Philosophers of well-being have tended to adopt a foundationalist approach to the question of theory and measurement, according to which theories are conceptually before measures. By contrast, social scientists have tended to adopt operationalist commitments, according to which they develop and refine well-being measures independently of any philosophical foundation. Unfortunately, neither approach helps us overcome the problem of coordinating between how we characterize well-being and how we measure it. Instead, we should adopt a coherentist approach to well-being science.

Generating an account that can sidestep the disagreement among substantive theories of well-being, while at the same time still providing useful guidance for well-being public policy, would be a significant achievement. Unfortunately, the various attempts to remain agnostic regarding what constitutes well-being fail to either be an account of well-being, provide useful guidance for well-being policy, or avoid relying on a substantive well-being theory. There are no theory-free lunches in well-being policy. Instead, I propose an intermediate account, according to which (...) well-being is constituted by endorsed veridical experiences. This account refers back to theories of well-being but does so as agnostically as possible. An intermediate account of well-being is meant as a policy guiding compromise between the different theories of well-being that make claims regarding what constitutes well-being. An intermediate account does as well as can be hoped for in providing a basis for well-being policy. (shrink)

Spoofing is the act of placing orders to buy or sell a financial contract without the intention to have those orders fulfilled in order to create the impression that there is a large demand for that contract at that price. In this article, I deny the view that spoofing in financial markets should be viewed as morally permissible analogously to the way bluffing is permissible in poker. I argue for the pro tanto moral impermissibility of spoofing and make the case (...) that spoofing is disanalogous from bluffing in at least one important regard—speculative trading serves an important economic role, whereas poker does not. (shrink)

In a recent article, “Logical Consequence and Natural Language”, Michael Glanzberg claims that there is no relation of logical consequence in natural language (2015). The present paper counters that claim. I shall discuss Glanzberg’s arguments and show why they don’t hold. I further show how Glanzberg’s claims may be used to rather support the existence of logical consequence in natural language.

It is an open question whether well-being ought to primarily be understood as a temporal concept or whether it only makes sense to talk about a person’s well-being over their whole lifetime. In this article, I argue that how this principled philosophical disagreement is settled does not have substantive practical implications for well-being science and well-being policy. Trying to measure lifetime well-being directly is extremely challenging as well as unhelpful for guiding well-being public policy, while temporal well-being is both an (...) adequate indirect measure of lifetime well-being, and an adequate focus for the purposes of improving well-being through public policy. Consequently, even if what we ought to care about is lifetime well-being, we should use temporal measures of well-being and focus on temporal well-being policies. (shrink)

In this paper I discuss a prevailing view by which logical terms determine forms of sentences and arguments and therefore the logical validity of arguments. This view is common to those who hold that there is a principled distinction between logical and nonlogical terms and those holding relativistic accounts. I adopt the Tarskian tradition by which logical validity is determined by form, but reject the centrality of logical terms. I propose an alternative framework for logic where logical terms no longer (...) play a distinctive role. This account employs a new notion of semantic. (shrink)

In this paper I present an interpretation of Deleuze's concept of the virtual. I argue that this concept is best understood in relation to the problematic of individuation or differentiation, which Deleuze inherits from Duns Scotus. After analysing Scotus' critique of Aristotelian or hylomorphic approaches to the problem of individuation, I turn to Deleuze's account of differentiation and his interpretation of the calculus in chapter 4 of Difference and Repetition. The paper seeks thereby to explicate Deleuze's dialectics or theory of (...) Ideas, his approach to the principle of sufficient reason, and the concept of the virtual itself. (shrink)

Policy-makers sometimes aim to improve well-being as a policy goal, but to do this they need some way to measure well-being. Instead of relying on potentially problematic theories of well-being to justify their choice of well-being measure, Daniel Hausman proposes that policy-makers can sometimes rely on preference-based measures as evidence for well-being. I claim that Hausman’s evidential account does not justify the use of any one measure more than it justifies the use of any other measure. This leaves us at (...) a loss as to which policy should be chosen in the non-trivial cases for which there is substantial disagreement between the different measures in their assessment of policy. (shrink)

Many philosophers reject the view that well-being over a lifetime is simply an aggregation of well-being at every moment of one's life, and thus they reject theories of well-being like hedonism and concurrentist desire satisfactionism. They raise concerns that such a view misses the importance of the relationships between moments in a person's life or the role narratives play in a person's well-being. In this article, we develop an atomist meta-theory of well-being, according to which the prudential value of a (...) life depends solely on the prudential value of each moment of that life. This is a general account of momentary well-being that can capture different features of well-being that standard atomistic accounts fail to capture, thus allowing for the possibility of an atomism that is compatible with a variety of well-being theories. Contrary to many criticisms leveled against momentary well-being, this well-being atomism captures all of the important features of well-being. (shrink)

