Abstract Both parties in the active philosophical debate concerning the conceptual character of perception trace their roots back to Kant's account of sensible intuition in the Critique of Pure Reason. This striking fact can be attributed to Kant's tendency both to assert and to deny the involvement of our conceptual capacities in sensible intuition. He appears to waver between these two positions in different passages, and can thus seem thoroughly confused on this issue. But this is not, in fact, the (...) case, for, as I will argue, the appearance of contradiction in his account stems from the failure of some commentators to pay sufficient attention to Kant's developmental approach to philosophy. Although he begins by asserting the independence of intuition, Kant proceeds from this nonconceptualist starting point to reveal a deeper connection between intuitions and concepts. On this reading, Kant's seemingly conflicting claims are actually the result of a careful and deliberate strategy for gradually convincing his readers of the conceptual nature of perception. (shrink)

Over the last decade, Axel Honneth has established himself as one of the leading social and political philosophers in the world today. Rooted in the tradition of critical theory, his writings have been central to the revitalization of critical theory and have become increasingly influential. His theory of recognition has gained worldwide attention and is seen by some as the principal counterpart to Habermass theory of discourse ethics. In this important new volume, Honneth pursues his path-breaking work on recognition (...) by exploring the moral experiences of disrespect that underpin the conduct of social and political critique. What we might conceive of as a striving for social recognition initially appears in a negative form as the experience of humiliation or disrespect. Honneth argues that disrespect constitutes the systematic key to a comprehensive theory of recognition that seeks to clarify the sense in which institutionalized patterns of social recognition generate justified demands on the way subjects treat each other. This new book by one of the leading social and political philosophers of our time will be of particular interest to students and scholars in social and political theory and philosophy. (shrink)

Resumen La metáfora de la "descomposición" domina aún nuestra manera usual de pensar el análisis conceptual. Se trata de una herramienta muy útil para pensar este proceso tan abstracto, pero tiene limitaciones importantes. Por ejemplo, nos hace pensar que los componentes de un concepto deben estar en algún sentido contenidos en él o que la única manera en que dos conceptos pueden estar relacionados es que uno contenga al otro. Estas limitaciones no nos permiten dar cuenta de conceptos complejos cuya (...) estructura no es tan simple, como los de color o de medida. Por ello es tiempo de superar esta metáfora y pensar al análisis conceptual no sólo como descomposición, sino también como la asignación de diferentes funciones a los componentes de un concepto.Our customary way of thinking about conceptual analysis remains dominated by the metaphor of 'containment', which has certainly been very useful, but which also has important limitations. For example, it makes us think that the components of a concept must be, in some sense, contained in it or that the only way that two concepts can be related is if one contains the other. These limitations have not allowed us to account for concepts whose structure is not so simple, such as the concepts of color or measurement, among others. It is time, therefore, to overcome this metaphor and think of conceptual analysis not only as decomposition but also as the assignment of different functions to the components of a concept. (shrink)

In the transcendental deduction, the central argument of the Critique of Pure Reason, Kant seeks to secure the objective validity of our basic categories of thought. He distinguishes objective and subjective sides of this argument. The latter side, the subjective deduction, is normally understood as an investigation of our cognitive faculties. It is identified with Kant’s account of a threefold synthesis involved in our cognition of objects of experience, and it is said to precede and ground Kant’s proof of the (...) validity of the categories in the objective deduction. I challenge this standard reading of the subjective deduction, arguing, first, that there is little textual evidence for it, and, second, that it encourages a problematic conception of how the deduction works. In its place, I present a new reading of the subjective deduction. Rather than being a broad investigation of our cognitive faculties, it should be seen as addressing a specific worry that arises in the course of the objective deduction. The latter establishes the need for a necessary connection between our capacities for thinking and being given objects, but Kant acknowledges that his readers might struggle to comprehend how these seemingly independent capacities are coordinated. Even worse, they might well believe that in asserting this necessary connection, Kant’s position amounts to an implausible subjective idealism. The subjective deduction ismeant to allay these concerns by showing that they rest on a misunderstanding of the relation between these faculties. This new reading of the subjective deduction offers a better fit with Kant’s text. It also has broader implications, for it reveals the more philosophically plausible account of our relation to the world as thinkers that Kant is defending – an account that is largely obscured by the standard reading of the subjective deduction. (shrink)

