La práctica de Actividad Física y Deportiva en los procesos de reinserción promueve escenarios formativos integrales para la construcción de relaciones saludables dentro del entramado social, presentándose como una herramienta efectiva para el trabajo con jóvenes en situación de riesgo por contexto de pandillas. Esta investigación tuvo como objetivo analizar la práctica del rugby como alternativa dentro de los procesos de reinserción social de jóvenes ex-integrantes de pandillas junto al Colectivo Calle, Paz y Respeto de la ciudad de Ibarra-Ecuador. La (...) investigación empleó un enfoque cualitativo basado en el estudio de caso y análisis etnográfico, utilizando entrevistas semiestructuradas para recopilar datos. El análisis, codificación y categorización de la información se realizó mediante el software MAXQDA, enfocándose en tres categorías: Actividad Física y Deportiva, Reinserción Social e Identidad. Los resultados revelan correlaciones significativas, como la relación entre reinserción social y oportunidades de superación; uso adecuado del tiempo libre y salud mental; y, la decisión de cambiar y oportunidades de superación. Se concluye que el rugby se presenta como un medio eficaz para la reinserción social de jóvenes en situación de riesgo, gracias a su potencial para mitigar conflictos, regular conductas violentas e inculcar hábitos positivos como la disciplina, respeto y compromiso. (shrink)

In this work we argue that there is no strong demarcation between pure and applied mathematics. We show this first by stressing non-deductive components within pure mathematics, like axiomatization and theory-building in general. We also stress the “purer” components of applied mathematics, like the theory of the models that are concerned with practical purposes. We further show that some mathematical theories can be viewed through either a pure or applied lens. These different lenses are tied to different communities, which endorse (...) different evaluative standards for theories. We evaluate the distinction between pure and applied mathematics from a late Wittgensteinian perspective. We note that the classical exegesis of the later Wittgenstein’s philosophy of mathematics, due to Maddy, leads to a clear-cut but misguided demarcation. We then turn our attention to a more niche interpretation of Wittgenstein by Dawson, which captures aspects of the aforementioned distinction more accurately. Building on this newer, maverick interpretation of the later Wittgenstein’s philosophy of mathematics, and endorsing an extended notion of meaning as use which includes social, mundane uses, we elaborate a fuzzy, but more realistic, demarcation. This demarcation, relying on family resemblance, is based on how direct and intended technical applications are, the kind of evaluative standards featured, and the range of rhetorical purposes at stake. (shrink)

Este trabajo tiene como objetivo examinar críticamente la discusión en torno a la identidad nacional panameña denominado el problema de lo panameño, particularmente aquellas perspectivas propuestas por filósofos profesionales, así como determinar su alcance y revisitar sus presupuestos. Con ello en mente, intentaremos contextualizar hasta donde sea posible dicha discusión, buscando poner de relieve los factores históricos que la motivan, además de evaluar la vigencia de esta.

The main objective of this paper is to address the problem of the philosophical method, which consists of the lack of consensus among philosophers regarding the proper procedure to carry out this human activity. In this sense, it examines a few methodological proposals put forward by some representatives of contemporary philosophy, emphasizing the impact that the development of modern science has had on such views. In addition, the plausibility of such proposals is assessed.

Este trabajo tiene como objetivo principal examinar y determinar las consecuencias de las metáforas contenidas en las obras de Diego Domínguez Caballero, fundador de la filosofía académica panameña. Tales metáforas se volvieron fundamentales para el desarrollo discursivo de la filosofía panameña y también para las ciencias sociales en el país, como la historia y la sociología. Con este fin, recurriremos a la teoría de las metáforas conceptuales desarrollada por Lakoff y otros como una herramienta de ayuda para analizar las que (...) Domínguez emplea. Del mismo modo, intentamos dar cuenta de la larga incidencia discursiva de dichas metáforas a la luz de los resultados de la investigación psicológica sobre el esencialismo. -/- The main objective of this work is to examine and determine the consequences of the metaphors contained in the works of Diego Domínguez Caballero, founder of Panamanian academic philosophy. Such metaphors became fundamental for the discursive development of Panamanian philosophy and also for the social sciences in this country, as history and sociology. To this end, we will turn to the theory of conceptual metaphors developed by Lakoff and others as a helpful tool in analyzing the ones used by Domínguez. In the same way, we try to account for the long discursive incidence of these metaphors in the light of the results of psychological research on essentialism. (shrink)

In this paper it is explored the relationship between the practice of philosophy and the development of a sort of professional intuition through it. That is to say, this paper is broadly concerned with a very traditional metaphilosophical topic, namely, the sort of abilities a skillful philosopher must possess to excel at philosophizing. More precisely, it critically examines the long-held common place in philosophy according to which the competences acquired through philosophical training are related to applying concepts. Such a view (...) has given way to the idea that philosophers gain expert intuitions -provided by philosophical training- about using concepts. In this sense, it has been shown in experimental philosophy that philosophers holding this notion of the practice of philosophy might be under the illusion of expertise. For these reasons, we argue, based on the work of the psychologist Deanna Kuhn, that philosophical expertise, on a more positive account, might be related to the evaluation, construction, and rebuttal of arguments. With this in mind, we also explore the relationship between intuition and arguments in philosophy. (shrink)

