman’s “Faith without Belief?”. Published in Pojman, Louis. “¿Fe sin creencia?”. Estudios Filosóficos, vol. 70, no. 205 (2021), pp. 465–486. [Introductory study published in Oya, Alberto. “La fe experimental de Louis Pojman”. Estudios Filosóficos, vol. 70, no. 205, pp. 461–463 (2021)].

Although the notion of empiricism looms large in many histories of early modern philosophy, its origins are not well understood. This paper aims to shed light on them. It examines the notions of empirical philosopher, physician, and politician that are employed in a range of seventeenth- and eighteenth-century texts, alongside related notions (e.g. "experimental philosophy") and methodological stances. It concludes that the notion of empiricism used in many histories of early modern thought does not have pre-Kantian origins. It first appeared (...) and became widely used in late eighteenth-century Germany, in the course of the early debates on Kant's Critical philosophy. (shrink)

Is it possible ontologically to think about education? Can the ontological category of “being” allow us to think of an educational human being? How can the ontological category of “being there” contextualize the educational reality in Latin America? These questions will guide an ontological reflection based on Latin-American philosophical categories “being” and “being there” for thinking about education. This reflection will propose an ontological presence of the symbol from the analogy and the educational experience, as a reality that opens to (...) new experiences in teaching and learning. (shrink)

In this paper, I will first try to provide a new argument in favour of the contextualist position on the semantics/pragmatics divide. I will argue that many puns, notably multi-stable ones, cannot be dealt with in the non-contextualist way, i.e., as displaying a phenomenon that effectively involves wide context, the concrete situation of discourse, yet only in a pre-, or at least inter-, semantic sense. For, insofar as they involve ambiguous utterances rather than ambiguous sentences, these puns show that the (...) wide context affecting them has a semantic role: it provides many truth-conditions for a single utterance. Moreover, I will try to show that the contextualist can provide a unitary account of the general phenomenon of puns. On the one hand, this account explains multi-stable puns as well as those puns the non-contextualist claims to deal with successfully, i.e., the ones involving a speaker-induced removal of a well-grounded misunderstanding. On the other hand, it also explains zeugmatic puns, i.e., those involving an ‘impossible’ meaning. (shrink)

Ernst Cassirer claimed that Kant's notion of actual object presupposes the notion of truth. Therefore, Kant cannot define truth as the correspondence of a judgement with an actual object. In this paper, I discuss the relations between Kant's notions of truth, object, and actuality. I argue that's notion of actual object does not presuppose the notion of truth. I conclude that Kant can define truth as the correspondence of a judgement with an actual object.

This paper discusses an apparent contrast between Kant’s accounts of the mathematical antinomies in the first Critique and in the Prolegomena. The Critique claims that the antitheses are infinite judgements. The Prolegomena seem to claim that they are negative judgements. For the Critique, theses and antitheses are false because they presuppose that the world has a determinate magnitude, and this is not the case. For the Prolegomena, theses and antitheses are false because they presuppose an inconsistent notion of world. The (...) paper argues that the contrast between the two works is only apparent, and provides an interpretation which removes it. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to argue against the received view among Unamuno scholars that Miguel de Unamuno was defending a sort of pragmatic argument for religious faith and that his notion of religious faith as “querer creer” (“wanting to believe”) is to be identified with William James’s “the will to believe”. As I will show in this paper, one of the aspects that makes Unamuno’s reasoning philosophically relevant is his ability to formulate a non-pragmatist defense of religious faith (...) without a prior commitment to the truth of any religious or theological statement and grounded in our longing for an endless existence through God’s Salvation. (shrink)

Reliance on intuitive and emotive responses is widespread across many areas of bioethics, and the current debate on biotechnological human enhancement is particularly interesting in this respect. A strand of “bioconservatives” that has explicitly drawn connections to the modern conservative tradition, dating back to Edmund Burke, appeals explicitly to the alleged wisdom of our intuitions and emotions to ground opposition to some biotechnologies or their uses. So-called bioliberals, those who in principle do not oppose human bioenhancement, tend to rely on (...) rational arguments and to see intuitions and emotions mostly as sources of biases. This approach often translates into shifting the burden of proof onto bioconservatives and challenging them to provide arguments against the proposed enhancement to back what bioliberals perceive as merely intuitive, emotive, and irrational reactions. -/- In this article, I am going to show that the methodological divide between bioliberals and bioconservatives is less significant than at first glance it appears to be and less significant than it is often taken to be. I will do so by defending two theses. The first is that reliance on intuitions and emotions is not a prerogative of bioconservatives: bioliberals have their typical intuitions and emotive responses and are for this reason exposed to potential biases in the same way as bioconservatives are. The second thesis is that reliance on intuitions and emotions is not necessarily antithetic to reason and rationality. This latter thesis has been philosophically defended with particular reference to the debate on biotechnologies, while the former is perhaps more controversial and more difficult to accept—at least for bioliberals. In both cases, I will support the claims by drawing on resources from the field of moral psychology and the sciences of the mind and, particularly, by applying to some positions in the enhancement debate recent findings about the role of intuitions and emotions in human moral assessment. This new empirically informed perspective holds promises for solving the methodological controversy between bioconservatives and bioliberals, thus enabling proper dialogue and debate between the two sides. (shrink)