In this volume Axel Honneth deepens and develops his highly influential theory of recognition, showing how it enables us both to rethink the concept of justice and to offer a compelling account of the relationship between social reproduction and individual identity formation. Drawing on his reassessment of Hegel’s practical philosophy, Honneth argues that our conception of social justice should be redirected from a preoccupation with the principles of distributing goods to a focus on the measures for creating symmetrical relations (...) of recognition. This theoretical reorientation has far-reaching implications for the theory of justice, as it obliges this theory to engage directly with problems concerning the organization of work and with the ideologies that stabilize relations of domination. In the final part of this volume Honneth shows how the theory of recognition provides a fruitful and illuminating way of exploring the relation between social reproduction and identity formation. Rather than seeing groups as regressive social forms that threaten the autonomy of the individual, Honneth argues that the ‘I’ is dependent on forms of social recognition embodied in groups, since neither self-respect nor self-esteem can be maintained without the supportive experience of practising shared values in the group. This important new book by one of the leading social philosophers of our time will be of great interest to students and scholars in philosophy, sociology, politics and the humanities and social sciences generally. (shrink)

In evolutionary biology, niche construction is sometimes described as a genuine evolutionary process whereby organisms, through their activities and regulatory mechanisms, modify their environment such as to steer their own evolutionary trajectory, and that of other species. There is ongoing debate, however, on the extent to which niche construction ought to be considered a bona fide evolutionary force, on a par with natural selection. Recent formulations of the variational free-energy principle as applied to the life sciences describe the properties of (...) living systems, and their selection in evolution, in terms of variational inference. We argue that niche construction can be described using a variational approach. We propose new arguments to support the niche construction perspective, and to extend the variational approach to niche construction to current perspectives in various scientific fields. (shrink)

Ordinary human perceivers know that visual objects are perceivable from standpoints other than their own. The aim of this paper is to provide an explanation of how perceptual experience equips perceivers with this knowledge. I approach the task by discussing a variety of action-based theories of perception. Some of these theories maintain that standpoint transcendence is required for shape perception. I argue that this standpoint transcendence must take place in the phenomenal present and that it can be explained in terms (...) of the experience of perceivers who jointly attend to an object. Joint perceivers experience objects as being perceived from standpoints other than their own. They operate in what I call “social space”, in which they single out objects by triangulating targets’ locations relative to their co-perceivers’ standpoints on these targets. It is then possible to explain the public character of the objects of individual experience by appeal to what I call “public space”. This is a spatial framework whose locations are presented as standpoints whence joint attention to the target would ensue, were they occupied by co-perceivers. If shape perception requires standpoint transcendence, then shape perceivers operate in public space and are thus capable of singling out targets by triangulating their locations from standpoints other than their own. If it doesn’t, then the introduction of a public spatial framework is an additional step whose introduction explains how perceivers come to experience objects as perceivable from standpoints other than their own. (shrink)

In attempts to compare different distributions with regards to need, so-called “measures of need-based distributive justice” have emerged in recent years. Each of the proposed measures relies on a single dimension of need that is taken into account. This is shown to be problematic since humans experience different kinds of need that appear to be incommensurable. A strategy to deal with this problem is introduced by using multidimensional measures.

Autism Spectrum Condition presents a challenge to social and relational accounts of the self, precisely because it is broadly seen as a disorder impacting social relationships. Many influential theories argue that social deficits and impairments of the self are the core problems in ASC. Predictive processing approaches address these based on general purpose neurocognitive mechanisms that are expressed atypically. Here we use the High, Inflexible Precision of Prediction Errors in Autism approach in the context of cultural niche construction to explain (...) atypicalities of the relational self, specifically its minimal, extended, and intersubjective aspects. We contend that the social self in ASC should not be seen as impaired, but rather as an outcome of atypical niche construction. We unpack the scientific, ethical, and practical consequences of this view, and discuss implications for how the challenges that autistic persons face should be approached. (shrink)