In his new book, Logical Form, Andrea Iacona distinguishes between two different roles that have been ascribed to the notion of logical form: the logical role and the semantic role. These two roles entail a bifurcation of the notion of logical form. Both notions of logical form, according to Iacona, are descriptive, having to do with different features of natural language sentences. I agree that the notion of logical form bifurcates, but not that the logical role is merely descriptive. In (...) this paper, I focus on formalization, a process by which logical form, on its logical role, is attributed to natural language sentences. According to some, formalization is a form of explication, and it involves normative, pragmatic, as well as creative aspects. I present a view by which formalization involves explicit commitments on behalf of a reasoner or an interpreter, which serve the normative grounds for the evaluation of a given text. In previous work, I proposed the framework of semantic constraints for the explication of logical consequence. Here, I extend the framework to include formalization constraints. The various constraints then serve the role of commitments. I discuss specific issues raised by Iacona concerning univocality, co-reference and equivocation, and I show how our views on these matters diverge as a result of our different starting assumptions. (shrink)

According to what I call the ‘argument from public bads’, if a researcher deceived subjects in the past, there is a chance that subjects will discount the information that a subsequent researcher provides, thus compromising the validity of the subsequent researcher’s experiment. While this argument is taken to justify an existing informal ban on explicit deception in experimental economics, it can also apply to implicit deception, yet implicit deception is not banned and is sometimes used in experimental economics. Thus, experimental (...) economists are being inconsistent when they appeal to the argument from public bads to justify banning explicit deception but not implicit deception. (shrink)

In book II of Plato’s Republic, Socrates discusses the cities of necessity and luxury (372d-373a). Discussions of these cities have often focused on citizens desiring more than they need, which creates a demand for luxury. Yet the second part of the equation, which is not usually recognized, is that there must be sufficient supply to meet this demand. The focus of this article is on the importance of supply in the discussion of the first two cities in book II of (...) the Republic. This article argues that the way Plato models the cities makes it the case that a surplus above levels of necessity will be generated from time to time. That the unwanted surplus cannot be spontaneously disposed of entails that the first two cities are institutionally incomplete. A government is needed in order to coordinate the disposal of the surplus supply the city will produce. (shrink)

Some advances in bioethics regarding ethical considerations that arise in the context of medical research can also be relevant when thinking about the ethical considerations that arise in the context of SoTL research. In this article, I aim to bring awareness to two potential ethical challenges SoTL researchers might face when playing a dual role of teacher and researcher that are similar to the challenges physicians face in their dual role of physician and researcher. In this article, I argue that (...) two commonly discussed concerns in bioethics---the need for clinical equipoise and the possibility of a therapeutic misconception---have analogies when conducting some types of research on students. I call these counterparts educational equipoise and the educational misconception. (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)

In this work, a general framework for the analysis of governance of artificial intelligence is presented. A dashboard developed for this analysis comes from the perspective of political theory. This dashboard allows eventual comparisons between democratic and non democratic regimes, useful for countries in the global south and western countries. The dashboard allows us to assess the key features that determine the governance model for artificial intelligence at the national level, for local governments and for other participant actors. The dashboard (...) allows us to appraise aims of AI strategy and aims left aside in alternative strategies. The work shows the theoretical framework could be of use to advance case studies globally, and comparative endeavors. Applying the theoretical dashboard, the case study on China is undertaken. These are the main points the study tackles in the final discussion, conclusion and further recommendations: 1) the complex reality of AI command and control 2) uncertainties about future society and the polity against AI development and 3) particular cultural values enshrined in countries' AI development. (shrink)

Alasdair MacIntyre argues that moral virtues are antithetical to what is required of those who trade in financial markets to succeed. MacIntyre focuses on four virtues and argues that successful traders possess none of them: (i) self-knowledge, (ii) courage, (iii) taking a long-term perspective, and (iv) tying one’s own good with some set of common goods. By contrast, I argue that (i)–(iii) are, in fact, traits of successful traders, regardless of their normative assessment. The last trait – caring about the (...) common good – is often counterproductive in most for-profit ventures, including trading, and so singling out traders is inappropriate. (shrink)

In this paper we discuss James Buchanan’s contribution in the narrow domain of understanding committee voting under majority rule. We then go on to discuss Charles Plott’s seminal experimental work on the topic that sparked a wave of public choice experimental work. However, given Plott’s claims that Buchanan influenced him significantly, it is puzzling that his work with Morris Fiorina explores a question outside of those which Buchanan and Tullock found interesting. We suggest several ways to resolve this tension. Our (...) chapter concludes by discussing a lacuna in the experimental public choice literature in which Buchanan was particularly interested—logrolling, or vote trading. (shrink)