Con una metodología analítico-sintética, el propósito del presente artículo es ofrecer un fundamento teórico sobre la legitimidad de los actos y las decisiones morales. Por consiguiente, se resolverá la siguiente cuestión: ¿cuál es la función ética del derecho, en el marco del ejercicio de una conciencia y consciencia construidas por agentes morales? Se concluye que la coacción legítima debe fundarse en la protección universal de toda persona y en el sometimiento a objeciones por parte de los ciudadanos, con el propósito (...) de revisar la legitimidad y legalidad de las normas jurídicas. (shrink)

This article analyses the epistemic status of law and its presumption of being a science in relation with the so-called demarcation criterion proposed by different philosophers of science. Such criteria are the main analytical elements to differentiate scientific discourses from those who are not and the ones who pretend to be. In relation to those, pseudoscience and law are treated, to finally conclude with the exposition of the case of Daubert v. Merrill Dow Pharmaceuticals, in which a judicial process defined (...) demarcation criteria. This paper shows how the demarcation criteria of science and the concept of pseudoscience cannot be applied to law science given its own rationality. (shrink)

In this paper I argue that the search for explainable models and interpretable decisions in AI must be reformulated in terms of the broader project of offering a pragmatic and naturalistic account of understanding in AI. Intuitively, the purpose of providing an explanation of a model or a decision is to make it understandable to its stakeholders. But without a previous grasp of what it means to say that an agent understands a model or a decision, the explanatory strategies will (...) lack a well-defined goal. Aside from providing a clearer objective for XAI, focusing on understanding also allows us to relax the factivity condition on explanation, which is impossible to fulfill in many machine learning models, and to focus instead on the pragmatic conditions that determine the best fit between a model and the methods and devices deployed to understand it. After an examination of the different types of understanding discussed in the philosophical and psychological literature, I conclude that interpretative or approximation models not only provide the best way to achieve the objectual understanding of a machine learning model, but are also a necessary condition to achieve post hoc interpretability. This conclusion is partly based on the shortcomings of the purely functionalist approach to post hoc interpretability that seems to be predominant in most recent literature. (shrink)

On the fog of the misunderstanding of the truth, the choking with the will begin. We can use the above sentence in order to generalize the terms werra (Frankish–German), bellum (Latin) and polemos (Greek), whose meanings hints in the draw of fighting. On the early stage of the beginning of all the times, this fog has blinded in the driving (i.e. conscious) between the movement of the natural human being and the actions of the man, making many generations believe that (...) the human psychology is not based in any summum bonum but in some summum malum, as Thomas Hobbes does on his book Leviathan [Ho]. (shrink)

I argue that The Metaethical Moral Relativism has been being used as a form of support in order to commit desire–belief actions against Human Biology Principia. The lacking of Moral Epistemology allows me illustrate and explain practical downsides in the Ontological part of Moral Knowledge. I recommend a departure from The Biological Basis of Morality in favor to avoid contemporary misuses in the Justification of The Metaethical Moral Relativism.

”La fe y la Razón son como las dos alas con las cuales el espı́ritu humano se eleva hacia la contem- plación de la verdad”, es la metáfora que define Juan Pablo II en su encı́clica Fides et Ratio, para darnos entender que estos dos conceptos no se enfrentan entre sı́, como la mayorı́a de personas lo creen, cuando en realidad son un complemento necesario para llegar a conocer a Dios y su amor infinito.

Many word forms in natural language are polysemous, but only some of them allow for co-predication, that is, they allow for simultaneous predications selecting for two different meanings or senses of a nominal in a sentence. In this paper, we try to explain (i) why some groups of senses allow co-predication and others do not, and (ii) how we interpret co-predicative sentences. The paper focuses on those groups of senses that allow co-predication in an especially robust and stable way. We (...) argue, using these cases, but focusing particularly on the multiply polysemous word ‘school’, that the senses involved in co-predication form especially robust activation packages, which allow hearers and readers to access all the different senses in interpretation. (shrink)

In a recent paper, Erasmus et al. (2021) defend the idea that the ambiguity of the term “explanation” in explainable AI (XAI) can be solved by adopting any of four different extant accounts of explanation in the philosophy of science: the Deductive Nomological, Inductive Statistical, Causal Mechanical, and New Mechanist models. In this chapter, I show that the authors’ claim that these accounts can be applied to deep neural networks as they would to any natural phenomenon is mistaken. I also (...) provide a more general argument as to why the notion of explainability as it is currently used in the XAI literature bears little resemblance to the traditional concept of scientific explanation. It would be more fruitful to use the label “understandable AI” to avoid the confusion that surrounds the goal and purposes of XAI. In the second half of the chapter, I argue for a pragmatic conception of understanding that is better suited to play the central role attributed to explanation in XAI. Following De Regt (2017) and Kuorikoski and Ylikoski (2015), the conditions of satisfaction for understanding an ML system are fleshed out in terms of an agent’s success in using the system. (shrink)

A brief overview of the current status of the scholarship on Heidegger and contemporary art and of the contributions included in the special issue.

