Intuitively, there is a difference between knowledge and mere belief. Contemporary philosophical work on the nature of this difference has focused on scenarios known as “Gettier cases.” Designed as counterexamples to the classical theory that knowledge is justified true belief, these cases feature agents who arrive at true beliefs in ways which seem reasonable or justified, while nevertheless seeming to lack knowledge. Prior empirical investigation of these cases has raised questions about whether lay people generally share philosophers’ intuitions about these (...) cases, or whether lay intuitions vary depending on individual factors (e.g. ethnicity) or factors related to specific types of Gettier cases (e.g. cases that include apparent evidence). We report an experiment on lay attributions of knowledge and justification for a wide range of Gettier Cases and for a related class of controversial cases known as Skeptical Pressure cases, which are also thought by philosophers to elicit intuitive denials of knowledge. Although participants rated true beliefs in Gettier and Skeptical Pressure cases as being justified, they were significantly less likely to attribute knowledge for these cases than for matched true belief cases. This pattern of response was consistent across different variations of Gettier cases and did not vary by ethnicity or gender, although attributions of justification were found to be positively related to measures of empathy. These findings therefore suggest that across demographic groups, laypeople share similar epistemic concepts with philosophers, recognizing a difference between knowledge and justified true belief. (shrink)

Do laypeople and philosophers differ in their attributions of knowledge? Starmans and Friedman maintain that laypeople differ from philosophers in taking ‘authentic evidence’ Gettier cases to be cases of knowledge. Their reply helpfully clarifies the distinction between ‘authentic evidence’ and ‘apparent evidence’. Using their sharpened presentation of this distinction, we contend that the argument of our original paper still stands.

Introducción a los escritos de san Juan. Evangelio, Cartas y Apocalipsis es el título del libro editado por Juan Chapa, profesor de la Facultad de Teología de la Universidad de Navarra, publicado en el 2011 por la editorial EUNSA. En este texto, el editor nos presenta una revisión sobre el estado de la investigación sobre los escritos de san Juan, apoyándose en la misma Sagrada Escritura, así como en los datos de la Tradición de la Iglesia Católica.

This article intends to offer a general presentation of the way in which Saint Thomas Aquinas proceeded in his exegesis of sacred texts. The author concentrates on one of Aquinas’ most estimated biblical commentaries, his Lectura on the Gospel according to St. John. Aquinas combines great theological insight with an incipient development of some literary techniques. In his hermeneutics, he emphasizes the priority of the literal sense of Scripture, although this thesis does not lead him to present a purely natural (...) interpretation. The supernatural mystery of God belongs to the literal sense of Scripture. This is why God, as the principal author of Scripture, might have intended to express different truths even within a single passage. (shrink)

This article deals with the action of the Divine Word in the history of salvation by studying the Lectura super Ioannem. The Divine Word expresses perfectly the essence of God by way of intellect. When the Father intends to manifest Himself ad extra, He speaks through His Word. Creatures represent a very imperfect likeness of God. In the prophetic word the Son speaks with human words; however, the only voice entirely united to the Divine Word is the humanity of Jesus. (...) Christ, especially in His paschal mystery, constitutes the culmination of God’s revelation. Even in the beatific vision, the Word will be the mediator of our knowledge of the Father. (shrink)

Estudio sobre el contexto filosófico de la Escuela de Madrid, y sus inicios, a colación de la figura de Juan Rof Carballo.

César Ernesto Arenas Ulloa nació el 15 de septiembre de 1988 en Chiclayo (Lambayeque, Perú). Realizó estudios literarios en la Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos, hasta obtener el grado de licenciado. En el 2012, obtuvo un reconocimiento académico por ocupar el primer puesto a nivel de toda la escuela de Literatura. En el 2018, presentó su tesis titulada Autonomía y especificidad de la obra dramática: una lectura semiológica de El sistema Solar de Mariana de Althaus. Asimismo, tiene intereses (...) en el teatro peruano, el psicoanálisis y la escritura. Ha sido docente de Lenguaje en diversas universidades privadas de Lima. Ha publicado en revistas indexadas, así como ha participado en congresos y proyectos financiados. Actualmente, vive y estudia en Italia. (shrink)