Verteilungsgerechtigkeit befasst sich mit der Verteilung von Gütern innerhalb einer Gruppe, wobei verschiedene Verteilungsprinzipien und -ergebnisse als mögliche Ideale einer solchen Verteilung verhandelt werden. Diese normativen Ansätze sind oft rein verbal formuliert, wodurch ihre Anwendung auf unterschiedliche konkrete Verteilungssituationen, die hinsichtlich ihrer Gerechtigkeit beurteilt werden sollen, häufig schwer fällt. Eine Möglichkeit, fein abgestufte Gerechtigkeitsbeurteilungen verschiedener Verteilungen präzise erfassen zu können, besteht in der formalen Modellierung solcher Ideale durch Maße oder Indizes. Die Auswahl eines geeigneten Maßes, das ein gewisses Ideal abbilden (...) soll, muss ihrerseits eine Fundierung erfahren, was durch die Forderung von begründeten Axiomen erreicht werden kann, denen ein Maß genügen soll. In der vorliegenden Arbeit werden solche Axiome für Maße der Verteilungsgerechtigkeit am Beispiel von Bedarfsgerechtigkeit eingeführt. Ferner werden exemplarische Maße der Bedarfsgerechtigkeit vorgestellt. Damit wird für die Beurteilung und Modellierung von Maßen der Verteilungsgerechtigkeit eine erste diskutable Grundlage gelegt. (shrink)

I put forward an externalist theory of social understanding. On this view, psychological sense making takes place in environments that contain both agent and interpreter. The spatial structure of such environments is social, in the sense that its occupants locate its objects by an exercise in triangulation relative to each of their standpoints. This triangulation is achieved in intersubjective interaction and gives rise to a triadic model of the social mind. This model can then be used to make sense of (...) others’ observed actions. Its possession plays a vital role in the development of the capacity for false belief reasoning. The view offers an integrated account of the development of social cognition from primary intersubjectivity to level-2 perspective taking. It incorporates insights from interactionism and mindreading theories of social cognition and thus offers a way out of the stalemate between defenders of the two views. Because psychological sense making is perspectival, the frame problem does not arise for social reasoners: the perspective they bring to bear on the action that is to be interpreted constrains the information they can select to make sense of what others do. (shrink)

Distributive justice deals with allocations of goods and bads within a group. Different principles and results of distributions are seen as possible ideals. Often those normative approaches are solely framed verbally, which complicates the application to different concrete distribution situations that are supposed to be evaluated in regard to justice. One possibility in order to frame this precisely and to allow for a fine-grained evaluation of justice lies in formal modelling of these ideals by metrics. Choosing a metric that is (...) supposed to map a certain ideal has to be justified. Such justification might be given by demanding specific substantiated axioms, which have to be met by a metric. This paper introduces such axioms for metrics of distributive justice shown by the example of needs-based justice. Furthermore, some exemplary metrics of needs-based justice and a three dimensional method for visualisation of non-comparative justice axioms or evaluations are presented. Therewith, a base worth discussing for the evaluation and modelling of metrics of distributive justice is given. (shrink)

Attempts to justify the special moral status of human beings over other animals face a well-known objection: the challenge of marginal cases. If we attempt to ground this special status in the unique rationality of humans, then it becomes difficult to see why nonrational humans should be treated any differently than other, nonhuman animals. We respond to this challenge by turning to the social contract tradition. In particular, we identify an important role for the concept of recognition in attempts to (...) secure rights through a social contract. Recognition, which involves identifying with or seeing ourselves as others, is the key to establishing the scope of justice, and we argue that this scope extends to all humans—even the so-called marginal cases—but not to other animals. If this is correct, then we have a principled reason for why all humans have certain rights that other animals lack. (shrink)

In this essay, I consider a kind of social group that I call ‘epistemic’. It is constituted by its members’ possession of perceptually grounded common knowledge, which endows them with a particular kind of epistemic authority. This authority, I argue, is invoked in the activity of ‘joint reminiscing’—of remembering together a past jointly experienced event. Joint reminiscing, in turn, plays an important role in the constitution of social and personal identity. The notion of an epistemic group, then, is a concept (...) that helps explain an important aspect of a subject’s understanding of who she is. (shrink)

