The complex world of thought and sensitivity in the sphere of contemporary art has entailed the revision and exclusion of disciplines aimed at providing a model to explain and conceptualize reality. Art history, as one such discipline, has had many of its contributions questioned from Gombrich’s epistemological reformulation to the postmodern discourses, which extol the death of the author, the post-structuralist idea of tradition as a textual phenomenon, and the declaration of the death of history as a consequence of the (...) hybridization of disciplines and of other bran- ches of human knowledge. Nevertheless, it can be demonstrated that proposals as those by Julius von Schlosser and Giulio Carlo Argan enclose reflections and methodological aspects which can help us face the task of understanding and visualizing the mediating role of historians in the culture of sensitivity, and the art modulations that have resulted from the blows of history and that, in turn, have shaped both art and art history into what they are or can be to us today. (shrink)

The philosophical conception of mechanistic explanation is grounded on a limited number of canonical examples. These examples provide an overly narrow view of contemporary scientific practice, because they do not reflect the extent to which the heuristic strategies and descriptive practices that contribute to mechanistic explanation have evolved beyond the well-known methods of decomposition, localization, and pictorial representation. Recent examples from evolutionary robotics and network approaches to biology and neuroscience demonstrate the increasingly important role played by computer simulations and mathematical (...) representations in the epistemic practices of mechanism discovery and mechanism description. These examples also indicate that the scope of mechanistic explanation must be re-examined: With new and increasingly powerful methods of discovery and description comes the possibility of describing mechanisms far more complex than traditionally assumed. (shrink)

Franz Brentano is not usually associated with mathematics. Generally, only Brentano’s discussion of the continuum and his critique of the mathematical accounts of it is treated in the literature. It is this detailed critique which suggests that Brentano had more than a superficial familiarity with mathematics. Indeed, considering the authors and works quoted in his lectures, Brentano appears well-informed and quite interested in the mathematical research of his time. I specifically address his lectures here as there is much less to (...) be found about mathematics in his published works. Besides Brentano’s own work, it is quite remarkable to see that practically all of his better-known students sooner or later produced a work on the philosophy of mathematics. This also encourages the supposition not just of a common interest in the matter, but of a common theoretical core. All this prompts the question: Can we speak of a Brentanist philosophy of mathematics? (shrink)

Counselling y cuidados paliativos es el título del libro escrito por la doctora Esperanza Santos y el profesor José Carlos Bermejo. En esta obra, de fácil lectura y con consejos muy prácticos y útiles, se presentan elementos fundamentales para brindar un acompañamiento de óptima calidad en el cuidado paliativo, así como la posibilidad de hacer un autoexamen de cómo los cuidadores de los pacientes prestan sus servicios e incluso para no caer en burnout. Este libro es de gran utilidad, (...) tanto para los profesionales de la salud que trabajan en las unidades de cuidados paliativos, como para personas que dedican gran parte de su tiempo al cuidado de familiares con enfermedades terminales, o que pasan por procesos prolongados de enfermedad. Con ejemplos de conversaciones de la vida real entre cuidadores y pacientes, la lectura del libro se hace, a la vez, agradable, divertida y profundamente reflexiva. (shrink)

The frame problem, a long-standing issue in Artificial Intelligence (AI), revolves around determining the relevance of information in an ever-changing array of contexts, posing a formidable challenge in modeling human reasoning. The purpose of this paper is to explore the hypothesis that emotions are able to solve, or at least enable a substantial step towards a solution. I argue that, while emotions are integral to cognitive processes, they do not offer a solution to the frame problem, nor can they play (...) a significant role in a solution. In the course of the argument, I’ll show why some previous claims that emotions could be helpful towards a solution rely on a problematic analysis of what the frame problem is. Ultimately, the conclusion is that no context-dependent feature can play a non-trivial role in solutions to the frame problem, and that is the case of emotions. (shrink)

Entre el arte y la literatura se han generado múltiples reflexiones que han sido estudiadas por la historia del arte, la teoría literaria y la estética, entre otros. Igualmente, podemos considerar una larga tradición de artistas y escritores que se han empeñado, por medio de ensayos, críticas y manifiestos, en considerar los ámbitos y lugares de competencia de cada forma artística, así como sus lugares de similitud y diferencia en una larga tradición de préstamos interartísticos entre la palabra y la (...) imagen. En el seno de esta discusión, se quiere analizar el diálogo disciplinar entre la literatura y el arte que se da en torno a la figura del pintor post impresionista Paul Gauguin y el escritor Mario Vargas Llosa. Para ello, reflexionamos a partir de una de las obras fundamentales del pintor francés, que tiene su correspondencia y complementariedad en la obra literaria del escritor peruano. De esta manera, se presenta una revisión de una fuente literaria que propone no solo una alusión temática a la obra del pintor, sino que se enmarca bajo coordenadas estéticas, que superan los armazones de las teorías o historias meramente literarias. (shrink)