There is a growing awareness that there are many subtle forms of exclusion and partiality that affect the correct workings of a judicial system. The concept of epistemic injustice, introduced by the philosopher Miranda Fricker, is a useful conceptual tool to understand forms of judicial partiality that often go undetected. In this paper, we present Fricker’s original theory and some of the applications of the concept of epistemic injustice in legal processes. In particular, we want to show that the seed (...) planted by Fricker has flourished into a rich field of study in which the concept is used to analyze many different phenomena in law, not always following the original characterization provided by her. This has led to a distinction between what we will call the narrow version of the concept, which is closer to Fricker’s original account, and the wider version of epistemic injustice, which is a more controversial notion because it is always on the verge of morphing into other well-known concepts like sexism, racial discrimination, oppression, silencing, and gaslighting. We will show that the value of the narrow version is mostly theoretical, and that in order to use the concept of epistemic injustice one must adopt a more liberal understanding of it. (shrink)

Cada día es más evidente que existen muchas formas sutiles de exclusión y parcialidad que afectan el correcto funcionamiento de los sistemas jurídicos. El concepto de injusticia epistémica, introducido por la filósofa Miranda Fricker, ofrece una herramienta conceptual útil para comprender estas formas de exclusión y parcialidad judicial que a menudo pasan desapercibidas. En este artículo presentamos la teoría original de Fricker y algunas de las aplicaciones del concepto de injusticia epistémica en los procesos jurídicos. En particular, queremos demostrar que (...) la semilla sembrada por Fricker ha generado un floreciente campo de estudio en el cual el concepto se utiliza para analizar muchos fenómenos diferentes en el ámbito jurídico, no siempre siguiendo la caracterización original proporcionada por ella. Esto ha llevado a una distinción entre lo que llamaremos la versión estrecha del concepto, que se acerca a la descripción original de Fricker, y la versión más amplia de injusticia epistémica, que es una noción más controvertida porque existe el riesgo de que se confunda con otros conceptos más conocidos como el sexismo, la discriminación racial, la opresión, el silenciamiento y el gaslighting. Mostraremos que el valor de la versión estrecha es principalmente teórico y que para utilizar el concepto de injusticia epistémica se debe adoptar una comprensión más liberal del mismo. (shrink)

Proponents of the duty to vote (DTV) argue that in normal circumstances, citizens have the moral duty to vote in political elections. Discussions about DTV analyze _what_ the duty is, _who_ has this duty, _when_ they have it, and _why_ they have it. Missing are answers to the Specification Question: to _which_ elections does DTV apply? A dilemma arises for some supporters of DTV—in this paper, I focus on Julia Maskivker’s work—because either answer is problematic. First, I argue that it (...) is implausible that DTV applies to _all_ elections because this makes the duty too costly for the voter. Second, I argue that there are no good reasons why under normal circumstances DTV applies only to _some_ elections. I consider objections but conclude that the dilemma is successful and therefore the case for DTV is incomplete. (shrink)

This paper deals with the mutations in Wittgenstein’s treatment of the notions of “generality” and of “singularity”, from his first philosophy, in the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, to his later mature philosophy represented by the Philosophical Investigations. As we shall see, Wittgenstein’s philosophical handling of the notion of “visual perception” plays a key role in those conceptual transformations.

Los sesgos cognitivos afectan negativamente la toma de decisiones en todas las esferas de la vida, incluyendo las decisiones de los jueces. La imposibilidad de eliminarlos por completo de la práctica del derecho, o incluso de controlar sus efectos, contrasta con el anhelo de que las decisiones judiciales sean el resultado exclusivo de un razonamiento lógico-jurídico correcto. Frente el efecto sistemático, recalcitrante y porfiado de los sesgos cognitivos, una posible estrategia para disminuir su efecto es enfocarse, no en modificar el (...) comportamiento de los agentes judiciales, sino en moldear su entorno para que los sesgos tengan menos oportunidades de aparecer. En particular, es más provechoso concentrar los esfuerzos en identificar aquellas reglas procesales que faciliten o limiten el efecto de los sesgos. En este ensayo propongo un diálogo fructífero entre el derecho y la psicología que puede llevar a mejorar la calidad de los sistemas judiciales. La propuesta está basada en la creación de guías de práctica judicial que puedan servir de base para la creación de protocolos procesales que limiten en la medida de lo razonable sus efectos negativos y conduzcan a mejores decisiones judiciales. (shrink)

Trata-se de capítulo de um livro sobre a noção de "substância" na história da filosofia e contém uma discussão sobre a noção ordinária de "corpo" do ponto de vista da filosofia analítica.