Im Ausgang von den Differenzierungen, die bereits der junge Hegel an dem Begriff der Anerkennung vorgenommen hat, unternehme ich in diesem Aufsatz den Versuch, die Skizze eines moralphilosophischen Programms in ersten Zügen zu umreißen. Dabei soll in einem ersten, gewissermaßen negativen Schritt der Zusammenhang von Moral und Anerkennung dadurch vorgeführt werden, daß als der Kern moralischer Verletzungen die Erfahrung analysiert wird, in bestimmten Aspekten der eigenen Selbstbeziehung nicht anerkannt oder respektiert zu werden. Im Ausgang von dieser Beobachtung führt dann der (...) Vorschlag, drei Aspekte der individuellen Selbstbeziehung zu unterscheiden, zu einer Typologie von moralischen Verletzungen. Aus diesen Überlegungen gewinne ich die These, daß die Moral den Innenbegriff all der Einstellungen darstellt, die wir wechselseitig einzunehmen verpflichtet sind, um gemeinsam die Bedingungen unserer persönlichen Identität zu sichern. Am Ende führt dieses ethische Verständnis von Moral als differenziertes Verhältnis von Anerkennungsverpflichtungen zu einer Neuinterpretation der moralphilosophischen Tradition, derzufolge in den drei großen Begriffen der Fürsorge, der Gerechtigkeit und der Solidarität jeweils eine der Einstellungen artikuliert worden ist, die den drei Anerkennungsformen entsprechen, mit denen wir zusammengenommen unsere persönliche Integrität als menschliche Wesen schützen. (shrink)

This paper describes the non dual relationship between the visible and the invisible.

This essay presents a novel approach to specifying the meaning of the concept of populism, on the political position it occupies and on the nature of populism. Employing analytic techniques of concept clarification and recent analytic ideology critique, it develops populism as a political kind in three steps. First, it descriptively specifies the stereotype of populist platforms as identified in extant research and thereby delimits the peculiar political position populism occupies in representative democracies as neither inclusionary nor fascist. Second, it (...) specifies on this basis analytically–normatively the particular stance towards liberal representative democracy (in particular towards popular sovereignty and democratic legitimacy) that unifies populism’s political position and explains how populist politics can be compelling for democratic citizens. The normative core (populist ideology) turns out to require no more than two general principles of legitimizing political authority by elections. Surprisingly, it does not need a separate anti-pluralist or exclusionary commitment: it entails it. Third, this normative model allows a response to a contested question in the theoretical discussion, namely, whether populism (properly specified) can be democracy-enhancing. The article defends the negative answer in virtue of the normative core alone and does so as much vis-à-vis a minimal (purely electoral) as vis-à-vis a normatively ambitious (liberal) conception of democracy. The reconstruction of the normative core of populist ideology enables a novel argument to show that populism is incompatible with the continued democratic legitimation of political authority even in the normatively most austere conception of ‘electoral democracy’, not just with ‘liberal democracy’. Assuming a normatively more ambitious concept of democratic legitimation in terms of political autonomy, the model also produces an extremely direct argument showing that populists cannot fulfil their promise of ‘taking back control’ over political decision-making to the population. (shrink)

Two questions often shape our view of the world. On the one hand, we ask what there is, on the other hand, we ask what there ought to be. Empirical research and normative theory, the methodological traditions concerned with these questions, entered a difficult relationship, from at least as early as around the time of the advent of modern sciences. To this day, there remains a strong separation between the two domains, with both tending to neglect discourses and results from (...) the other. Contrary to a verdict of strict segregation between »is« and »ought«, there are, nowadays, various attempts to integrate both theoretical approaches. This calls for a newly intensified discourse on the relation between empirical research and normative theory. In this volume, scholars from different disciplines – including psychology, sociology, economics, and philosophy – discuss possible desired or undesired influences on, and limits of, the integration of these two approaches. (shrink)