Las relaciones que entre mística y filosofía contemporánea establecieron algunos filósofos de la Escuela de Madrid, fueron expuestas a colación del cuarto centenario de San Juan de la Cruz celebrado en México (1942), las cuales -y según la visión de José Gaos en su breve pero denso Filosofía y mística aquí y ahora- tuvieron fuertes concomitancias entre sí, y su estela permanece en forma de “vasos comunicantes” con autores contemporáneos como Fernando Rielo (1923-2004), quien también nos ofreció su visión (...) (1992) sobre la mística y la Escuela. (shrink)

The Catholic Church is a field hospital with medics that help to spiritually heal those who recognize that they are in need of healing and who are willing to accept the cure being offered. Many of the sick ask for closeness, proximity and compassion, realities that cannot be offered simply by promoting pastoral activities. For this reason, we highlight the work of the spiritual doctor as a key element for a Church on the way out; we describe its main characteristics (...) based on the work of St. John Climacus. His contributions are of great relevance because they are based on living the virtues in order to offer personalized care. -/- La Iglesia católica es un hospital de campaña con médicos que ayudan a sanar espiritualmente a quienes reconociéndose enfermos aceptan la cura ofrecida. Muchos de estos piden cercanía, proximidad y compasión, realidades que no se logran ofrecer simplemente impulsando la realización de actividades pastorales. Poresta razón, destacamos la labor del médico espiritual como pieza clave para unaIglesia en salida; describimos sus principales características apoyándonos en la obra de San Juan Clímaco. Sus aportes son de gran actualidad porque se apoyan en la vivencia de las virtudes con el fin de brindar una atención personalizada. (shrink)

The founding text for the new current in modern philosophy—experi-mental philosophy—can be seen in Jonathan Weinberg, Shaun Nichols and Ste-phen Stich’s “Normativity and Epistemic Intuitions” (2001). The authors describe in this article a study to prove cross-cultural differences in epistemic intuitions. On the basis of their results, they argue that since epistemic intuitions seem to serve a crucial role in the use of thought experiments, contemporary philosophical methodology is highly unjustified. That study has brought about at least three replication attempts (...) (Seyedsayam-dost 2015; Kim, Yuan 2015; Nagel, San Juan, Mar 2013). None of them confirmed the original results. The aim of this article is to critically analyze in detail Weinberg, Nichols and Stich’s methodology and the three replications mentioned. Regarding the results of my analysis, I will try to examine what conclusions can be drawn with regard to the outcomes of analized studies. In particular I will refer to far-reaching con-clusions about the universality of epistemic intuitions or universality of folk epis-temology, which are sometimes—hastily, as I will argue—extrapolated from the results of such kind of studies (e.g., Kim, Yuan 2015; Kim Yuan 2016). (shrink)

This volume of collected essays brings together conversations, papers, and debates from the Third Annual North American Anarchist Studies Network Conference in San Juan, Puerto Rico. Nathan Jun and Jorell A. Meléndez aspire to go beyond a simple collection of papers and instead aim to maintain a dialogue among different academic fields with the sole task of comprehending and re-thinking anarchist studies. With over twenty-one chapters written by a diverse range of activists, organizers, musicians, artists, poets, and academics, this (...) book transgresses the apparent simplicity of the study of anarchism with a dynamic and interdisciplinary approach that crystallizes and emulates the heterogeneous nature of the anarchist ideal. From theory and philosophy to historical analyses, methodologies, and perspectives, from different manifestations in the arts, media, and culture to religion, ethics, and spirituality, from the intersectionality of animal liberation and queer struggles to contemporary praxis and organizing, the authors explore different topics from a critical perspective that is often lacking in their respective academic fields. This book is a must-buy for critical teachers, students, and activists interested in studying anarchism and the different ways in which we can transform our reality. (shrink)