Abstract In The Descent of Man (1879), Charles Darwin proposed a speculative evolutionary explanation of extended benevolence—a human sympathetic capacity that extends to all nations, races, and even to all sentient beings. This essay draws on twenty-first century social science to show that Darwin’s explanation is correct in its broad outlines. Extended benevolence is manifested in institutions such as legal human rights and democracy, in behaviors such as social movements for human rights and the protection of nonhuman animals, and in (...) normative attitudes such as emancipative values and a commitment to promote the rights or welfare of animals. These phenomena can be substantially explained by cultural evolutionary forces that trace back to three components of what Darwin called the human “moral sense”: (1) sympathy, (2) our disposition to follow community rules or norms, and (3) our capacity to make normative judgments. Extended benevolence likely emerged with “workarounds,” including political ideologies, that established an inclusive sympathetic concern for sentient life. It likely became as widespread as it is now due to recently arisen socio-economic conditions that have created more opportunities for people to have contact with and take the perspective of a broader cross-section of humanity, as well as other species. (shrink)

Why I thought it useful to offer an explanation of Hegel’s doctrine on the Incarnation was so that the reader may be empowered to identify Hegel’s influence in modern accounts of this mystery. Even if, in my view, Hegel’s interpretation of revealed religion differs greatly from Catholic Doctrine, it is not surprising to find the presence of some of his concepts in modern theology. In truth, what matters is not the theologian’s self-identification as Hegelian or as non-Hegelian, but whether or (...) not the theologian adopts Hegel’s concepts. This paper offers an explanation of the internal dynamism of Hegelian concepts and their relation to Christian doctrine in Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit. This research may help to show in what way it is possible to explain Christian religious doctrine with a philosophy other than the Thomistic one and how, at least in Hegel’s case, religious doctrine is changed and reduced to an erroneous philosophical content. Also, an attempt is made to show the internal “coherence” of this Hegelian re-reading of Christianity so that theologians may become more cautious about accepting an explanation of Christian doctrine simply because the Christian language is preserved in that explanation. (shrink)

Current work in language models (LMs) helps us speed up or even skip thinking by accelerating and automating cognitive work. But can LMs help us with critical thinking -- thinking in deeper, more reflective ways which challenge assumptions, clarify ideas, and engineer new concepts? We treat philosophy as a case study in critical thinking, and interview 21 professional philosophers about how they engage in critical thinking and on their experiences with LMs. We find that philosophers do not find LMs to (...) be useful because they lack a sense of selfhood (memory, beliefs, consistency) and initiative (curiosity, proactivity). We propose the selfhood-initiative model for critical thinking tools to characterize this gap. Using the model, we formulate three roles LMs could play as critical thinking tools: the Interlocutor, the Monitor, and the Respondent. We hope that our work inspires LM researchers to further develop LMs as critical thinking tools and philosophers and other 'critical thinkers' to imagine intellectually substantive uses of LMs. (shrink)

The objective of this article is to try to elucidate Wittgenstein’s ex-travagant thesis that each and every mathematical advancement involves some “semantical mutation”, i.e., some alteration of the very meanings of the terms involved. To do that we will argue in favor of the idea of a “modal incompati-bility” between the concepts involved, as they were prior to the advancement, and what they become after the new result was obtained. We will also argue that the adoption of this thesis profoundly (...) alters the traditional way of con-struing the idea of “progress” in mathematics. (shrink)

Tradução para o português do livro "Le Scepticisme Philosophique", Paris: Bordas, 1972, de André Verdan. Título da edição brasileira: O Ceticismo Filosófico. Florianópolis: Editora da UFSC, 1998, 135 páginas. ISBN: 8532801390 / ISBN-13: 9788532801395.

: New genetic technologies continue to emerge that allow us to control the genetic endowment of future children. Increasingly the claim is made that it is morally "irresponsible" for parents to fail to use such technologies when they know their possible children are at risk for a serious genetic disorder. We believe such charges are often unwarranted. Our goal in this article is to offer a careful conceptual analysis of the language of irresponsibility in an effort to encourage more care (...) in its use. Two of our more important sub-claims are: A fair judgment of genetic irresponsibility necessarily requires a thick background description of the specific reproductive choice; and there is no necessary connection between an act's being morally wrong and its being irresponsible. These are distinct judgments requiring distinct justifications. (shrink)