Although the idea of the Anthropocene originated in the earth sciences, there have been increasing calls for questions about the Anthropocene to be addressed by pan-disciplinary groups of researchers from across the natural sciences, social sciences, and humanities. We use data analysis techniques from corpus linguistics to examine academic texts about the Anthropocene from these disciplinary families. We read the data to suggest that barriers to a broadly interdisciplinary study of the Anthropocene are high, but we are also able to (...) identify some areas of common ground that could serve as interdisciplinary bridges. (shrink)

The incense used in some cults and oracles in antiquity seems to have possessed the power to induce visions and prophecies. a study of its components, from an ethnobotanical perspective, reveals us their psychoactive power.

The main discourses on art during the nineteenth century defined the artist as a spirit that should express their unbridled creativity, and overall that had the strength to express its total personal autonomy from institutional processes of culture. Thus, Manet’s work A bar at the Folies—Bergere contains substantial elements that express and help us to understand both the role of the artist, as the crisis of meaning in the work of modern art and problematic public sphere, treated by Haberma's as (...) the field of social life in which we can develop our public opinion, and that is determined by common sense and rational consensus. In this sense, this article leverages how A bar at the Folies—Bergere questions the social representation of not only the public but the legitimizing institutions that support an artistic truth, to point to an x—ray that presents the structure and the gap between the public and artists, between artistic expression and cultural significance, and thus presents the cultural crisis warned by artists. (shrink)

Frente al interés por construir un discurso que dé cuenta del momento particular del arte contemporáneo, y que, además, pueda esclarecer y proponer diversas respuestas frente a los productos artísticos que se realizan en la difícil circunstancia actual, se han dirigido diferentes propuestas disciplinares que presentan análisis de la obra de arte y la experiencia que surge en su comprensión. La situación, que a veces se caracteriza por la impotencia de la teoría, la historia y la crítica del arte al (...) ocuparse del arte más reciente, proviene, entre otras razones, de un hecho evidente: nunca estas disciplinas habían tenido que entenderse con tal abundancia de prácticas, fenómenos artísticos, y declaraciones artísticas. Asimismo, las complejas formas vividas por el sistema internacional del arte ha planteado a la comprensión de estos fenómenos una serie de retos de fuerte impacto en la misma actividad de los artistas. Y uno de esos retos ha sido examinar la forma material, los soportes y lenguajes artísticos de obra de arte. (shrink)

Gombrich: la Historia del arte y las humanidades hace un estudio de la sobresaliente figura de Ernst Gombrich (1909-2001), como un punto de encuentro común para el investigador y el alumno sobre el arte y sus relatos legitimadores en la tradición humanista. De esta manera, planteo el interés por pensar la Historia del arte para el presente, en el cual Gombrich se enfrena al problema del método de la Historia como una humanidad en el ámbito académico, tanto en el mundo (...) del pensamiento como en el mundo burocrático de las instituciones universitarias. (shrink)

Desde Platón el arte ha sido deslegitimado filosóficamente porque su elemento y su medio es la apariencia. De tal manera que, el ser y la verdad, según la antigua teoría, se encuentran en las ideas y no en las apariencias sensibles. Hegel está lejos de este platonismo en sus Lecciones sobre estética y, por el contrario, va a realizar una reivindicación de la apariencia en el arte. El interés de este artículo es indagar por la distinción entre apariencia que engaña, (...) vinculada al no–ser, y la apariencia necesaria de las obras de arte que, para Hegel, es la apariencia de la esencia. El artículo aprovecha tanto la oposición planteada por Hegel entre belleza natural–belleza espiritual, como el modo de ser del arte como ideal, para indicar que es la apariencia del arte una de las formas donde el espíritu se hace concreción, donde revela su conciencia activa, pensante, y puede manifestar sensiblemente las determinaciones e intereses más altos para su cultura. (shrink)

The project of growing meat artificially represents for some the next best thing to humanity. If successful, it could be the solution to several problems, such as feed- ing a growing global population while reducing the environmental impact of raising animals for food and, of course, reducing the amount and degree of animal cruelty and suffering that is involved in animal farming. In this paper, I argue that the issue of the morality of such a project has been framed only (...) in terms of the best conse- quences for the environment, animals, and humans, or in terms of deontic princi- ples. I argue that to appreciate how deep and difficult this issue is, it is necessary to consider it in terms of a virtue-oriented approach. Such an approach will reveal aspects that are not apparent, not contemplated by typical approaches, but are essen- tial to our understanding of the morality of lab-grown meat. As I argue, evaluating the issue from a virtue-oriented perspective suggests that the project of in vitro meat should not be supported because it stems from unvirtuous motivations. (shrink)