In my essay “Chasing Waves: Reflection on Southeast Asian Fisherfolk (2021a),” I already featured the less documented experience of the socially marginalized. My essay focused on the personal narratives of Bruneian fishermen of Kampor Ayer, Brunei Darussalam (2016); the fishermen of Mui Ne, Vietnam (2017); and the Intha of Myanmar (2018), with whom I had the fortunate chance to converse with. However, my personal travel experience in the three countries only gave voice to “non-Filipino workers.” That is why in this (...) current essay, I will highlight the unique experience of the Filipinos themselves – in the form of migrant workers in Southeast Asia. I have interacted with and interviewed many Overseas Filipino Workers (OFWs) in Europe, Asia, Australia, and the Pacific; even in other countries where Filipino tourists were unfamiliar or visited, surprisingly happen to have OFWs. With that, it is unsurprising why Filipinos are articulated as globe-trotting people (Perdon 2014) and quasi-wandering people (San Juan 2009) because of their prevalence in the discourse of the global diaspora. In this essay, I will feature the stories of personal experiences of select Filipina workers in Southeast Asia, specifically in Malaysia (2014), Singapore (2014), and Cambodia (2017), extracted from my travel narratives from 2014-2018. (shrink)

Sa pag-aaral ukol sa kasaysayang intelektuwal ng mga nasyunalistang diskurso sa akademya, kadalasang nagsisimula ang mga mananaliksik sa Dekada 70s, partikular sa tinaguriang mga kilusang pagsasakatutubo sa Unibersidad ng Pilipinas. Hindi gaanong napagtutuunan ng pansin sa mga publikasyon ang ugat ng mga nasyunalistang diskursong ito sa mga taon bago ang Dekada 1970s. Sa bagong akda ni Charlie Samuya Veric na Children of the Postcolony (COTP), tinangka niyang punan ang patlang na ito sa kasaysayang intelektuwal ng bansa, sa pamamagitan ng pagtuon (...) sa kaisipan nina Edith Tiempo, Fernando Zobel, Bienvenido Lumbera, E. San Juan Jr., at Jose Maria Sison. Ang sanaysay na ito ay isang deskriptibong pagbasa sa COTP ni Veric, na naglalayong siyasatin ang saysay ng akda sa ‘di pa tapos na proyekto ng kapantasang Pilipino na pumiglas mula sa akademikong imperyalismo ng Kanluran. (shrink)

Stefano Arduini es catedrático de Lingüística en la Universidad de Roma Link Campus, donde es Presidente del Departamento de Licenciatura en Artes, Música y Artes Escénicas y Prorector para la Tercera Misión. Ha enseñado Lingüística General y Teoría de la Traducción en la Universidad de Urbino; Lingüística en la Universidad de Estudios Internacionales de Roma y en la Universidad de Módena; y Literatura Comparada en la Universidad de Alicante y en la Universidad Autónoma de Madrid. Desde 2005 es profesor honorario (...) de la Universidad Nacional San Marcos de Lima (Perú). A su vez, es miembro del Nida Institute for Biblical Scholarship de Filadelfia, del Comité de Política de Traducción (COTP) de las Sociedades Bíblicas Unidas y del Sodalizio Glottologico Milanese. En 2012, a propuesta de la Junta Directiva, fue nombrado Miembro Honorario de la Asociación Latinoamericana de Retórica. Por otro lado, ha impartido cursos y seminarios en Bélgica, España, Estados Unidos, Francia, Gran Bretaña, Grecia, Holanda, Perú, Portugal, Rusia y Turquía, y es uno de los fundadores de la revista Translation. A Transdisciplnary Journal. Tiene en su haber más de un centenar de publicaciones, entre las que destacan: Prolegómenos a una teoría general de las figuras, Murcia University Press 2000; La Ragione retorica, Guaraldi 2004, Metaphors, Edizioni di Storia e Letteratura 2007; Manuale di traduzione, Carocci 2007; Paradoxes, Edizioni di Storia e Letteratura 2011; Con gli occhi dell’altro. Tradurre, Jaca Book 2020 (traducción al ruso 2021, traducción al inglés en curso); Traduzioni in cerca di un originale. La Bibbia e i suoi traduttori, Jaca Book 2021. Traductor de Juan de la Cruz, comenzó con Qohelet, la traducción de las Cinco Meguilot (Qohelet, Rut, Cantar de los Cantares, Lamentaciones, Ester). (shrink)