Despite the current surge of interest in loneliness, its health consequences, and possible remedies, the concept itself remains poorly understood. This paper seeks to contribute to a more fully worked out account of what loneliness consists in. It does this by stressing that loneliness always has an experiential component and by introducing a simple psychological structure to analyze the experience. On this basis, it suggests that we can distinguish between three ways of thinking about the phenomenal dimension of loneliness. There (...) are objectivist views that seek to understand loneliness by a description of its intentional object, subjectivist views that consider its holistic relation to other aspects of the sufferer's psyche, and embodied and enacted views that focus on the relation between the lonely person's mental life and her social environment. The aim is not to adjudicate between these views or to suggest that they are mutually exclusive. Rather, this paper recommends a pluralistic framework on which all three approaches have something to contribute to a fuller understanding of the condition and may be of use in devising measures aimed at improving sufferers' health. (shrink)

The role that need plays in dealing with problems of distributive justice is examined in a series of vignette studies. Among other things, it becomes clear that impartial observers make gradual assessments of justice that depend on the extent to which the observed individuals are endowed with a good. If it is known how high their need for that good is, the assessments are made relative to this reference point. In addition, impartial decision-makers make hypothetical distribution decisions that take into (...) account need, productivity, and accountability. The need of individuals is partially compensated even if they have contributed less to the available amount than they themselves require. However, the willingness to do so decreases if they are accountable for needing more than others or for having contributed less than others. Lastly, both impartial observers and impartial decision-makers distinguish between different types of needs, the fulfillment of which is given different levels of importance. (shrink)

We present a vignette study conducted with a quota sample of the German population (n = 400). Subjects had to redistribute a good between two hypothetical persons who contributed equally to the available amount but differed in quantity needed and the reason for their neediness. On a within-subjects level, we tested for the effects of need, accountability, and resource availability on their third-party distribution decisions. Between subjects, we further varied the kinds of needs: The persons either needed the good as (...) a means to survive, to live a decent life, to participate in society, or to be autonomous. Despite equal productivity, the mean share allocated to the needier person was significantly higher than an equal share. However, this share turned out significantly smaller when the needier person was accountable for needing more than the other. Nonetheless, even if accountable, the needier person still got a share larger than their contribution would suggest. When there was a surplus of resources, the needier person got an even higher share than when resources were scarce. (shrink)

This paper summarizes (in German) recent tendencies in the philosophy of the life sciences.

Plato’s tripartite soul plays a central role in his account of justice in the Republic. It thus comes as a surprise to find him apparently abandoning this model at the end of the work, when he suggests that the soul, as immortal, must be simple. I propose a way of reconciling these claims, appealing to neglected features of the city-soul analogy and the argument for the soul’s division. The original true soul, I argue, is partitioned, but in a finer manner (...) than how we encounter it in our everyday lives. (shrink)

My purpose in this text is to offer a general roadmap for navigating most current debates in the metaphysics of social categories regarding what sort of fact it is for a person to inhabit one social category or another—for example, what makes a person Mexican, or gay, or rich. With this goal in mind, I propose classifying the debating positions into three broad camps: common sense theories, socio-historical accounts, and performative theories. I characterise their main differences, identifying the main challenges (...) and achievements of each. I show that for persons well integrated into their categories, the differences between these three broad camps are minuscule, yet become crucial when we try to account for people not so well integrated. Then, I sketch a pluralist proposal that reconciles the three camps I have identified, while doing justice to the challenges presented by interstitial phenomena such as mestizaje, transition, passing, migration, etc. (shrink)

Der Diskurs um den doxastischen Voluntarismus behandelt die Frage, ob es möglich ist, einen Glaubenszustand intentional und mehr oder minder spontan herbeizuführen. Dabei sind historisch verschiedenste Positionen verhandelt worden. Es soll nicht versucht werden, eine Antwort auf die Frage nach der Möglichkeit zu liefern; vielmehr sollen methodische Überlegungen zur Klärung der Frage in den Fokus gerückt werden. Es wird gezeigt, dass die eigentliche Frage präzisierungsbedürftig ist. Exemplarisch wird ein ausgewählter Präzisierungsversuch aus dem zeitgenössischen Diskurs kritisch beleuchtet und ihm wird ein (...) Verständnis der Frage entgegengesetzt, das die Diskussion um die Möglichkeit eines doxastischen Voluntarismus in einen neuen Rahmen einbetten kann. (shrink)

The link is to an expanded, English version of this essay.