In the following article we explore one of the central philosophical problems of the philosophy of history: re ections on the new consciousness of historical time in the light of two lead-concepts of Modernity: secularization and experience. Regularly we use the term "philosophy of history" without realizing that a fundamental ambiguity arises in the concept of history itself. On the one hand, it indicates the story as such, as the development of processes, developments and events throughout history; on the other (...) hand , the same term is used to refer to the science that investigates by those claims and those conditions of possibility of why stories occur, how they can be completed, how they can be told and how they should be studied and why. Thus, it is necessary to consider the secularization and experience in the business of historical processes and the way we look, we report and interpret philosophically that activity, particularly in the nineteenth century. In other words, besides the study of historical problems, the philosophy of history is also presented as a discipline, with its own history and with a particular epistemological development. (shrink)

Is it possible to know anything about life we have not yet encountered? We know of only one example of life: our own. Given this, many scientists are inclined to doubt that any principles of Earth’s biology will generalize to other worlds in which life might exist. Let’s call this the “N = 1 problem.” By comparison, we expect the principles of geometry, mechanics, and chemistry would generalize. Interestingly, each of these has predictable consequences when applied to biology. The surface-to-volume (...) property of geometry, for example, limits the size of unassisted cells in a given medium. This effect is real, precise, universal, and predictive. Furthermore, there are basic problems all life must solve if it is to persist, such as resistance to radiation, faithful inheritance, and energy regulation. If these universal problems have a limited set of possible solutions, some common outcomes must consistently emerge. In this chapter, I discuss the N = 1 problem, its implications, and my response (Mariscal 2014). I hold that our current knowledge of biology can justify believing certain generalizations as holding for life anywhere. Life on Earth may be our only example of life, but this is only a reason to be cautious in our approach to life in the universe, not a reason to give up altogether. In my account, a candidate biological generalization is assessed by the assumptions it makes. A claim is accepted only if its justification includes principles of evolution, but no contingent facts of life on Earth. (shrink)

Many moral philosophers have criticized intensive animal farming because it can be harmful to the environment, it causes pain and misery to a large number of animals, and furthermore eating meat and animal-based products can be unhealthful. The issue of industrially farmed animals has become one of the most pressing ethical questions of our time. On the one hand, utilitarians have argued that we should become vegetarians or vegans because the practices of raising animals for food are immoral since they (...) minimize the overall happiness. Deontologists, on the other hand, have argued that the practices of raising animals for food are immoral because animals have certain rights and we have duties toward them. Some virtue ethicists remain unconvinced of deontic and consequentialist arguments against the exploitation of animals and suggest that a virtue-based approach is better equipped to show what is immoral about raising and using animals for food, and what is virtuous about ethical veganism. (shrink)

In this paper I offer a defence of a Russellian analysis of the referential uses of incomplete (mis)descriptions, in a contextual setting. With regard to the debate between a unificationist and an ambiguity approach to the formal treatment of definite descriptions (introduction), I will support the former against the latter. In 1. I explain what I mean by "essentially" incomplete descriptions: incomplete descriptions are context dependent descriptions. In 2. I examine one of the best versions of the unificationist “explicit” approach (...) given by Buchanan and Ostertag. I then show that this proposal seems unable to treat the normal uses of misdescriptions. I then accept the challenge of treating misdescriptions as a key to solving the problem of context dependent descriptions. In 3. I briefly discuss Michael Devitt’s and Joseph Almog’s treatments of referential descriptions, showing that they find it difficult to explain misdescriptions. In 4. I suggest an alternative approach to DD as contextuals, under a normative epistemic stance. Definite descriptions express (i) what a speaker should have in mind in using certain words in a certain context and (ii) what a normal speaker is justified in saying in a context, given a common basic knowledge of the lexicon. In 5. I define a procedure running on contextual parameters (partiality, perspective and approximation) as a means of representing the role of pragmatics as a filter for semantic interpretation. In 6. I defend my procedural approach against possible objections concerning the problem of the boundaries between semantics and pragmatics, relying on the distinction between semantics and theory of meaning. (shrink)