Niccolò Machiavelli's support for what he calls governo largo, or popular government, is usually contrasted with the diffidence towards it of Francesco Guicciardini, the Florentine aristocrat. The article argues that both these authors grounded their vision on Polybius' theory of “mixed government,” though adapting it in different directions. In examining this difference, the article reaches the conclusion that it concerns far less the degree of popular participation in political decision-making and government than the value that Machiavelli and Guicciardini respectively ascribe (...) to it in comparison with that of safety-liberty. In this respect, their theories may be viewed as anticipating the tensions between democracy and the rule of law, the co-presence of which provides the essential foundation of the structure of present-day constitutional democracies. (shrink)

This article aims to elucidate, albeit in a preliminary way, the concept of liquidity in Zygmunt Bauman and its effects onsociety. The deductive-inductive method will be used. As for the methodology, this will be of a bibliographic nature. This study is in line with what the sociologist Zygmunt Bauman (1925-2017), in his texts, postulates that Modernity can be divided into two phases: Solid Modernity and Liquid Modernity. The first began in the 15th century and lasted until the 19th century; the (...) second began in the 20th century and continues to the present time. To describe modern society from the end of the 20th century, Bauman uses the metaphor of 'liquidity', aiming to point out that the contemporary world is going through a period of uncertainty, ephemerality and instabilities. According to Bauman, the modern ideal coined between the 15th and 19th centuries postulated the primacy of reason and the autonomy of capitalist man and such assumptions led society to liquid modernity. In this liquid “contemporaneity”, nothing is lasting, everything is volatile, ephemeral; consumption is the social parameter, whether of the individual, the family, the State or religion. (shrink)

I defend impact-based accounts of institutional racism against the criticism that they are over-inclusive. If having a negative impact on non-whites suffices to make an institution racist, too many institutions (including institutions whose affirmative action policies inadvertently harm its intended beneficiaries) would count as racist. To address this challenge, I consider a further necessary condition for these institutions to count as racist—they must stand in a particular relation to racist ideology. I argue that, on the impact-based model, institutions are racist (...) if they have a negative racial impact AND this impact is legitimized by racist ideology. Racist ideologies limit social criticism of and collective action against institutions that have a negative racial impact, and in so doing, lend stability to systems of racial domination. (shrink)

Chi ha l'abitudine di sfogliare le riviste filosofiche sa che "metafisica" non è più una parola che scotta. I maestri dell'inizio del secolo (gli empiristi logici sono l'esempio più tipico) identificarono la metafisica con il non-senso e usarono la parola come un marchio di infamia. Non mancavano precedenti nella storia della filosofia. Ma oggi gli allievi di quei maestri preferiscono rifarsi ad un uso diverso, meno fazioso, del termine per indicare con esso un'indagine filosofica, che non solo non deve essere (...) trascurata, ma concerne i fondamenti di molte altre ricerche, ed è quindi per molti versi centrale. (shrink)

In this article, I argue that, contrary to scholarly consensus, Antonio Caso draws inspiration from important principles and ideas from Kant’s philosophy in his critique of positivism. I first examine the prima facie textual reasons why someone might believe that Caso and Kant are philosophical enemies. To contradict this notion, I proceed by noting and developing three core ideas that the two share in common. First, Caso and Kant are both ardent critics of dogmatic philosophizing. Second, both Caso and Kant (...) carve out special room for intuition in their respective accounts of cognition, resisting the idea that the understanding has a more prominent role in the formation of knowledge. Third, Kant’s doctrine of aesthetic judgment paves the way for Caso’s de-intellectualized aesthetics. In the end, we see that Kant and Caso are closer to being philosophical friends than enemies. (shrink)