This paper focuses on Prajna and the discernment of knowningness.

Peter Strawson holds that on a proper conception of personhood, the problem of Other Minds does not arise. I suggest that the viability of his proposal depends on a particular account of person perception. I argue that neither the theory theory nor the simulation theory of mindreading constitutes a suitable basis for this account. I then go on to defend Peter Hobson's notion of 'feeling perception' as an intersubjectivist alternative that, if properly developed, delivers a basis for a viable account (...) of person perception. In developing that alternative, I draw on John Campbell's suggestion that self-understanding is constituted, in part, by an understanding of oneself as a cause of many events. (shrink)

This paper describes the contemporary phenomenological understanding of subjectivity as non dual awareness.

This work examines Kant’s remarkable decision to rewrite the core argument of the first Critique, the Transcendental Deduction of the Categories. I identify a two-part structure common to both versions: first establishing an essential role for the categories in unifying sensible intuitions; and then addressing a worry about how the connection between our faculties asserted in the first part is possible. I employ this structure to show how Kant rewrote the argument, focusing on Kant’s response to the concerns raised in (...) an early review by Johann Schultz. Schultz’s dissatisfaction with the original Deduction lies in its second part, and Kant’s subsequent revisions are focused on providing a better answer to this how-possible question. The new Deduction offers a more direct and convincing account of how our faculties work together to make experience possible. (shrink)

We report the results of a vignette experiment with a quota sample of the German population in which we analyze the interplay between need, equity, and accountability in third-party distributive decisions. We asked subjects to divide firewood between two hypothetical persons who either differ in their need for heat or in their productivity in terms of their ability to chop wood. The experiment systematically varies the persons’ accountability for their neediness as well as for their productivity. We find that subjects (...) distribute significantly fewer logs of wood to persons who are held accountable for their disadvantage. Independently of being held accountable or not, the needier person is always compensated with a share of logs that exceeds her contribution, while the person who contributes less is punished in terms of receiving a share of logs smaller than her need share. Moreover, there is a domain effect in terms of subjects being more sensitive to lower contributions than to greater need. (shrink)

In this paper, I am concerned with persons' capacity for joint action. I start by suggesting that approaches which seek to account for that capacity in terms of collective intentionality face a problem: there are actions that clearly seem to qualify as collective even though the involved persons cannot be said to entertain an overarching 'We'-intention (however one characterizes this notion). I then go on to develop an alternative account of action that loosely draws on Elizabeth Anscombe's action theory and (...) show how this alternative account can be applied to joint action. In so doing, I stress the importance of the phenomenal dimension of agency. (shrink)

What is an inference and when is an inference deductive rather than inductive, abductive, etc. The goal of this paper is precisely to determine what is that we, humans, do when we engage in deduction, i.e., whether there is something that satisfies both our pre-theoretical intuitions and theoretical presuppositions about deduction, as a cognitive process. The paper is structured in two parts: the first one deals with the issue of what is an inference. There, I will defend the hypothesis that (...) an inference is a causal process where an initial cognitive state causes another in such a way that the causal translation depends essentially on the content of the involved states. In other words, in an inference, a mental state A causes another B, partially because they have the content they have. Based on the conclusion from the first part, I will develop an account of deductive inference in the second part of the article. In order to achieve this, I will start by setting the stage and developing four constraints that an adequate account of deductive inference ought to satisfy. Then, I will present six different hypotheses that one might propose to characterize inferences of this kind. I have divided the proposals in two groups, the first one – which I will call the “logical proposals” – assume that whether an inference is a deduction or not depends exclusively on the content of the mental states involved in the inference, while the second – which I will call the “cognitive proposals” – reject the aforementioned assumption and instead recognize that extra cognitive information is required to determine whether an inference is a deduction or not. I will evaluate each proposal in turn, according to whether they satisfy the constraints introduced at the beginning of this second part. As a result of such evaluation, I will conclude that only one of the cognitive proposals actually satisfies the four constraints and therefore should be considered to give an adequate characterization of deductive inference. (shrink)