Voces de Carnaval: ritualidad festiva, resignificación cultural y mercantilismo, surge del interés de compartir experiencias de la ritualidad festiva en varias latitudes, especialmente latinoamericanas, para generar nuevos sentidos de encuentro cultural. Este espacio plural, motivado desde la Red Colombia Festiva junto con el Instituto de Estudios en Comunicación y Cultura de la Universidad Nacional de Colombia sede Bogotá, varias universidades públicas, la Universidad Politécnica Salesiana de Quito, a través de la carrera de Antropología, el grupo de investigación Filosofía de la (...) Educación GIFE y la editorial Abya-Yala, abrieron la puerta a esta polifonía de reflexiones analíticas y críticas que se decantan en este libro. El lector encontrará pensamientos diversos que re-crean la fiesta desde los cuerpos individuales y colectivos y sus formas de entender y sentir la ritualidad heredada, pero a la vez mediada por las necesidades emergentes de relacionarse y participar del goce y disfrute de la libertad como principal desinhibidor de colectivos sociales que reclaman su derecho a expresar lo que les es limitado, a través de las formas prohibidas fuera de la esfera ceremonial. (shrink)

The following is a paper presented for the Course Rahner and Lonergan at the University of Toronto (Winter, 2014), revised and edited Winter, 2018. Our purpose is to defend the possibility of “perceptualism,” that is to say, the position maintaining that the intelligible content of consciousness is given in perception and not posited by the activity of the subject. Assisted by the insights of Cornelio Fabro, this defense contrasts perceptualism with Bernard Lonergan’s “critical realism”. This paper focuses on the notion (...) of experience, seemingly the basis of the opposition between perceptualism and critical realism. (shrink)

Durante los últimos años, el problema de cómo justificar aquellas creencias que se originan en testimonios ha ocupado un lugar central en la epistemología. Sin embargo, muy pocas de esas reflexiones son conocidas en el derecho probatorio. En el presente ensayo analizo la prueba testimonial a la luz de estas reflexiones con el fin de poner de manifiesto los supuestos epistemológicos de algunos principios procesales. En concreto, analizo la legislación colombiana y la estadounidense en el marco de la disputa entre (...) el reduccionismo y el antirreduccionismo en la filosofía del testimonio. Al final sugiero una nueva aproximación epistemológica que replantea los términos de la disputa y que tiene implicaciones importantes para la valoración de la prueba testimonial en los procesos judiciales. (shrink)

This paper is an attempt to clarify, from a Thomistic point of view, the nature and method of metaphysics. I argue that metaphysics' object is created being, not God, even if God enters metaphysics as efficient cause of metaphysic's object. Also, that metaphysics is a science, insofar as a particular kind of coherent reasoning process, going from the many to understand a certain oneness, and then from that oneness to reinterpret the many. Moreover, that, in this particular process of reasoning, (...) doctrinal topics must follow a certain order. Thus, in particular, I argue that the distinction between essence and act of being in every creature cannot be argued before arguing the existence of God. I touch upon the notion of separation in metaphysics and I compare Aquinas' notion of resolution with Fabro's notion. (shrink)

Some Molinists claim that a perfectly good God would actualize a world that is salvifically optimal, that is, a world in which the balance between the saved and damned is optimal and cannot be improved upon without undesirable consequences. I argue that given some plausible principles of rationality, alongside the assumptions Molinists already accept, God’s perfect rationality necessarily would lead him to actualize a salvifically optimal world; I call this position “Optimistic Molinism.” I then consider objections and offer replies, concluding (...) that Optimistic Molinism is undefeated and merits further exploration. (shrink)

In the discourse on International Justice, traditional frameworks are deeply rooted in 'embodied metaphysics'—a perspective embedded in the tangible experiences of human existence. By contrasting the physical with the digital realms, I suggest that our current global justice systems are ill-equipped to address the complexities of the digital age. Utilizing the metaphor of water to highlight the often-unseen environment shaping justice theories and practices, I argue that International Justice, as conventionally understood, reflects the constraints akin to fish oblivious to the (...) water surrounding them. In digital spaces, individuals are no longer bound by principles of singularity and locality, and instead operate by principles of multiplicity and nonlocality. These metaphysical differences disrupt many theories of global justice assuming singularity and nonlocality. My aim is to encourage scholars and practitioners to 'see water'—to acknowledge and critically reassess the foundational assumptions underlying their theories and practices in an era of digital transformation. (shrink)

Resumen: Una de las formas más comunes y menos estudiadas de parcialidad judicial subjetiva es la disminución de la credibilidad otorgada a un testigo debido a un prejuicio identitario implícito del agente judicial. En la epistemología social, este fenómeno ha sido estudiado bajo la rúbrica de la injusticia testimonial. En este ensayo mostramos que para determinar la ocurrencia de un caso de injusticia testimonial en el derecho se deben cumplir tres condiciones que son imposibles de verificar empíricamente y que están (...) basadas en presupuestos psicológicos que han sido puestos en duda en años recientes. Sin la posibilidad de verificar estas condiciones, estamos frente a un tipo de parcialidad judicial indetectable. En su lugar, ofrecemos una nueva forma de entender la injusticia testimonial en el derecho como un fenómeno más general que describe una tendencia comportamental prejuiciosa recurrente por parte de un agente judicial. Entendida de este modo, la injusticia testimonial es completamente verificable. -/- Abstract: One of the most common and least studied forms of subjective judicial partiality is the credibility deficit suffered by a witness due to an implicit identity prejudice in a judicial agent. Social epistemologists have studied this form of partiality under the rubric, “testimonial injustice.” In this essay we argue that to verify the occurrence of a singular instance of testimonial injustice in law three facts must be established, none of which can be established with any degree of confidence. Furthermore, all of them are based on psychological suppositions that have been recently discredited. Without the possibility of establishing these facts, we end up with an undetectable form of subjective judicial partiality. In its place, we offer a new way of understanding testimonial injustice in law as a general phenomenon that describes a recurrent pattern of prejudiced behavior in a judicial agent. Under this characterization, testimonial injustice becomes empirically verifiable. (shrink)