The two main theories of perceptual reasons in contemporary epistemology can be called Phenomenalism and Factualism. According to Phenomenalism, perceptual reasons are facts about experiences conceived of as phenomenal states, i.e., states individuated by phenomenal character, by what it’s like to be in them. According to Factualism, perceptual reasons are instead facts about the external objects perceived. The main problem with Factualism is that it struggles with bad cases: cases where perceived objects are not what they appear or where there (...) is no perceived object at all. The main problem with Phenomenalism is that it struggles with good cases: cases where everything is perfectly normal and the external object is correctly perceived, so that one’s perceptual beliefs are knowledge. In this paper we show that there is a theory of perceptual reasons that avoids the problems for Factualism and Phenomenalism. We call this view Propositionalism. We use ‘proposition’ broadly to mean the entities that are contents of beliefs and other doxastic attitudes. The key to finding a middle ground between Phenomenalism and Factualism, we claim, is to allow our reasons to be false in bad cases. Despite being false, they are about the external world, not our phenomenal states. (shrink)

I address the objection that the concept of racism has become overly inflated. Critics of the conceptual inflation of “racism” argue that theories of institutional racism engage in untoward conceptual inflation insofar as they undermine our moral understanding of racial phenomena, hinder our ability to explain the causes of racial inequality, and even undercut struggles for racial justice. I develop an original account of institutional racism and show that it is immune to all three versions of the conceptual inflation challenge.

This study presents and develops in detail (a new version of) the argumental conception of meaning. The two basic principles of the argumental conception of meaning are: i) To know (implicitly) the sense of a word is to know (implicitly) all the argumentation rules concerning that word; ii) To know the sense of a sentence is to know the syntactic structure of that sentence and to know the senses of the words occurring in it. The sense of a sentence is (...) called immediate argumental role of that sentence. According to the argumental conception of meaning a theory of meaning for a particular language yields a systematic specification of the understanding of every sentence of the language which consists in a specification of the immediate argumental role of the sentence. The immediate argumental role is a particular aspect of the use of a sentence in arguments. But it is not the whole use in arguments, nor is the whole use in arguments reducible to the immediate argumental role. That is why, by accepting the argumental conception of meaning, we can have epistemological holism without linguistic holism. The argumental conception distinguishes between the understanding and the correctness of a language. Such a distinction makes it possible to account for our understanding of paradoxical languages. Redundancy theory of truth, realistic conceptions of truth or epistemic conceptions of truth are all compatible with an argumental conception of sense. But here it is argued that an epistemic conception of truth is preferrable. Acceptance of the argumental conception of meaning and of an epistemic conception of truth leads to a rejection of the idea of analytic truth. The argumental conception is pluralistic with respect to the understandability of different logics, and neutral with respect to their correctness. (shrink)

This paper argues that racism should not only be conceived as a moral concept whose main aim is to condemn severe wrongs in the domain of race. The paper advances a complementary interpretation of racism as an explanatory concept--one that plays a key role in explaining race-based social problems afflicting members of subordinate racialized groups. As an explanatory concept, the term 'racism' is used to diagnose and highlight the causes of race-related social problems. The project of diagnosing race-based social problems (...) contributes to the pragmatic anti-racist end of developing better political and policy strategies for solving these social problems. The paper defends this interpretation of racism as an explanatory concept through a critical engagement with Urquidez's moral-philosophical account of racism. (shrink)

Richard Feldman has proposed and defended different versions of a principle about evidence. In slogan form, the principle holds that ‘evidence of evidence is evidence’. Recently, Branden Fitelson has argued that Feldman’s preferred rendition of the principle falls pray to a counterexample related to the non-transitivity of the evidence-for relation. Feldman replies arguing that Fitelson’s case does not really represent a counterexample to the principle. In this note, we argue that Feldman’s principle is trivially true.

In this work, we discuss the failure of the principle of truth functionality in the quantum formalism. By exploiting this failure, we import the formalism of N-matrix theory and non-deterministic semantics to the foundations of quantum mechanics. This is done by describing quantum states as particular valuations associated with infinite non-deterministic truth tables. This allows us to introduce a natural interpretation of quantum states in terms of a non-deterministic semantics. We also provide a similar construction for arbitrary probabilistic theories based (...) in orthomodular lattices, allowing to study post-quantum models using logical techniques. (shrink)