With millions of animals brought into existence and raised for food every year, their negative impact upon the environment and the staggering growth in the number of chronic diseases caused by meat and dairy diets make a global move toward ethical veganism imperative. Typi-cally, utilitarians and deontologists have led this discussion. The purpose of this paper is to pro-pose a virtuous approach to ethical veganism. Virtue ethics can be used to construct a defense of ethical veganism by relying on the (...) virtues of compassion and fairness. Exercising these values in our relations with animals involves acknowledging their moral value, thus seeing that they are not our property or our food. It is important to emphasize that this argument applies only to well-developed societies that need not rely upon animals as sources of food, clothing, and various by-products. (shrink)

Si no me falla la memoria, fue el dibujante Álvaro Barrios quien afirmó que el trabajo del artista contemporáneo colombiano se desarrolla según una agenda de trabajo. Si miramos algunos fenómenos del arte último en Colombia, podemos señalar que su agenda está determinada por el intento de comprensión de los procesos de la violencia en el país, a partir de una amplia gama de aproximaciones al concepto de memoria que ha tenido resonancia en las disciplinas humanísticas, las investigaciones académicas, el (...) uso político del concepto por parte de la legislación estatal, y una gran diversidad de eventos artísticos. Desde el ámbito del arte, exposiciones como Destierro y reparación (2008), Tapices de Mampuján (2010), La guerra que no hemos visto (2009) o La piel de la memoria (2011), han discutido sobre la violencia en Colombia desde la aproximación a los procesos de comprensión de la memoria y nuestro pasado reciente. Así, la imbricación de violencia y memoria se manifiesta en la visión del pasado y en los efectos que este puede desplegar sobre el presente, en tanto se ha considerado, incluso, a la memoria como una instancia de reconciliación social. (shrink)

My main aim in this paper is to improve and give further support to a defense of the Principle of Alternative Possibilities (PAP) against Frankfurt cases which I put forward in some previous work. In the present paper I concentrate on a recent Frankfurt case, Pereboom's "Tax Evasion". After presenting the essentials of my defense of PAP and applying it to this case, I go on to consider several objections that have been (or might be) raised against it and argue (...) that they don't succeed. I conclude by pointing out that my criticism of Pereboom's example suggests a general strategy against other actual or possible Frankfurt cases. (shrink)

We present an account of the evolutionary development of the experiences of empathy that marked the beginning of morality and art. We argue that aesthetic and moral capacities provided an important foundation for later epistemic developments. The distinction between phenomenal consciousness and attention is discussed, and a role for phenomenology in cognitive archeology is justified-critical sources of evidence used in our analysis are based on the archeological record. We claim that what made our species unique was a form of meditative (...) and empathic thinking that made large-scale human cooperation possible through pre-linguistic, empathic communication. A critical aspect of this proposal is that the transformation that led to the dawn of our species was not initially driven by semantic or epistemic factors, although clearly, these factors increased the gap between us and other species dramatically later on. Our proposal suggests that recent philosophy of mind and psychology might have "epistemicized" phenomenal consciousness too much by construing it in terms of semantic content rather than by describing it in terms of empathic and meditative thinking. Instead of the prevailing approach, we favor the type of subjectivity that is fundamentally "other-involving" as essential, because on our account, a necessary condition for subjectivity is the empathic understanding of other individuals' psychology, not through inference or judgment, but through immediate conscious engagement. (shrink)

La obra de Yosman Botero siempre ha orbitado entre paradojas. Desde los mismos lugares suplementarios de su obra, como los títulos de sus series Full of Emptiness (2013), Immaterial matter (2014) y Postcolombino (2016) se plantea una encrucijada tanto de la “supervivencia de las imágenes” del arte como de su capacidad comunicativa de la realidad: ya sea esta la experiencia del arte o la realidad social colombiana, o lo que sea que entendemos por “lo real”, tan cara a las propuestas (...) simulacionistas y posapropiacionistas de las décadas del setenta y ochenta. Y digo paradojas porque aquí se juega en los terrenos de una intención inexpresiva ante los procesos de creación de la imagen: Opie, Haring, Negret, Davies, Los Simpsons, Velásquez, o el conflicto colombiano, no son más que el mundo al que Yosman Botero se refiere; pero es un mundo sometido a los procesos de reproducción y mediación cultural, y reflejado en las imágenes. (shrink)

Marcus William Hunt argues that when co-parents disagree over whether to raise their child (or children) as a vegan, they should reach a compromise as a gift given by one parent to the other out of respect for his or her authority. Josh Millburn contends that Hunt’s proposal of parental compromise over veganism is unacceptable on the ground that it overlooks respect for animal rights, which bars compromising. However, he contemplates the possibility of parental compromise over ‘unusual eating,’ of animal-based (...) foods obtained without the violation of animal rights. I argue for zero parental compromise, rejecting a rights-oriented approach, and propose a policy that an ethical vegan parent and a non-vegan co-parent should follow to determine how to raise their children. (shrink)