Rules 405(a) and 608(a) of the Federal Rules of Evidence allow the use of testimony about a witness’s reputation to support or undermine his or her credibility in trial. This paper analyzes the evidential weight of such testimony from the point of view of social epistemology and the theory of social networks. Together they provide the necessary elements to analyze how reputation is understood in this case, and to assess the epistemic foundation of a reputational attribution. The result of the (...) analysis will be that reputational testimony is extremely weak from an epistemological point of view, and that in many cases there are more reliable substitutes that achieve a similar purpose. The obvious fix, in my view, is to eliminate the use of reputation testimony to support or undermine the credibility, honesty, chastity or peacefulness of a witness. (shrink)

Para solucionar a questão “sobre o que há” levantada por Quine, e realizar a tarefa de compreender de forma exauriente as muitas unidades ontológicas que povoam a grande província do Ser, propomos como alternativa à ontologia punteliana, uma nova ontologia designada de “Ontologia Estrutural” (OE). Tal ontologia parte de bases teóricas sistemático-estruturais, mas desemboca em uma visão diversa em que co-subsistem unidades factuais estruturadas, configurações estruturais (dinâmicas), bem como unidades ontológicas aparentes (objetos), todas englobadas pela subdimensão temporal que as interconexiona, (...) compreendida esta como uma subdimensão (interna) da macrodimensão do Ser. Nesse sentido, começamos situando a temática ontológica na discussão filosófica atual a partir de uma chave quineana; prosseguimos apresentando um conceito de verdade derivado de nossa leitura da filosofia punteliana, o qual constituirá o ponto de ligação entre linguagem e mundo. Na sequência, mostramos como do conceito de verdade trazido à lume, após uma breve incursão na semântica filosófica, chegamos ao campo ontológico a partir das categorias ontológicas de estrutura e estado ontológico. Ao final, delineamos, em seus caracteres gerais, a nossa ontologia estrutural, compreensiva de noções ontológicas próprias que dão novos rumos à compreensão filosófica desta grande temática. (shrink)

Many theists conceive of God as a perfect being, i.e., as that than which none greater is metaphysically possible. On this grand view of God, it seems plausible to think that such a supreme and maximally great being would not be subject to luck of any sort. Given the divine perfections, God is completely insulated from luck. However, I argue that the opposite is true: precisely because God is perfect, he is subject to a kind of luck called constitutive luck. (...) In this paper, first I provide an analysis of luck and then explain the concept of constitutive luck. I proceed to defend constitutive luck from charges of incoherence and examine a different approach to make sense of this luck. Furthermore, I distinguish between two kinds of constitutive luck and argue that even if God isn’t subject to one kind, evading the second kind is unsuccessful. I offer two ways that God is constitutively lucky and reach a surprising conclusion: a perfect being is the luckiest of all possible beings. (shrink)

O presente artigo tem como tema as extensas discussões de Wittgenstein sobre uma das formas mais simples e elementares de infinitude em matemática: as dízimas periódicas. Tentamos organizar os vários argumentos do autor em uma única exposição continuada. No final do artigo, introduzimos, ainda que de forma breve, o famoso argumento sobre “execução de regras” de Wittgenstein, bem como a idéia de interpretações nãostandard de processos infinitos.

A common objection to probabilistic theories of causation is that there are prima facie causes that lower the probability of their effects. Among the many replies to this objection, little attention has been given to Mellor's (1995) indirect strategy to deny that probability-lowering factors are bona fide causes. According to Mellor, such factors do not satisfy the evidential, explanatory, and instrumental connotations of causation. The paper argues that the evidential connotation only entails an epistemically relativized form of causal attribution, not (...) causation itself, and that there are clear cases of explanation and instrumental reasoning that must appeal to negatively relevant factors. In the end, it suggests a more liberal interpretation of causation that restores its connotations. Una objeción común a las teorías probabilísticas de la causalidad es que aparentemente existen causas que disminuyen la probabilidad de sus efectos. Entre las muchas respuestas a esta objeción, se le ha dado poca atención a la estrategia indirecta de D. H. Mellor (1995) para negar que un factor que disminuya la probabilidad de un efecto sea una causa legítima. Según Mellor, tales factores no satisfacen las connotaciones evidenciales, explicativas e instrumentales de la causalidad. El artículo argumenta que la connotación evidencial sólo implica una forma epistémicamente relativizada de atribución causal y no la causalidad misma, y que hay casos claros de explicación y razonamiento instrumental que deben apelar a factores negativamente relevantes. Se sugiere una interpretación más liberal de la causalidad que reinstaura sus connotaciones. (shrink)