There are various proposals for a general characterization of holism1. In this paper I propose the following: a variety of holism is the view that every X of an appropriate kind, which is part of a relevant whole W, cannot be legitimately separated or taken in isolation from W. Then, I distinguish two general kinds of holism, depending on two different reasons which can debar us from taking X in isolation from W. One reason can be that separating X from (...) W always amounts to transforming X into something else. Correspondingly, a strong holism is the view that if the whole W is modified anywhere, X ceases to be X and becomes something else. Another reason why it may be illegitimate to consider X in isolation from W can be that if we separate X from W, nothing that we know entitles us to exclude that X might be transformed into something else. Correspondingly, virtual holism is the view that if the whole W is modified anywhere, we can never rule out that X ceases to be X and becomes something else. (shrink)

I argue that normative requirements should be interpreted as the conditional obligations of dyadic deontic logic. Semantically, normative requirements are conditionals understood as restrictors, the prevailing view of conditionals in linguistics. This means that Modus Ponens is invalid, even when the premises are known.

Alberto Coffa used the phrase "the Copernican turn in semantics" to denote a revolutionary transformation of philosophical views about the connection between the meanings of words and the acceptability of sentences and arguments containing those words. According to the new conception resulting from the Copernican turn, here called "the Copernican view", rules of use are constitutive of the meanings of words. This view has been linked with two doctrines: (A) the instances of meaning-constitutive rules are analytically and a priori true (...) or valid; (B) to grasp a meaning is to accept its rules. The pros and cons of different versions of the Copernican view, ascribable to Wittgenstein, Carnap, Gentzen, Dummett, Prawitz, Boghossian and other authors, will be weighed. A new version will be proposed, which implies neither (A) nor (B). (shrink)

From our everyday commuting to the gold medalist’s world-class performance, skillful actions are characterized by fine-grained, online agentive control. What is the proper explanation of such control? There are two traditional candidates: intellectualism explains skillful agentive control by reference to the agent’s propositional mental states; anti-intellectualism holds that propositional mental states or reflective processes are unnecessary since skillful action is fully accounted for by automatic coping processes. I examine the evidence for three psychological phenomena recently held to support anti-intellectualism and (...) argue that it supports neither traditional candidate, but an intermediate attention-control account, according to which the top-down, intention-directed control of attention is a necessary component of skillful action. Only this account recognizes both the role of automatic control in skilled action and the need for higher-order cognition to thread automatic processes together into a unified, skillful performance. This applies to bodily skillful action in general, from the world-class performance of experts to mundane, habitual action. The attention-control account stresses that, for intentions to play their role as top-down modulators of attention, agents must sustain the intention’s activation; hence, the need for reflecting throughout performance. (shrink)

Can an epistemic conception of truth and an endorsement of the excluded middle (together with other principles of classical logic abandoned by the intuitionists) cohabit in a plausible philosophical view? In PART I I describe the general problem concerning the relation between the epistemic conception of truth and the principle of excluded middle. In PART II I give a historical overview of different attitudes regarding the problem. In PART III I sketch a possible holistic solution.

Does self-control require willpower? The question cuts to the heart of a debate about whether self-control is identical with some psychological process internal to the agents or not. Noticeably absent from these debates is systematic evidence about the folk-psychological category of self-control. Here, we present the results of two behavioral studies (N = 296) that indicate the structure of everyday use of the concept. In Study 1, participants rated the degree to which different strategies to respond to motivational conflict exemplify (...) self-control. Participants distinguished between intra-psychic and externally-scaffolded strategies and judged that the former exemplified self-control more than the latter. In Study 2, participants provided various solutions to manage motivational conflict and rated their proposals on effectiveness. Participants produced substantially more intra-psychic strategies, rated them as more effective, and advised them at a higher rate than externally-scaffolded strategies. Taken together, these results suggest that while people recognize a plurality of strategies as genuine instances of self-control, purely internal exercises of self-control are considered more prototypical than their externally-scaffolded counterparts. This implies a hierarchical structure for the folk psychological category of self-control. The concept encompasses a variety of regulatory strategies and organizes these strategies along a hierarchical continuum, with purely intra-psychic strategies at the center and scaffolded strategies in the periphery. (shrink)

kk states that knowing entails knowing that one knows, and K¬K states that not knowing entails knowing that one does not know. In light of the arguments against kk and K¬K⁠, one might consider modally qualified variants of those principles. According to weak kk, knowing entails the possibility of knowing that one knows. And according to weakK¬K⁠, not knowing entails the possibility of knowing that one does not know. This paper shows that weak kk and weakK¬K are much stronger than (...) they initially appear. Jointly, they entail kk and K¬K⁠. And they are susceptible to variants of the standard arguments against kk and K¬K⁠. This has interesting implications for the debate on positive introspection and for deeper issues concerning the structure and limits of knowability. (shrink)

