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)

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)

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)

Traditional institutions are often considered inadequate to govern for the long term as their politicians promote short-term thinking which can harm the future. This book proposes a novel theory of social time perception to address the short-term thinking of traditional institutions which threaten to stifle liberal democracies. The semi-future reconfigures liberal democracies’ franchises, representative instruments, deliberative practices, accountability mechanisms, and policymaking to include in the demos all citizens, regardless of age, and holders of representable objective interests in the future. The (...) result is not only a way to legitimise long-term governance but also to improve the quality of current democracies. (shrink)

Imagine that you are part of the editorial board of a young bioethics journal committed to publishing open access (OA) and to ensuring accessibility to high quality and innovative scholarship. To support junior and interna- tional scholars who might not otherwise find places for their work in the leading Western bioethics journals, you do not charge author fees. Imagine also that you have no financial resources to pay for a professional website, auto- mated submissions manager, or even a part-time coordina- (...) tor: Your government has cut all grants for journals, you cannot go to industry for private funding because of the evident risk of apparent conflicts of interest, and your strapped-for-cash institution cannot afford to offer you any support. If one of the major publishers were to approach you to sign a deal, the temptation would be strong to accept. However, this would likely mean putting aside your ideals: It would be impossible to stay a “Green OA” publication (i.e., free of author publication charges) or supportive of junior and international scholars (because of pressures to “increase credibility” through artificially high rejection rates, for example). (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.

Uno de los principios éticos mencionados más frecuentemente en los lineamientos para el desarrollo de la inteligencia artificial (IA) es la transparencia algorítmica. Sin embargo, no existe una definición estándar de qué es un algoritmo transparente ni tampoco es evidente por qué la opacidad algorítmica representa un reto para el desarrollo ético de la IA. También se afirma a menudo que la transparencia algorítmica fomenta la confianza en la IA, pero esta aseveración es más una suposición a priori que una (...) tesis basada en evidencia empírica. Tampoco se discute mucho hasta qué punto es técnicamente posible volver transparente la caja negra de la IA a través de los métodos de explicabilidad. En este capítulo haré un análisis de la interrelación entre los conceptos de transparencia, explicabilidad y confianza. Inicialmente, analizaré los diferentes tipos de opacidad algorítmica para entender mejor cuál es el problema al que nos enfrentamos. En las secciones subsiguientes trazaré la relación entre explicabilidad y transparencia, y presentaré los límites de los métodos actuales de explicabilidad. En la sección final, examinaré la evidencia empírica acerca de la relación entre transparencia y confianza en las decisiones automatizadas basadas en sistemas de IA. (shrink)

In this paper I defend the idea that there is a sense in which it is meaningful and useful to talk about objective understanding, and that to characterize that notion it is necessary to formulate an account of explanation that makes reference to the beliefs and epistemic goals of the participants in a cognitive enterprise. Using the framework for belief revision developed by Isaac Levi, I analyze the conditions that information must fulfill to be both potentially explanatory and epistemically valuable (...) to an inquiring agent and to a scientific community. To be potentially explanatory, the information must state the relations of probabilistic relevance that the explanans bares to the explanandum. But a potential explanation con only be a bona fide explanation if it becomes part of inquiry, that is, if an agent or a group of agents can see any value in it for their cognitive purposes. I provide a way to evaluate the epistemic value of a potential explanation as a function of its credibility and its informational content. (shrink)

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)

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)

In the natural and social sciences, it is common to use toy models—extremely simple and highly idealized representations—to understand complex phenomena. Some of the simple surrogate models used to understand opaque machine learning (ML) models, such as rule lists and sparse decision trees, bear some resemblance to scientific toy models. They allow non-experts to understand how an opaque ML model works globally via a much simpler model that highlights the most relevant features of the input space and their effect on (...) the output. The obvious difference is that the common target of a toy and a full-scale model in the sciences is some phenomenon in the world, while the target of a surrogate model is another model. This essential difference makes toy surrogate models (TSMs) a new object of study for theories of understanding, one that is not easily accommodated under current analyses. This paper provides an account of what it means to understand an opaque ML model globally with the aid of such simple models. (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)

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)

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)

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)