Some metaphysicians believe that metaphysical modality is explainable by the essences of objects. In §II, I spell out the definitional view of essence, and in §III, a working notion of metaphysical explanation. Then, in §IV, I consider and reject five natural ways to explain necessity by essence: in terms of the principle that essential properties can't change, in terms of the supposed obviousness of the necessity of essential truth, in terms of the logical necessity of definitions, in terms of Fine's (...) logic of essence, and in terms of the theory of real definitions. I will conclude that the present evidence favours rejecting the hypothesis that modality is explainable by essence. (shrink)

En medio de tanta charla irresponsable que inunda los diversos medios de comunicación y las tribunas gubernamentales sobre la educación, en el que se figura la viabilidad del país desde lo económico y no desde lo civilizado, recordé las “uvas verdes”, esa referencia que Gombrich utilizó en una de sus tantas conferencias sobre las humanidades. La fábula de Esopo da qué pensar sobre la valoración de las humanidades en la malla de las instituciones de educación superior. Los juicios despreciables que (...) aparecen bajo la forma de la innovación, a partir de indicadores y criterios de examinabilidad que promueve el gobierno, los ministerios y Colciencias, son solo una muestra de cómo esa charla fácil pretende circunscribir a las humanidades en el nuevo paraíso medible del ámbito académico. (shrink)

The volume contains 11 contributions of the best experts on the topics of fate, fortune and free will, in reference to Ancient Philosophy: Plato, Aristotle, Stoicism, Epicureanism, Plotinus.

Abstract Nowadays, there is a deep and widespread feeling of discomfort among academics due to the psychological and labor pressures that universities exert upon their researchers by demanding endless publications. In this paper, I offer numerous pieces of evidence of this crisis, which affects primarily those who inhabit academic ecologies. First, I argue that it is convenient to understand the current situation as an expression of technologies and individual apparatuses shaped by subjectivizing ideologies, and mechanisms of exclusion, stigmatization, and replacement. (...) Second, I examine two proposals against the crisis produced by the pace of academic production framed by the Slow movement. Lastly, after making explicit some of the assumptions that undergird the university’s epistemological machine, I propose to complement Ulmer and Mountz’s project with two suggestions. On the one hand, I extend an invitation to reflect on and with students as a means to redirect the university’s teleology. On the other hand, I suggest incorporating an ontogogic approach as a resistance apparatus against the pressure from the university’s production machine. The article’s point of departure is anti-dicotonegative because it is based on a summative approach rather than in an agonistic procedure. In other words, I propose two additional tools that can be put to the test to contribute to solving the university publication crisis. (shrink)

Julien Freund's political theory, particularly known for his 1965 opus magnum "L'essence du politique", rests on epistemological and philosophical foundations that he himself condensed into his "theory of essence." Although he first applied this theoretical model to politics, he conceived it as a tool for the global analysis of social phenomena from an onto-phenomenological and, in this same sense, anthropological perspective. However, there has not yet been a complete exposition of this theory, to which we now aim to dedicate a (...) first systematic study, focusing especially on two problems: the historical context in which the theory was forged and its general epistemological intent, which can only be adequately understood in its original metaphysical significance. (shrink)

This work aims to contribute to the explanation of cognitive capacities that are essential to human intelligence: commonsense and situation holism. The attempt to explain them within the field of cognitive sciences raises a foundational challenge. How can human cognition distinguish what’s relevant and what’s not in an open-ended set of contexts? The challenge is characterized by a circularity. Potential solutions end up relying on the very capacity that they should be explaining, i.e. the sensitivity to what’s contextually relevant. The (...) argument here developed is an attempt to get out of this circularity. It is grounded on a bi-dimensional analysis of the problem. The first one is representational and is about how cognitive knowledge on what’s relevant can be stored. This dimension is related to the frame problem from artificial intelligence. I claim that this representational aspect of the issue can be neutralized by abandoning language-like representational schemes and sticking to a plurality of structural ones. They allow representational states to play a clear and non-trivial explanatory role while enabling a kind of representational productivity that is not bothered by the frame problem. The second dimension is the inferential one. It encompasses our relevance-sensitive inferential productivity, i.e. our capacity to efficiently infer what’s relevant in indefinitely many contexts, including ones we’ve never faced before. I argue that such relevance sensitivity cannot be neither innate, for innate mechanisms result in the aforementioned circularity, nor learned through innate mechanisms, for learning processes themselves rely on relevance sensitivity. The suggested alternative is that relevance sensitivity is a cognitive gadget. A kind of mental mechanism that is culturally, rather than genetically, inherited. This possibility is rendered plausible within Cecilia Heyes’ “cognitive gadgets” framework. She shows how developmental tweaks and biases culturally established can participate in the constitution of cognitive mechanisms. Thus, cultural elements can participate in human cognition not only as information sources, but also in the form of tweaks that bias the processing of that information towards what’s culturally established as contextually relevant. (shrink)