In this article, I elucidate the significance of Heidegger’s ‘question of being’ from a topological point of view by explaining the relationship between his thought of place and language. After exploring various hermeneutic strategies of reading Heidegger’s oeuvre, I turn to Richard Capobianco’s interpretation of Heidegger and critically engage with his idea of the experience of being itself as the ‘luminous self-showing oflogos’. In doing so, I explain the later turn from ‘truth’ to ‘place’ and articulate whylogosneeds to be conceived (...) as the gathering site of the presencing of being. In arguing against the primacy of passive receptivity and active projection, I put forward the primacy of language as thetoposandlogosof being. In returning to the Capobianco-Sheehan debate, I conclude by explaining why Heidegger’s place-related notions cannot be thought metaphorically. (shrink)

Este breve ensayo se inscribe en la tradición de buscar similitudes entre los epítetos y otros fenómenos lingüísticos, tanto inofensivos como discriminatorios. En particular, trataré de motivar la introducción de una distinción entre el blanco de un epíteto y su extensión y mostraré cómo esta distinción nos sirve para ver similitudes entre el comportamiento de este tipo de expresiones y el del complemento “de verdad” en expresiones como “tacos de verdad”. De paso, trataré también de explorar si estas teorías, desarrolladas (...) en su mayor parte en los Estados Unidos de América, sirven de herramienta teórica para dar cuenta de como ciertas expresiones contribuyen a la exclusión y discriminación de grupos minoritarios en nuestro contexto, es decir, en el castellano de México. (shrink)

En este texto retomo una pregunta importante que había quedado abierta al final del segundo capítulo de mi (2019): ¿cuáles son los límites del análisis? Sabemos que por obvias limitaciones materiales, todo análisis siempre será incompleto y por lo tanto, limitado. A estos límites les hemos llamado “metodológicos”, para distinguirlos de los metafísicos. Si el análisis tiene límites en este segundo sentido, aun si termináramos de analizar por completo un concepto, no podremos estar seguros de conocer todas sus propiedades esenciales (...) (ya que hay propiedades de este tipo que no las capta ningún análisis) o de ser capaces de distinguirlo de todos los conceptos (pues lo que lo distingue de otros conceptos puede ser inanalizable). Comúnmente se dice que el análisis no nos da todo el contenido de los conceptos, sino sólo su forma lógica o estructura semántica. Por lo tanto, otra manera de reformular la pregunta por los límites del análisis es ¿cuál es la relación entre forma y contenido? (shrink)

After the publication of Marshall’s theorem (2009), it has been widely accepted that the intrinsic/extrinsic distinction cannot be analyzed in broadly logical terms, but instead requires appealing to more robust metaphysical notions like grounding, naturalness or duplication. However, in this article I will defend that this is not so. Instead of showing the limitations of Marshall’s undoubtedly impressive result, I will present here a broadly logical definition of the intrinsic/extrinsic distinction, and show that it is extensional adequate regardless of our (...) preferred conception of property identity. (shrink)

Unter dem Dach der Philosophie gingen empirische Forschung und normative Theorie lange Zeit Hand in Hand, bis sie spätestens um die Zeit der Emanzipation der Einzelwissenschaften in eine schwierige, nicht immer eindeutig bestimmbare Beziehung zueinander traten; dieses unterbestimmte Verhältnis tritt uns vor dem Hintergrund aktueller Debatten wieder entgegen. Das zeigt sich zum Beispiel auch bei Fragen der Ethik: In den letzten Jahrzehnten zeigten verschiedene wissenschaftliche Disziplinen verstärktes Interesse an empirischen Bemühungen um ein deskriptives Verständnis von Moral. Hier gibt es nach (...) wie vor eine starke Trennung zwischen den Bereichen der normativen Theorie einerseits und der empirischen Forschung andererseits, wobei in beiden Bereichen dazu tendiert wird, die jeweils anderen Diskurse zu vernachlässigen, wobei Unklarheit über die Möglichkeiten und Grenzen einer fruchtbaren Integration herrscht. Auf der anderen Seite gibt es jüngst auch verschiedene Versuche einer Integration beider Domänen. – Dies macht einen Diskurs über die Bestimmung des Verhältnisses von empirischer Forschung und normativer Theorie nötig, was in diesem Band aus verschiedenen historischen sowie systematischen Perspektiven geleistet wird. (shrink)