(Tesis de Licencia en Filosofía. Moderador Alessandro Salucci, OP. Angelicum, Roma, Febrero 2006) -/- El problema causal está íntimamente ligado y nos lleva necesariamente al problema del ser, finito e infinito. Por tanto, no es un problema más en la filosofía. En la larga discusión que se planteó en el último período escolástico (fines del s. XIX y primera mitad del s. XX) las líneas de solución más originales las ha dado el p. Cornelio Fabro -/- Por lo tanto, nos (...) proponemos investigar su propuesta de solución. El p. Fabro defendía la necesidad de la dependencia causal a través de la noción de participación. Nuestro objetivo es por tanto hacer un análisis crítico de la postura del p. Fabro acerca de la dependencia causal como exigencia del ser participado, a través del estudio de algunas de sus obras más importantes al respecto. Buscamos respondernos por qué para el p. Fabro el ser participado exige una causa, y valorar sus argumentos. -/- Como hemos dicho, para nuestro trabajo nos valdremos ante todo del estudio de algunas de las obras más importantes del p. Cornelio Fabro con respecto a la causalidad. Nos referimos en concreto a tres de ellas: la primera, el artículo La difesa critica del principio di causa, donde el autor expone de un modo preciso la noción de participación como el fundamento de la justificación crítica del principio de causalidad. Las otras dos obras son La Nozione Metafisica di Partecipazione secondo San Tommaso d’Aquino, donde la noción de participación es puesta al centro de la metafísica tomista, como clave de bóveda de las tesis más características de la doctrina del Angélico; y Partecipazione e Causalità, obra en la cual el autor rescata el esse tomista original como fundamento de una metafísica de la causalidad. -/- Este estudio nos ha llevado a destacar la importancia de la noción de “ser que no es por sí” como noción esencialmente relacionada a la noción de participación y por otro lado cuasi necesaria para hacer el pasaje a la causa. (shrink)

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)

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)

Given the importance of the principle of causality for the demonstration of God’s existence, this paper attempts to justify the evidence and necessity of the principle of causality, by following Fr. Fabro’s Thomistic defense—based on the notion of participation—but adding a particular emphasis on the notion of “being which is not per se,” this latter as an explanatory notion of the notion of “being which is by participation.” The introductory remarks touch upon two misunderstandings regarding the notion of participation employed (...) as a subject of the principle of causality: the first, considering “participated being” as a synonym of “received being,” and the second, the confusion, regarding the notion of being by participation, between its notional dependence on the notion of being as a whole and its real dependence on the real intensive Being. Then, in the first point, the defense of the principle of causality is distinguished from other related problems, like the particular applications of this principle. In the second and main point, we try to justify the necessity of being caused in the being which is experienced as being by participation, as follows: 1) that which is something by participation is not this something per se; 2) now, that which is not per se, either is not or is per aliud, 3) Therefore, that which is something by participation is per aliud. In the third and last point, we endeavor to justify the Thomism of our defense and of our emphasis on this notion of “being which is not per se” by considering two texts of St. Thomas. (shrink)

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)

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)

Testimony about the future dangerousness of a person has become a central staple of many judicial processes. In settings such as bail, sentencing, and parole decisions, in rulings about the civil confinement of the mentally ill, and in custody decisions in a context of domestic violence, the assessment of a person’s propensity towards physical or sexual violence is regarded as a deciding factor. These assessments can be based on two forms of expert testimony: actuarial or clinical. The purpose of this (...) paper is to examine the scientific and epistemological basis of both methods of prediction or risk assessment. My analysis will reveal that this kind of expert testimony is scientifically baseless. The problems I will discuss will generate a dilemma for factfinders: on the one hand, given the weak predictive abilities of the branches of science involved, they should not admit expert clinical or actuarial testimony as evidence; on the other hand, there is a very strong tradition and a vast jurisprudence that supports the continued use of this kind of expert testimony. It is a clear case of the not so uncommon conflict between science and legal tradition. (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)

: 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)

Margaret Urban Walker argues that hospital ethics committees should think of their task as "keeping moral space open." I develop her suggestion with analogies: Enlarge the windows (i.e., expand what counts as an ethical issue); add rooms and doors (i.e., choose particular issues to engage). Examples include confidentiality defined as information flow, and moral distress in the healthcare workplace.