Tradução para o português do livro "Ensaios sobre Strawson", de Carlos Caorsi. Editora da unijuí, 2014. Sumário: Apresentação; A teoria da verdade em Strawson, Mauricio Beuchot; Réplica a Mauricio Beuchot, Peter F. Strawson; Strawson: entre a lógica tradicional e a lógica clássica, Robert Calabria; Réplica a Robert Clabria, Peter F. Strawson; Referência e termos singulares, Carlos E. Caorsi; Réplica a Carlos E. Caorsi, Peter F. Strawson; Strawson e a metafísica, Juan C. D’Alessio; Réplica a Juan C. D’Alessio, (...) Peter F. Strawson; A meta-metafísica de Strawson: identificação versus individuação, Jorge J. E. Gracia; Réplica a Jorge J. E. Gracia, Peter F. Strawson; Algumas distinções sobre a noção de indivíduo, Jesús Mosterín; Réplica a Jesús Mosterín, Peter F. Strawson; Sobre a percepção e seus objetos em Strawson, Ernest Sosa; Réplica a Ernest Sosa, Peter F. Strawson; Limitações ao exercício da perplexidade, Teresa de Jesús Zavalía; Réplica a Tereza de Jesús Zavalía, Peter F. Strawson; Publicações de P. F. Strawson . (shrink)

Nota do tradutor: O escopo da psicologia é o primeiro capítulo do tratado The principles of psychology (Os princípios de psicologia) de William James (1842-1910), publicado originalmente em 1890. Nesse capítulo inaugural, James enfrenta uma questão central e perene na psicologia: a necessidade (e dificuldade) da demarcação do campo psicológico. Como representante de uma tradição que ainda falava da psicologia no singular, James vê na multiplicidade de assuntos, métodos e problemas da psicologia um desafio para uma disciplina que se pretendia (...) científica. De um lado, era necessário assumir o caráter plural dos assuntos que merecem ser agrupados pela palavra psicologia, negando um reducionismo grosseiro, que, em favor de uma integração teórica, alijasse a “vida mental” de sua riqueza imanente. De outro lado, havia ainda a esperança de uma sistematização que pudesse evitar a completa fragmentação do campo psicológico. A história parece ter mostrado que a preocupação de James era, de fato, legítima, pois o que se viu a partir do século XX foi o fracasso de diferentes sistemas de psicologia, levando a um círculo vicioso no qual a dificuldade de demarcação do campo psicológico fragmenta cada vez mais a psicologia, o que, por sua vez, torna ainda mais distante a possibilidade de se encontrar critérios que possam sistematizar toda essa diversidade. Nesse sentido, O escopo da psicologia não é apenas uma introdução ao livro Os princípios de psicologia, mas uma introdução à psicologia moderna. (shrink)

Reasoning by default is a relevant aspect of everyday life that has traditionally attracted the attention of many fields of research, from psychology to the philosophy of logic, from economics to artificial intelligence. Also in the field of law, default reasoning is widely used by lawyers, judges and other legal decision-makers. In this paper, a philosopher of language (Carlo Penco) and a philosopher of law (Damiano Canale) attempt to explore some uses of default reasoning that are scarcely considered by legal (...) theory. In particular, the dialogue dwells on the notion of literal meaning, witness testimony, and the problem of disagreement among experts in legal proceedings. The paper is intended as a sort of brain storming useful to identify new lines of research straddling philosophy of law, cognitive psychology and philosophy of language. (shrink)