This study aims to deepen the philosophical aspects of the relationship between the work of Pierre Hadot and Michel Foucault, with regard to the concepts of "Spiritual Exercises" and "Self-Care". We intend to analyze how Pierre Hadot interpreted the appropriation that Michel de Foucault made of his text "spiritual exercises", when presenting the notion about the definition of "Care of the self". We elucidate the main divergences and convergences present between the philosophical reflections of these two authors, which are of (...) great relevance for the understanding of current phenomena. The methodology adopted was exploratory theoretical-bibliographic research, halfway betweena comment and an essay. Our studies point to the theme of 'the self' as the central point of the research, with “Self-Care” as the bias capable of leading us to knowledge and, in this way, taking us to the direction of existence through the rationality ofthe “Exercises” Spiritual ”. Our two authors, in their discussions about “taking care of oneself”, evoke in part the thinking of the Greeks, who are the source of the definition of this principle. Therefore, the term “epimeleia heauton” will guide us, that is, to undertake in the face of the world of life, in the practice of thorough and permanent criticism in the face of one's own conduct. In other words, by means of these spiritual exercises, thus being able to contemplate oneself rationally on a path towards "oneself" and through "oneself". Furthermore, all of this implies a constant effort on the will and desire, in order to architect authentic autonomy on a daily basis. We do not intend to exhaust the whole subject, however, the relationship to be developed will bring us closer to dominance over ourselves and make us reflect on the state of "having oneself in the hands.". (shrink)

This book addresses key conceptual issues relating to the modern scientific and engineering use of computer simulations. It analyses a broad set of questions, from the nature of computer simulations to their epistemological power, including the many scientific, social and ethics implications of using computer simulations. The book is written in an easily accessible narrative, one that weaves together philosophical questions and scientific technicalities. It will thus appeal equally to all academic scientists, engineers, and researchers in industry interested in questions (...) related to the general practice of computer simulations. (shrink)

“Identità” qui si intende nel senso già precisato da Aristotele di “identità numerica”, che si ha “quando i nomi sono parecchi, ma la cosa è una sola” e, non nel senso di “identità specifica”, che si ha invece “quando gli oggetti, pur essendo parecchi, non rivelano differenze quanto alla specie”.1 In questo articolo intendo fornire al lettore indicazioni introduttive (non certo esaustive) sul posto che la nozione di identità numerica occupa nella logica contemporanea e nell’area di riflessione filosofica del Novecento (...) più strettamente legata alla logica, la filosofia analitica. Nella terza parte proporrò qualche spunto per un’indagine originale. (shrink)

Many philosophers hold that if an agent acts intentionally, she must know what she is doing. Although the scholarly consensus for many years was to reject the thesis in light of presumed counterexamples by Donald Davidson, several scholars have recently argued that attention to aspectual distinctions and the practical nature of this knowledge shows that these counterexamples fail. In this paper I defend a new objection against the thesis, one modelled after Timothy Williamson’s anti-luminosity argument. Since this argument relies on (...) general principles about the nature of knowledge rather than on intuitions about fringe cases, the recent responses that have been given to defuse the force of Davidson’s objection are silent against it. Moreover, the argument suggests that even weaker theses connecting practical entities with knowledge are also false. Recent defenders of the thesis that there is a necessary connection between knowledge and intentional action are motivated by the insight that this connection is non-accidental. I close with a positive proposal to account for the non-accidentality of this link without appeal to necessary connections by drawing an extended analogy between practical and perceptual knowledge. (shrink)