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)

El artículo expone el papel del otro y de lo otro en la hermenéutica de Gadamer a la luz de la idea de diálogo. Para comprender se requiere reconocer lo otro en su carácter de tú, asumir que no se tiene distancia frente a él y estar abierto a acoger lo dicho por él como una posible verdad. La compresión posee una estructura dialéctica que implica la cancelación de las propias expectativas y el acceso a un saber más abarcante. Aunque (...) la comprensión es histórica, en ella se muestra cada vez un aspecto de la cosa misma, que resulta de la interacción del yo y el tú en el curso de la conversación hermenéutica y que constituye una verdad común con caracteres análogos a los del saber de tipo práctico. [The paper exposes the role of the other in Gadamer’s hermeneutics in the light of the idea of dialogue. Understanding requires the recognition of the other as a thou, the acceptance of the lack of distance from him and the openness to embrace what is said by him as a possible truth. Understanding has a dialectical structure which implies the cancellation of one’s own expectations and the access to a more comprehensive knowledge. Even though every understanding is historical, it discloses an aspect of the thing itself, which results from the interaction of the I and the thou during the process of hermeneutical conversation and constitutes a common truth with analogous characteristics to practical reason.] . (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)

Research, innovation, and progress in the life sciences are increasingly contingent on access to large quantities of data. This is one of the key premises behind the “open science” movement and the global calls for fostering the sharing of personal data, datasets, and research results. This paper reports on the outcomes of discussions by the panel “Open science, data sharing and solidarity: who benefits?” held at the 2021 Biennial conference of the International Society for the History, Philosophy, and Social Studies (...) of Biology, and hosted by Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory. (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)

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)

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.

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)

This paper is my best attempt to confute (Kantian) Modern Philosophy at its very core. This implies, of course, that in my view the principles of Critical Realism are Kantian. The basic arguments supporting Critical Realism are powerful: I have tried to show clearly their power, but also to expose clearly their putrid root. Section 3 on the principle of immanence offers the most important contribution in this undertaking. The arguments of critical realism studied in this paper are the following: (...) 1. The Notion of Experience 2. The Nature of Knowledge: Question and Inquiry 3. The Principle of Immanence 4. The Notion of Relation 5. Judgment as the Position of the Real. (shrink)

The use of machine learning algorithms has become ubiquitous in hiring decisions. Recent studies have shown that many of these algorithms generate unlawful discriminatory effects in every step of the process. The training phase of the machine learning models used in these decisions has been identified as the main source of bias. For a long time, discrimination cases have been analyzed under the banner of disparate treatment and disparate impact, but these concepts have been shown to be ineffective in the (...) context of AI. This paper examines the possibility of studying algorithmic discrimination from the perspective of negligence law. Negligent selection and validation of datasets and classifiers is a salient cause of improper training in machine learning. It is a breach of an employer’s duty to protect others, a failure of its exercise of due care in the manner of choosing employees. Adopting negligence to algorithmic discrimination requires a reformulation of what is foreseeable and reasonable within the context of black box algorithms, and a shift in the burden of proof to the employer, who must present evidence of its efforts to avoid bias. (shrink)

The objective of this paper will be to present a critical evaluation of the so-called “standard conception of a proof”. According to this conception, a text could only be called a “demonstration of a certain mathematical proposition” if we could find a completely formalized version of that demonstration, its “corresponding formal proof”. We will compare these ideas with the treatment of the same topic within two markedly different contexts, that of contemporary Swedish intuitionism and that of modern software engineering. Finally, (...) we will offer a quick discussion of some of Wittgenstein's proposals regarding the subject. /// -/- O objetivo deste texto será o de apresentar uma avaliação crítica da assim chamada “concepção estândar” do que seja uma prova. Segundo essa concepção, um texto só poderia ser chamado de uma “demonstração de uma certa proposição matemática” se pudéssemos encontrar uma versão completamente formalizada daquela demonstração, sua “prova formal correspondente”. Faremos comparações com o tratamento do mesmo tópico em dois contextos muito distintos, aquele do intuicionismo sueco contemporâneo e o da moderna engenharia de software. Por fim, faremos uma rápida apresentação de algumas propostas de Wittgenstein sobre o assunto. (shrink)

This article discusses some of Chateaubriand’s views on the connections between the ideas of formalization and infinity, as presented in chapters 19 and 20 of Logical Forms. We basically agree with his criticisms of the standard construal of these connections, a view we named “formal proofs as ultimate provings”, but we suggest an alternative way of picturing that connection based on some ideas of the late Wittgenstein.