In this review, we describe some of the central philosophical issues facing origins-of-life research and provide a targeted history of the developments that have led to the multidisciplinary field of origins-of-life studies. We outline these issues and developments to guide researchers and students from all fields. With respect to philosophy, we provide brief summaries of debates with respect to (1) definitions (or theories) of life, what life is and how research should be conducted in the absence of an accepted theory (...) of life, (2) the distinctions between synthetic, historical, and universal projects in origins-of-life studies, issues with strategies for inferring the origins of life, such as (3) the nature of the first living entities (the “bottom up” approach) and (4) how to infer the nature of the last universal common ancestor (the “top down” approach), and (5) the status of origins of life as a science. Each of these debates influences the others. Although there are clusters of researchers that agree on some answers to these issues, each of these debates is still open. With respect to history, we outline several independent paths that have led to some of the approaches now prevalent in origins-of-life studies. These include one path from early views of life through the scientific revolutions brought about by Linnaeus (von Linn.), Wöhler, Miller, and others. In this approach, new theories, tools, and evidence guide new thoughts about the nature of life and its origin.We also describe another family of paths motivated by a” circularity” approach to life, which is guided by such thinkers as Maturana & Varela, Gánti, Rosen, and others. These views echo ideas developed by Kant and Aristotle, though they do so using modern science in ways that produce exciting avenues of investigation. By exploring the history of these ideas, we can see how many of the issues that currently interest us have been guided by the contexts in which the ideas were developed. The disciplinary backgrounds of each of these scholars has influenced the questions they sought to answer, the experiments they envisioned, and the kinds of data they collected. We conclude by encouraging scientists and scholars in the humanities and social sciences to explore ways in which they can interact to provide a deeper understanding of the conceptual assumptions, structure, and history of origins-of-life research. This may be useful to help frame future research agendas and bring awareness to the multifaceted issues facing this challenging scientific question. (shrink)

Abordagens pós-cognitivistas mais recentes têm lançado duras críticas à noção de representação mental, procurando ao invés disso pensar a mente e a cognição em termos de ações corporificadas do organismo em seu meio. Embora concordemos com essa concepção, não está claro que ela implique necessariamente a rejeição de qualquer tipo de vocabulário representacional. O objetivo deste artigo é argumentar que representações podem nos comprar uma dimensão explicativa adicional não disponível por outros meios e sugerir que, ao menos em alguns casos, (...) elas podem participar da explicação de performances ou capacidades cognitivas. A noção de representação apresentada, como deixaremos claro ao longo do artigo, não viola os preceitos metodológicos mais caros à cognição 4E em geral e ao enativismo em particular, podendo, portanto, ser utilizada como uma ferramenta teórica útil em investigações sobre a natureza corporificada e situada da mente. (shrink)

Jean-François Lyotard s'interroga sulla forma delle organizzazioni sociali e ne identifica la problematica principale nell'eterogeneità che esse veicolano tra i differenti regimi di frasi: si sofferma, in particolare, sull'incompatibilità tra il regime della conoscenza e quello della libertà. A partire da tale riflessione, l'articolo esamina come le società attuali, multiculturali e globalizzate, siano chiamate oggi a compiere una scelta: abbracciare la sintesi dell'eterogeneo oppure rispettare e far rispettare la presenza inevitabile del dissidio. Nella prima occorrenza si corre il rischio di (...) trasformare il diritto in succedaneo dell'ordalia e di accendere la guerra di tutti contro tutti. Nella seconda, invece, si sperimenta la costruzione d'interazioni di tipo dipolare le quali, pur non potendo garantire contro lo scatenamento smisurato della violenza, riescono potenzialmente ad arginarlo. Queste ultime, infatti, spostano la misura della sopravvivenza dall'esclusione delle ostilità alla loro elusione, dal rifiutare il conflitto all'addomesticarlo, dal rinunciare allo sforzo muscolare al calibrarlo. (shrink)

Resumo: Este artigo visa explorar a questão da educação em Platão a partir da contextualização histórica, pensando o modelo de Atenas, Lesbos e Esparta, e da perspectiva por onde uma má paideía, a baixa qualidade na formação de cidadãos, se torna a principal causa geradora da ruptura social. Foi feita, então, uma reflexão sobre as possibilidades de educação que atenienses de classes sociais distintas teriam e sobre a proposta platônica fundamentada na combinação entre a ginástica e a música, para que (...) se desenvolvesse um perfil de cidadão com ideais coletivos sólidos a ponto de se evitar a stásis. Palavras-chave: Platão, educação, dissensão, stásis, paideía. Abstract:This article aims to explore the question of education in Plato from the historical context, thinking the model of Athens, Lesbos and Sparta, and from the perspective where a bad paideía, the low quality in the formation of citizens, becomes the main generating cause of social disruption. Then, a reflection was made on the educational possibilities that Athenians from different social classes would have and on the Platonic proposal based on the combination of gymnastics and music, so that a citizen profile with solid collective ideals would be developed to the point of avoiding stásis. Keywords: Plato, education, dissension, stásis, paideía. (shrink)