El objetivo de este pequeño trabajo es ayudar a comprender la necesidad de la composición real en el ser participado. Lo hacemos sirviéndonos de una parte de la magnífica obra del p. Fabro, La noción metafísica de participación. En la primera parte de nuestro trabajo nos serviremos de algunos de los textos de Santo Tomás que reportaba el p. Fabro, los que más nos ayuden a comprender la demostración. En la segunda, y al mismo efecto, estudiaremos el silogismo del p. (...) Fabro, con el cual dicho autor trataba de condensar la demostración de la composición real en todo ser participado. (shrink)

According to Molinism, logically prior to his creative decree, God knows via middle knowledge the truth value of the counterfactuals or conditionals of creaturely freedom (CFs) and thus what any possible person would do in any given circumstance. Critics of Molinism have pointed out that the Molinist God gets lucky that the CFs allow him to actualize either a world of his liking or even a good-enough world at all. In this paper, I advance and strengthen the popular critique in (...) two ways. First, I specify the kind of luck to which God is subject, which is circumstantial moral luck. Second, and more importantly, I argue that exposure to this luck is problematic because something external to God and beyond his control determines the degree of praiseworthiness he deserves in relevant possible worlds. My main contention is that divine subjection to circumstantial moral luck raises the theoretical costs of Molinism. (shrink)

A discussion of the ethics of stem cell research, and attempts to regulate it.

John McDowell and Bill Brewer famously defend the view that one can only have empirical beliefs if one’s perceptual experiences serve as reasons for such beliefs, where reasons are understood in terms of subject’s reasons. In this paper I show, first, that it is a consequence of the adoption of such a requirement for one to have empirical beliefs that children as old as 3 years of age have to considered as not having genuine empirical beliefs at all. But we (...) have strong reasons to think that 3-year-old children have empirical beliefs, or so I argue. If this is the case, McDowell and Brewer’s requirement for one to have empirical beliefs faces a strong challenge. After showing this, I propose an alternative requirement for one to have empirical beliefs, and argue that it should be favoured over McDowell and Brewer’s requirement. (shrink)

El testimonio es nuestra mayor fuente de creencias. La gran mayoría de nuestras creencias han sido adquiridas a partir de las palabras de otros y no a través de la observación directa del mundo. Una de las peculiaridades de la mayor parte de las creencias testimoniales es que son aceptadas sin ninguna deliberación consciente. Mientras el testimonio sea consistente con nuestras creencias y la fuente sea confiable, la reacción más corriente es la aceptación automática de la información (Thagard 2004, 2005). (...) Nuestra confianza en el testimonio de los demás es un requisito no sólo para la construcción colectiva del conocimiento (Hardwig 1985, 1991), sino también para la interacción social en general. Sin embargo existen contextos en los que la aceptación apresurada de un testimonio falso puede tener consecuencias nefastas. En contextos científicos, legales, políticos y financieros, entre otros, se toman decisiones importantes y se implementan políticas cruciales a partir de las afirmaciones de otros. En estos contextos la aceptación de un testimonio debe ser el resultado de un proceso de decisión basado en criterios objetivos de justificación. Sin embargo, existen dos objeciones al intento de justificar la aceptación de un testimonio (Coady 1973, 1992). La primera es que cualquier justificación será irremediablemente circular puesto que la inmensa mayoría de testimonios obtienen su justificación, al menos en parte, de evidencia de tipo testimonial. La segunda es que nuestras inferencias acerca de la confiabilidad de ciertos tipos de testimonio nunca tendrán un apoyo inductivo lo suficientemente fuerte debido a que los casos en los que un tipo de testimonio puede ser verificado directamente en la experiencia nunca serán lo suficientemente numerosos. En este ensayo presento una solución al problema de cómo decidir racionalmente si un testimonio puede ser aceptado como evidencia probatoria en una investigación. Mi propuesta, que está basada en la teoría de revisión de creencias desarrollada por Levi (1984, 1991), muestra que la aceptación justificada de un testimonio está basada en exactamente los mismos mecanismos de adquisición de creencias que operan en el caso de evidencias no testimoniales; al mismo tiempo, la propuesta da cuenta de las particularidades que se presentan en el proceso de evaluación de una evidencia testimonial. Mi tesis es que la decisión de aceptar un testimonio es un proceso que se cumple en dos etapas. En la primera se busca una justificación pare el testimonio buscando todos los hechos que aumenten la probabilidad de que el testimonio sea verdadero, es decir, de que el testigo o declarante esté reportando verídicamente un hecho. La aceptación de estos hechos y de su relación probabilística positiva con respecto al testimonio está basada en la búsqueda de un equilibrio entre su credibilidad y su valor informativo. En la segunda etapa, se determina si la justificación obtenida en la primera es suficiente para la aceptación del testimonio, de nuevo buscando encontrar un equilibrio entre su credibilidad y la utilidad de la información que contiene en promover los intereses y metas cognitivas del investigador. (shrink)