In this paper, I want to show that, far from being incompatible, a Predicate Theory of proper names and the Direct Reference thesis can be combined in a syncretistic account. There are at least three plausible such accounts – one which compares proper names in their referential use to referentially used proper definite descriptions, another one that compares them in this use to demonstratives, and a third one which, although it is as indexicalist as the second one, conceives proper names (...) in this use as a sui generis form of indexicals, indexinames. Finally, I will try to give both technical and substantive reasons as to why the third account is to be preferred to the other two. (shrink)

In (1959), Carnap famously attacked Heidegger for having constructed an insane metaphysics based on a misconception of both the logical form and the semantics of ordinary language. In what follows, it will be argued that, once one appropriately (i.e., in a Russellian fashion) reads Heidegger’s famous sentence that should paradigmatically exemplify such a misconception, i.e., “the nothing nothings”, there is nothing either logically or semantically wrong with it. The real controversy as to how that sentence has to be evaluated—not as (...) to its meaning but as to its truth—lies at the metaphysico- ontological level. For in order for the sentence to be true one has to endorse an ontology of impossibilia and Leibniz’s principle of the identity of indiscernibles. (shrink)

In this paper, I will present several interpretations of Brentano’s notion of the intentional inexistence of a mental state’s intentional object, i.e., what that state is about. I will moreover hold that, while all the interpretations from Section 1 to Section 4 are wrong, the penultimate interpretation that I focus in Section 5, the one according to which intentional inexistence amounts to the individuation of a mental state by means of its intentional object, is correct provided that it is nested (...) into the really right interpretation, the final one I give in Section 6. For it provides one of the merely necessary conditions of this latter interpretation. According to this final interpretation,intentional inexistence amounts to the constitution of a mental state by means of its intentional object. Finally, I will hold that both such interpretations preserve the idea, which strikes everyone as true, that an intentional object exists in the mental state aboutit pretty much as a pictorial character exists in the picture (qua interpreted entity) that depicts it. (shrink)

The articles in the symposium “Teaching Early Modern Philosophy: New Approaches” provide theoretical reflections and practical advice on new ways of teaching undergraduate survey courses in early modern philosophy. This introduction lays out the rationale for the symposium and summarizes the articles that compose it.

El objetivo de este artículo es explorar la manera en que Joaquim Xirau y Miguel de Unamuno concibieron el amor. A pesar de que no hay motivos suficientes para concluir una influencia directa y filosóficamente relevante de Unamuno en la obra de Xirau, sí podemos concluir que la forma en que ambos autores concibieron el amor guarda ciertas similitudes. Así, ambos coinciden en concebir la entrega amorosa como un ejercicio de afirmación individual que trae consigo un incremento de la propia (...) singularidad. También, tanto Unamuno como Xirau conciben la entrega amorosa como un acto que, aun surgiendo del propio individuo y no de como es de hecho el mundo, personifica aquello amado, dejando de ser así visto como un mero objeto y mostrándose bajo una forma personal. Y ambos, aunque de un modo distinto, hacen del relato bíblico acerca de la vida y Resurrección de Cristo un aspecto central de sus maneras de entender el amor. (shrink)

This paper reconstructs the natural philosophical method of Geminiano Montanari, one of the most prominent Italian natural philosophers of the late seventeenth century. Montanari’s views are used as a case study to assess recent claims concerning early modern experimental philosophy. Having presented the distinctive tenets of seventeenth-century experimental philosophers, I argue that Montanari adheres to them explicitly, thoroughly, and consistently. The study of Montanari’s views supports three claims. First, experimental philosophy was not an exclusively British phenomenon. Second, in spite of (...) some portrayals of experimental philosophy as an ‘atheoretical’ or ‘purely descriptive’ enterprise, experimental philosophers could consistently endorse a variety of natural philosophical explanations and postulate theoretical entities. Third, experimental philosophy and mechanical philosophy were not, as such, antagonistic. They could be consistently combined in a single philosophical enterprise. (shrink)

El objetivo de esta nota es mostrar que no hay ningún motivo para llamar irracionalista a Miguel de Unamuno. Unamuno puso límites a la razón y rechazó lo que, a su juicio, constituía una violación de dichos límites (el cientificismo y el intelectualismo), pero en ningún momento despreció el uso de la razón.