The probability calculus is very often used in the philosophy of science in order to support or to analyse epistemological points of view. The aim of this paper is to present in a summary the usual axioms of this calculus, as weIl as its most common consequences and theorems, which the philosopher of science in his arguments ressorts to.

Aunque el derecho probatorio y el derecho procesal se han dedicado desde siempre al estudio de los problemas relacionados con las pruebas y el establecimiento de los hechos en los procesos judiciales, el énfasis ha estado siempre en el aspecto formal, doctrinal y procedimental en detrimento de los fundamentos filosóficos y teóricos. Durante los últimos años ha habido un intento sostenido de explorar estos fundamentos combinando no sólo las herramientas tradicionales proporcionadas por la lógica, la gramática y la retórica, sino (...) también los avances hechos en ciencias como la estadística y la probabilidad, la medicina y la psicología forenses, la psicología de la percepción, la epistemología y la filosofía de la ciencia. El presente libro reúne las contribuciones de destacados juristas y filósofos latinoamericanos a esta nueva perspectiva interdisciplinaria, conocida como epistemología jurídica. El libro está dividido en tres grandes temas: la primera parte explora los problemas epistemológicos del conocimiento de los hechos en los procesos judiciales; la segunda se enfoca en el problema de los estándares de prueba; y la sección final discute el testimonio de los expertos. En su conjunto el libro ofrece un panorama tanto de los problemas centrales de la epistemología jurídica, como del estado del arte de la disciplina. (shrink)

Kant and Aquinas: who can doubt they are different? And however, there are some who equate Aquinas and Kant in doctrines in which they are actually opposed; some attribute to St. Thomas Aquinas approaches that are Kantian and by no means Thomistic. They make those mistakes by misinterpreting or misusing Aquinas’ texts. This paper intends to clarify a little bit the radical difference between the approaches of Aquinas and Kant to human knowledge. In my view, we need first of all (...) to understand the problem of the universals, which is the basic problem of human understanding and, in a sense, the only problem of philosophy. Second, we need to understand the stance of both philosophers in front of this same problem. Only then will we be able to see what and how radical is the difference between Aquinas and Kant. (shrink)

Moore’s Paradox is a test case for any formal theory of belief. In Knowledge and Belief, Hintikka developed a multimodal logic for statements that express sentences containing the epistemic notions of knowledge and belief. His account purports to offer an explanation of the paradox. In this paper I argue that Hintikka’s interpretation of one of the doxastic operators is philosophically problematic and leads to an unnecessarily strong logical system. I offer a weaker alternative that captures in a more accurate way (...) our logical intuitions about the notion of belief without sacrificing the possibility of providing an explanation for problematic cases such as Moore’s Paradox. (shrink)

Esta breve introducción a la filosofía de la ciencia parte del hecho de que tanto la investigación científica como el razonamiento probatorio judicial tienen un carácter inductivo. En esa medida, comparten características esenciales que permiten que el derecho se nutra de muchas de las reflexiones de la filosofía de la ciencia. El capítulo se concentra en cuatro temas principales: los criterios de demarcación entre el conocimiento científico y la pseudociencia; el carácter derrotable de las conclusiones de la ciencia y el (...) derecho; la estructura corroborativa de la relación entre la evidencia y las hipótesis científicas y judiciales; y las teorías de la explicación tanto en el ámbito científico como en el judicial. (shrink)

El desarrollo de las artes visuales durante el siglo XX desdibujó la frontera entre aquellos objetos y artefactos que llamamos obras de arte, y aquéllos que no son merecedores de ese título. Arthur Danto ha propuesto una teoría estética a la luz de la cual sería posible volver a definir los límites del arte. En este ensayo examino dos de los aspectos más problemáticos de la teoría: la importancia excesiva que Danto le otorga al concepto de mímesis y su concepción (...) teleológica de la historia del arte. Si atenuamos el papel de estos dos elementos, la teoría pierde gran parte de su poder explicativo. En las últimas dos secciones del ensayo arguyo que el mundo del arte al que Danto atribuye un papel central en el problema de la demarcación debe él mismo ser considerado un subproducto de las condiciones que determinan la naturaleza del arte en general. (shrink)

This paper offers a reconstruction of Wittgenstein's discussion on inductive proofs. A "algebraic version" of these indirect proofs is offered and contrasted with the usual ones in which an infinite sequence of modus pones is projected.