El objetivo de este artículo es establecer algunas distinciones fundamentales para el estudio de las representaciones epistémicas, y en particular, de las representaciones epistémicas visuales. Para ello, presento tres distinciones estrechamente relacionadas: La primera es una distinción entre las restricciones impuestas a una herramienta por la tarea (que se busca nos ayude a realizar), y aquellas impuestas por nuestras características como usuarios. La segunda es una distinción entre la función estrecha de una representación (que no es sino representar) y su (...) objetivo más amplio, el cual puede ser epistémico, estético, litúrgico etc. La tercera es una distinción entre la interpretación y la aplicación de una representación, es decir, entre determinar cómo las cosas son de acuerdo a la representación, y determinar si realmente las cosas son como son representadas. Ilustro la utilidad de estas distinciones aplicándolas a un par de ejemplos: un caso de “final de fotografía” y un diagrama en geometría euclidiana. (shrink)

The question of what is shared in joint action has been discussed mainly with reference to the notion of collective intentionality. The problem of how to account for intentional states that are shared between two or more jointly engaged creatures is particularly relevant for actions that involve distal intentions. Yet there is another important kind of joint action, which so far has received less interest, at least by philosophers. This kind of action can be described in terms of a shared (...) motor engagement of two or more creatures with their surroundings. In this paper, I address the question of what is shared in such motor engagements. I suggest that joint motor actions come off through sharing particular kinds of feelings. In order to flesh out what it means to share feelings, I introduce the notion of ‘cross-creature embodiment’—the idea that a certain type of embodied mental event is constitutively tied to the body state of another, perceptually present creature in broadly the same way in which it is tied to the experiencing creature’s own. I end by suggesting that this notion makes available a new, albeit tentative, interpretation of recent neuroscientific evidence. (shrink)

Pronpongo una nueva manera de concebir la aceptación de proposiciones y su relación con la creencia y la inferencia. Argumento además que adoptar esta propuesta nos permite resolver de manera relativamente sencilla algunas paradojas aparentemente tan disímbolas cómo la del prefacio, la lotería y el sorites. Según esta propuesta, el error detrás de la paradoja sorítica es pensar que quién cree que hay una línea divisoria entre lo que cae dentro de la extensión de un término y lo que cae (...) fuera de él debe creer también de algún lugar que ahí se encuentra dicha línea divisoria. Espero convencerlos de que no es así, y que por lo tanto, nuestros juicios de sentido común no nos llevan a ninguna contradicción. (shrink)

Although artificial intelligence has been given an unprecedented amount of attention in both the public and academic domains in the last few years, its convergence with other transformative technologies like cloud computing, robotics, and augmented/virtual reality is predicted to exacerbate its impacts on society. The adoption and integration of these technologies within industry and manufacturing spaces is a fundamental part of what is called Industry 4.0, or the Fourth Industrial Revolution. The impacts of this paradigm shift on the human operators (...) who continue to work alongside and symbiotically with these technologies in the industry bring with it novel ethical issues. Therefore, how to design these technologies for human values becomes the critical area of intervention. This paper takes up the case study of robotic AI-based assistance systems to explore the potential value implications that emerge due to current design practices and use. The design methodology known as Value Sensitive Design (VSD) is proposed as a sufficient starting point for designing these technologies for human values to address these issues. (shrink)

There are historical events which cannot easily be made sense of by reference to the actions of single individuals. I suggest that one way to understand such events is by building on the involved agents' joint experience, or reports thereof. The phenomenology of joint involvement, so my suggestion, is of use in a particular kind of sense making that combines hermeneutical and explanatory elements. Such sense making, I argue, is narrative in character. I suggest a particular conception of historical narratives (...) that aligns them with what I call, taking up an idea from Ian McEwan's novel Atonement , `psychological realism' — the idea that what renders stories accurate is a reality with both physical and mental characteristics. I end by illustrating my account with a historical example. (shrink)