According to Crane’s schematicity thesis (ST) about intentional objects, intentionalia have no particular metaphysical nature qua thought-of entities; moreover, the real metaphysical nature of intentionalia is various, insofar as it is settled independently of the fact that intentionalia are targets of one’s thought. As I will point out, ST has the ontological consequence that the intentionalia that really belong to the general inventory of what there is, the overall domain, are those that fall under a good metaphysical kind, i.e., a (...) kind such that its members figure (for independent reasons) in such an inventory. Negatively put, if there are no things of a certain metaphysical kind, thoughts about things of that kind are not really committed to such things. Pace Crane, however, this does not mean that the intentionalia that are really there are only those that exist. For existence, qua first-order property, is no metaphysical kind. Thus, there may really be intentionalia that do not exist, provided that they belong to good metaphysical kinds. (shrink)

This article reconstructs Kant's view on the existential import of categorical sentences. Kant is widely taken to have held that affirmative sentences (the A and I sentences of the traditional square of opposition) have existential import, whereas negative sentences (E and O) lack existential import. The article challenges this standard interpretation. It is argued that Kant ascribes existential import only to some affirmative synthetic sentences. However, the reasons for this do not fall within the remit of Kant's formal logic. Unlike (...) traditional logic and modern standard quantification theory, Kant's formal logic is free from existential commitments. (shrink)

On various occasions, Kendall Walton has put forward a theory of depiction based on the notion of make-believe: P depicts something only if in virtue of having a perception of P, one makes believe that that very experience is the perception of P’s subject. As a consequence, if an individual is not able to make believe, whatever they face in their perception does not count as a depiction for her. Yet there are many evidences from developmental psychology that show that (...) very little children still unable to make believe can grasp a picture’s figurative value. As a result, Walton’s theory of depiction seems to be inadequate from an empirical point of view. Moreover, it also appears to be inadequate from a conceptual point of view. Walton’s ambition is to account in pretence-theoretical terms of what the twofold experience of seeing-in, which Wollheim took to be a necessary condition of depiction, amounts to. Yet relying on make-believe, hence on imagination, does not account for the genuinely perceptual character of the “seeing-in” experience. No treatment of imagination in terms of visualization seems to achieve such a purpose. (shrink)

The articles in the special issue "Experience in natural philosophy and medicine" discuss the roles and notions of experience in the works of a range of early modern authors, including Galileo Galilei, Francis Bacon, the Dutch atomist David Gorlaeus, William Harvey, and Christian Wolff. The articles extend the evidential basis on which we can rely to identify trends, changes and continuities in the roles and notions of experience in the period of the Scientific Revolution. They shed light on the longstanding (...) influence of traditional views and the emergence of early modern experimental philosophy. This introduction highlights the benefits of considering medicine in connection with natural philosophy when studying early modern views on experience and summarizes the articles. (shrink)

How do we form concepts like those of three, bicycle and red? According to Kant, we form them by carrying out acts of comparison, reflection and abstraction on information provided by the senses. Kant's answer raised numerous objections from philosophers and psychologists alike. "Kant e la formazione dei concetti" argues that Kant is able to rebut those objections. The book shows that, for Kant, it is possible to perceive objects without employing concepts; it explains how, given those perceptions, we can (...) form categories and empirical concepts; and it argues that theories like Kant's - abstractionist theories of concept formation - are more plausible than is often assumed. (shrink)

Johannes Müller von Königsberg (1436-1476), better known as Regiomontanus, is widely considered as the most influential astronomer and mathematician of 15th-century Europe. He was active as an astrologer and deemed astrology to be the queen of mathematical sciences. Despite this, Regiomontanus's astrological activity has yet to be fully explored. A brief examination of Regiomontanus's manuscripts shows that his astrological interests were accompanied by interests in the arts and in methods of prognostication. This article studies an unconventional astrological-chiromantical text, whose relevance (...) is threefold: a) it sheds new light on Regiomontanus's astrological interests; b) it enriches our knowledge of Regiomontanus's efforts to learn and understand Greek-Regiomontanus transcribed it into his own manuscript during his sojourn in Italy from 1460-1467; and c) it is the sole extant text in the Greek tradition that provides a system for prognostication from the study of a person's hand, the parts of which are considered as being under the domain of planets. The article provides an English translation of Regiomontanus's transcription, alongside a brief commentary, and studies the intellectual and historical context of that production through manuscript analysis. (shrink)