Based on the results obtained from primary education students—fifth and sixth graders—the aim of this work is to check the appropriate self-perceived behaviors during and at the end of the game. The study population was made up of 698 students from fifth and sixth grade in the Autonomous Region of Castilla–La Mancha (Spain). Data were collected through a questionnaire (scale) on the social skills of primary school students linked to the adequate skills when losing, the adequate skills when winning, and (...) the adequate skills during the game. Study results revealed that analyzed behaviors vary, depending on the moment of the game, being it more frequently during the development of the game than when losing or winning. (shrink)

in recent years, policy makers have shown increasing interest in implementing policies aimed at promoting individual well-being. But how should policy makers choose their well-being policies? a seemingly reasonable first step is to settle on an agreed-upon definition of well-being. yet there currently is significant disagreement on how well-being ought to be characterized, and agreement on the correct view of well-being does not appear to be forthcoming. Nevertheless, i argue in this paper that there are several reasons to think that (...) the domain of well-being in the public policy context is narrower than that of well-being in general, which makes agreement on how to understand well-being in the public policy context more likely. (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)

The move from open outcry to electronic trading added another responsibility to futures exchanges—that of matching orders between buyers and sellers. Matching systems can affect the level and speed of price discovery, the distribution of revenue, as well as the level of price efficiency of a given market. Whether the matching system is procedurally fair is another important consideration. I argue that while FIFO (First In First Out) is a fair procedure in principle and is perceived as the default matching (...) system, it is not a fair procedure in practice. Likewise, while pro rata is a fair procedure in principle, it is not so in practice. Nevertheless, both FIFO and pro rata are relics of an open outcry system. Instead, I propose an alternative approach to matching systems that builds on the strengths of electronic trading—the ability to randomize in real time. I introduce random selection for service (RSS) as a matching system that is procedurally fair both in principle and in practice. (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)

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)

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)

This work shows differences in public participation in China and Western countries, conceptually and empirically. To do so, the different philosophical and public administration traditions are outlined. Main contributions are tables and dashboards to allow general comparisons and to differentiate contexts in both political settings, besides being useful for other settings. The tables included are: 1) Main features of context in China, 2) Deliberative democracy, 3) Main features of context in the west, 4) The Gil Dashboard helping to outline the (...) endogenous foundations for change both in China and the West. -/- democracy, rule of law, public participation, China, western countries . (shrink)

St. Thomas Aquinas has always considered intelligence a potency higher than the will, absolutely speaking. That being said, and in my view, the existential primacy of the will in the act of freedom (particularly in choosing the existential end) is also indisputably Thomistic, as Cornelio Fabro has shown. This paper endeavors to explain Aquinas' doctrine on the absolute primacy of the intellect and thus show that these two primacies can be affirmed coherently, that is, the intellect’s absolute primacy and the (...) will’s existential primacy. Firstly, I will explain the reasoning St. Thomas Aquinas uses in the Summa to justify the absolute primacy of the intellect over the will. Secondly, I will explore some parallel texts, in order to shed light on my interpretation of the Summa and expand our view regarding this and related doctrinal points. Thirdly, I will offer a brief study of Fabro’s position, one in which his concerns regarding the intellect’s absolute primacy are taken into account and carefully considered. (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 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)

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.

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)

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)

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)

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)

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)

: 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)

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)

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)

In this paper I consider Althusser's concept of 'overdetermination' as a variation on the theme of a Spinozist physics of modes that attempts to incorporate the Marxist problematic of social antagonism.

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.

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)

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 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)

The aim of this paper is to study a set of three issues related to the understanding of partial justice and partial injustice as character dispositions, namely the distinctive circumstance of action, the emotion involved therein and the pleasure or pain following it. Those points are treated in a relatively obscure way by Aristotle, especially in comparison with their treatment in the expositions of other character virtues in the Nicomachean Ethics. Building on the expression ‘capacity towards the other’ (δύναμις ἐν (...) τῷ πρὸς ἕτερον), the paper highlights the interpersonal nature of the circumstances of just and unjust actions, and points how such nature is directly related to notions such as ‘profit’ (κέρδος) or ‘getting more’(πλεονεκτεῖν) as well as to the unusual conception of excess, defect and intermediacy in Nicomachean Ethics Book V. The interpersonal nature of just and unjust actions works also as the starting-point for the interpretation both of the pleasure briefly mentioned in 1130b4 as characterizing the greedy person and of the emotion involved in acting justly or greedy, which is mentioned in an extremely elliptical way in 1130b1-2: the paper argues, on the one hand, that the pleasure felt in acting justly or unjustly concerns not only the goods that are the object of just or unjust interactions, but also the way such interactions affect the people involved; on the other hand, it argues that the emotion actuated in just or unjust interactions relates to the agent’s concern or lack of concern with the good of those people. (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)

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)

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)

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)

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)

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)