The following is an interpretation of Aquinas’ agent intellect focusing on Summa Theologiae I, qq. 75-89, and proposing that the agent intellect is a metaphysical rather than a formal a priori of human understanding. A formal a priori is responsible for the intelligibility as content of the object of human understanding and is related to Kant’s epistemological views; whereas a metaphysical a priori is responsible for intelligibility as mode of being of this same object. We can find in Aquinas’ text (...) many indications that the agent intellect is not productive of the universal as content but is, rather, productive of the abstracted or intelligible mode of being of the universal nature. This is because for Aquinas the universal nature, which is the object of human understanding, is present in the things themselves but with a different mode of being. Chapter 1 is intended to establish the fact which requires for Aquinas an agent intellect, and provides two very important principles: one is that the object of human understanding (the universal nature) is present in the things themselves and, the other, that it is not in the things themselves with a mode of being which makes it available to the intellectual eye. These two principles lead us to the main point of Chapter 2, namely the distinction between the intelligible object and its intelligible mode of being. Now, because knowing is receptive of the intelligible object (Chapter 3), which is present in the things themselves (Chapter 1), the agent intellect is productive not of the object’s intelligible content, but of its abstracted or intelligible mode of being (Chapter 4). (shrink)

[Stephen Yablo] The usual charge against Carnap's internal/external distinction is one of 'guilt by association with analytic/synthetic'. But it can be freed of this association, to become the distinction between statements made within make-believe games and those made outside them-or, rather, a special case of it with some claim to be called the metaphorical/literal distinction. Not even Quine considers figurative speech committal, so this turns the tables somewhat. To determine our ontological commitments, we have to ferret out all traces of (...) nonliterality in our assertions; if there is no sensible project of doing that, there is no sensible project of Quinean ontology. /// [Andre Gallois] I discuss Steve Yablo's defence of Carnap's distinction between internal and external questions. In the first section I set out what I take that distinction, as Carnap draws it, to be, and spell out a central motivation Carnap has for invoking it. In the second section I endorse, and augment, Yablo's response to Quine's arguments against Carnap. In the third section I say why Carnap's application of the distinction between internal and external questions runs into trouble. In the fourth section I spell out what I take to be Yablo's version of Carnap. In the last I say why that version is especially vulnerable to the objection raised in the second. (shrink)

This paper offers a new interpretation for Wittgenstein`s treatment of mathematical identities. As it is widely known, Wittgenstein`s mature philosophy of mathematics includes a general rejection of abstract objects. On the other hand, the traditional interpretation of mathematical identities involves precisely the idea of a single abstract object – usually a number –named by both sides of an equation.

El uso de sistemas de machine learning en los procesos de selección laboral ha sido de gran utilidad para agilizarlos y volverlos más eficientes, pero al mismo tiempo ha generado problemas en términos de equidad, confiabilidad y transparencia. En este artículo comenzamos explicando los diferentes usos de la Inteligencia Artificial en los procesos de selección laboral en Estados Unidos. Presentamos los sesgos sexuales y raciales que han sido detectados en algunos de ellos y explicamos los obstáculos jurídicos y prácticos para (...) su detección y análisis. Un posible remedio jurídico a la discriminación algorítmica es el régimen de impacto diferencial sistémico utilizado en Estados Unidos. Usamos algunas características de este régimen para señalar los vacíos jurídicos frente a la discriminación en el acceso al empleo en el ámbito del derecho laboral colombiano, y ofrecemos algunas características generales que podría tener un régimen de esa naturaleza. (shrink)

These thirteen paragraphs portray epistemology as the study, not directly of knowing as a human action (which could be considered the object also of anthropology) but as the study of the mode of being of the object in the subject and, in this sense, of intentional being. Moreover, intentional being is not understood as the being of the cognitional species or representation, which is real and subjective, but as the being of the known, as the presence of the known to (...) the knower (obviously, through the species but a being not reduced to the subjective being of the species): this kind of being is the proper object of epistemology. Other considerations regarding the distinction between metaphysics and epistemology take place as well. As regards the method, this essay attempts to apply Aquinas’ four steps of scientific reasoning to epistemology, in the following fashion and order: 1- Solution of the problem of the universals by recourse to the theory of the agent intellect (resolutio secundum rem); 2- Definition of knowledge as intentional possession of being (res. sec. rationem); 3- Judgment of value regarding the different instances of human knowledge or critique of knowledge (compositio secundum rem) and 4- Reinterpretation (in the light of the previous path) of common notions of epistemology, such as truth, certainty, evidence, and error (comp. sec. rationem). (shrink)