In this paper, I will defend the claim that there are three existence properties: the second-order property of being instantiated, a substantive first-order property (or better a group of such properties) and a formal, hence universal, first-order property. I will first try to show what these properties are and why we need all of them for ontological purposes. Moreover, I will try to show why a Meinong-like option that positively endorses both the former and the latter first-order property is the (...) correct view in ontology. Finally, I will add some methodological remarks as to why this debate has to be articulated from the point of view of reality, i.e., by speaking of properties, rather than from the point of view of language, i.e., by speaking of predicates (for such properties). (shrink)

This paper replies to Claudio La Rocca's criticisms of my account of Kant's views on concept formation. On my account, Kant holds that, although all conscious experiences of adult human beings are informed by the categories, it is possible to represent objects by means of non-conceptualized intuitions. La Rocca rejects that claim. In this paper, I first discuss the passages cited by La Rocca. I then argue that Kant's account of the formation of the categories presupposes that it is possible (...) to represent and group objects without employing any concepts. (shrink)

In this paper, I want to address once more the venerable problem of intentional identity, the problem of how different thoughts can be about the same thing even if this thing does not exist. First, I will try to show that antirealist approaches to this problem are doomed to fail. For they ultimately share a problematic assumption, namely that thinking about something involves identifying it. Second, I will claim that once one rejects this assumption and holds instead that thoughts are (...) constituted either by what they are about, their intentional objects, or by what determines their proposition-like intentional contents, one can address the problem of intentional identity in a different way. One can indeed provide a new solution to it that basically relies on two factors: a) what sort of metaphysical nature intentional objects effectively possess, once they are conceived as schematic objects à la Crane (2001, 2013); b) whether such objects really belong to the overall ontological inventory of what there is. According to this solution, two thoughts are about the same nonexistent intentional object iff i) that object satisfies the identity criterion for objects of that metaphysical kind and ii) objects of that kind belong to the overall ontological inventory of what there is, independently of whether they exist (in a suitable first-order sense of existence). As such, this solution is neither realist nor antirealist: only if condition ii) is satisfied, different thoughts can be about the same nonexistent intentionale; otherwise, they are simply constituted by the same intentional content (provided that this content is not equated with that intentionale). Third, armed with this solution, I will hold that one can find a suitable treatment of the specific and related problem of whether different people may mock-think about the same thing, even if there really is no such thing. Finally, I will try to show that this treatment can be also applied to the case in which different thoughts are, according to phenomenology, about the same intentionale and yet this intentionale is of a kind such that there really are no things of that kind. For in this case, such thoughts are about the same intentionale only fictionally. (shrink)

Comix Zone (Sega Technical Institute, 1995) is a two-dimensional scrolling beat ‘em up videogame released in 1995 for the Sega Mega Drive (known as Sega Genesis in North America). Comix Zone has two peculiarities which makes it even today an easily distinguishable videogame. These peculiarities are interrelated. First, Comix Zone imitates the aesthetics and visual settings peculiar to comic books, the aim of which is to join the experience of playing a videogame with that of reading a comic; and second, (...) Comix Zone is ultimately grounded on the philosophical claim that fictional characters are actually existing entities, distinct from, and even colliding with, their creator(s). It is pointed out that this claim on the nature of fictional characters was seriously argued for, and put it into literary practice, by the Spanish philosopher Miguel de Unamuno (1864–1936). (shrink)

In this paper, I will argue that the main contrast between religious fictionalism and other recently developed fictionalist positions in other non-religious fields of enquiry is the sort of personal and affective relationship said to be felt by the religious person between them and God, the feeling of being in a loving and personal communion with God. I will argue that a realist, non-Meingonian artifactual fictionalist understanding of God, along the lines that philosophers such as Schiffer and Thomasson have already (...) defended on non-religious grounds regarding fictional characters, seems to be the most direct way of preserving the possibility of the religious person standing in an actual relation to God while also maintaining a fictionalist understanding of religious faith. Last, I will argue that conceiving of God in these realist artifactual terms, and despite allowing the possibility of the religious person standing in an actual relation to God, fails to preserve a genuine personal relationship between the concrete religious person and God. (shrink)