Researchers often claim that self-control is a skill. It is also often stated that self-control exertions are intentional actions. However, no account has yet been proposed of the skillful agency that makes self-control exertion possible, so our understanding of self-control remains incomplete. Here I propose the skill model of self-control, which accounts for skillful agency by tackling the guidance problem: how can agents transform their abstract and coarse-grained intentions into the highly context-sensitive, fine-grained control processes required to select, revise and (...) correct strategies during self-control exertion? The skill model borrows conceptual tools from ‘hierarchical models’ recently developed in the context of motor skills, and asserts that self-control crucially involves the ability to manage the implementation and monitoring of regulatory strategies as the self-control exercise unfolds. Skilled agents are able do this by means of flexible practical reasoning: a fast, context-sensitive type of deliberation that incorporates non-propositional representations into the formation and revision of the mixed-format intentions that structure self-control exertion. The literatures on implementation intentions and motivation framing offer corroborating evidence for the theory. As a surprising result, the skill of self-control that allows agents to overcome the contrary motivations they experience is self-effacing: instead of continuously honing this skill, expert agents replace it with a different one, which minimizes or prevents contrary motivations from arising in the first place. Thus, the more expert you are at self-control, the less likely you are to use it. (shrink)

This article aims to develop a new account of scientific explanation for computer simulations. To this end, two questions are answered: what is the explanatory relation for computer simulations? And what kind of epistemic gain should be expected? For several reasons tailored to the benefits and needs of computer simulations, these questions are better answered within the unificationist model of scientific explanation. Unlike previous efforts in the literature, I submit that the explanatory relation is between the simulation model and the (...) results of the simulation. I also argue that our epistemic gain goes beyond the unificationist account, encompassing a practical dimension as well. (shrink)

Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, EarlyView.

Much of our know-how is acquired through practice: we learn how to cook by cooking, how to write by writing, and how to dance by dancing. As Aristotle argues, however, this kind of learning is puzzling, since engaging in it seems to require possession of the very knowledge one seeks to obtain. After showing how a version of the puzzle arises from a set of attractive principles, I argue that the best solution is to hold that knowledge-how comes in degrees, (...) and through practice a person gradually learns how to do something. However, the two standard accounts of know-how in the literature, intellectualism and anti-intellectualism, cannot properly account for the distinctive way in which know-how is gradually acquired by practice, a process in which conceptual representations and practical abilities are intimately interwoven. Drawing on Gareth Evans's work, I outline an account that may do so, and use this account to distinguish between two forms of learning to explain why skill generally cannot be learnt through testimony, and requires practice. (shrink)

Ideas on meaning, rules and mathematical proofs abound in Wittgenstein’s writings. The undeniable fact that they are present together, sometimes intertwined in the same passage of Philosophical Investigations or Remarks on the Foundations of Mathematics, does not show, however, that the connection between these ideas is necessary or inextricable. The possibility remains, and ought to be checked, that they can be plausibly and consistently separated. I am going to examine two views detectable in Wittgenstein’s works: one about proofs, the other (...) about meaning and rules. The first is the denial of the objectivity of proof. The second is a conception of meaning stemming from the rule-following considerations. I shall argue that, though Wittgenstein seems to conjoin the two views, they can be, and should be, separated1. (shrink)

Our question, in this paper, is about the plausibility of the expressivist account of one’s self- attribution of mental states. More to the point, we will strictly follow the principle of charity as a mean to show that an expressivist philosopher can have good and reasonable answers to the set of objections put together in so called “Geach’s point”. Using this method, we hope to give enough evidences that an expressivist philosopher has enough resources to build a plausible explanation for (...) one’s attribution of mental states to herself. (shrink)

Direct realists about episodic memory claim that a rememberer has direct contact with a past event. But how is it possible to be acquainted with an event that ceased to exist? That’s the so-called cotemporality problem. The standard solution, proposed by Sven Bernecker, is to distinguish between the occurrence of an event and the existence of an event: an event ceases to occur without ceasing to exist. That’s the eternalist solution for the cotemporality problem. Nevertheless, some philosophers of memory claim (...) that the adoption of an eternalist metaphysics of time would be too high a metaphysical price to be paid to hold direct realist intuitions about memory. Although I agree with these critics, I will try to show two things. First, that this kind of “common sense argument” is far from decisive. Second, that Bernecker’s proposal remains the best solution to the cotemporality problem. (shrink)