Tendo em vista que a lei de ser em relação ao sujeito cognoscente consiste em ser-consciente, a consciência, segundo Jean-Paul Sartre, sobrepõe-se ao status de modo particular de conhecimento enquanto sentido interno ou conhecimento como conhecimento de si, constituindo a dimensão de ser transfenomenal. Dessa forma, baseado no princípio fenomenológico-ontológico-existencial, o Prof. Luiz Carlos Mariano Da Rosa se detém na relação entre o fenômeno de ser e o ser do fenômeno e na irredutibilidade do ser do fenômeno ao fenômeno (...) do ser, assinalando o processo que sobrepõe o ser do fenômeno à condição fenomênica e converge para a consciência enquanto ser cognoscente enquanto é em um movimento que escapa ao enquanto é conhecido, transpondo as fronteiras da preeminência do conhecimento. Se a consciência emerge como consciência de alguma coisa em um processo cujo ser implica um ser que encerra a si como não consciente e transfenomenal, o que se impõe, segundo Sartre, não é senão a consciência como um ser que encerra a questão do seu ser enquanto ser que implica outro ser que não si mesmo. Assim, detendo-se no acontecimento da aparição do existente humano em relação ao ser enquanto descoberta de um mundo e a negação como momento essencial e primordial, o artigo assinala o motivo pelo qual o existente humano em seu ser implica a possibilidade de aparição do nada em um processo que encerra a liberdade como condição para a nadificação do nada. (shrink)

Although there have never been so many professional philosophers as today, most of the questions discussed by today’s philosophers are of no interest to cultured people at large. Specifically, several scientists have maintained that philosophy has become an irrelevant subject. Thus philosophy is at a crossroads: either to continue on the present line, which relegates it into irrelevance, or to analyse the reasons of the irrelevance and seek an escape. This paper is an attempt to explore the second alternative.

Constituting the object or content of New Testament preaching, salvation is made available by the kerygma as a proclamation of the Gospel that concludes God’s saving act and implies an exhortation to conversion that is based on the person and work of Jesus as Christ and Lord and Son of God and the soteriological facts of his death and resurrec-tion. In this way, Prof. Luiz Carlos Mariano Da Rosa, faced with the issue involving the primacy of either the historical-Christological (...) tradition or the pneumatic-Christological preaching, points out that preaching converges to kerygmatic communication as a public announcement in relation to the promise and claims of the salvific event, converging to a tradition that witnesses salvific processes based on faith, constituting the Gospel as a pneumatic-kerygmatic tradition. Thus, the article focuses on the Christological kerygma as an event that encloses God as loquitur in Barth, which consists of an announcement involving an event yet to be realized (Ankündigung) in a process that presupposes that God speaks through a relationship that attributes to the human the function of announ-cing (Ankündigen) such a situation. Overriding the meaning that the kerygma of Jesus as the Messiah contains as content that imposes itself on the Old Testament tradition under the meaning of an additional ethical-religious and literary-theological value, the proclamation, according to Bultmann, constitutes the primary and basic that gives its character both in relation to ancient tradition and in relation to the preaching of Jesus in a process that maintains the entire past under another interpretative principle. In this way, overriding historical phenomena and their mere description, Bultmann elaborates a theological-philosophical construction that, through the use of scientific thought and the establishment of an existential interpretation, ends the claim of highlighting the true meaning of the message, converging on the borders that expose the current situation of human beings and the need for faith as decision and obedience. (shrink)

En este artículo discuto cómo es que la idea intuitiva de que las cosas podrían cambiar, combinada con principios excesivamente plausibles, nos lleva a la paradoja de Chisholm. Arguyo que la mejor respuesta a esta paradoja –pues efectúa la menor mutilación a nuestros principios teóricos y asunciones intuitivas– es la postura esencialista. Primero expongo algunas motivaciones para hacer una teoría metafísica que explique la modalidad de re. Luego reviso los principios a los que estaremos regresando en el curso del artículo. (...) Entonces muestro cómo ellos, conjuntamente, implican la paradoja de Chisholm. Después reviso las posibles fuentes de esta paradoja, rechazando varias salidas posibles. Argumento que la fuente de la paradoja está en que nuestros principios teóricos son demasiado liberales, y que la opción esencialista subsana este defecto. (shrink)

Las nuevas tecnologías de la información van creando una nueva cultura que se denomina como cibercultura o ambiente digital, que incluye las tecnologías, las formas sociales de la producción tecnológica y las nuevas simbolizaciones y metáforas de la existencia de los hombres. Se presentan así algunos interrogantes fundamentales de inicio: ¿Cómo debe la iglesia responder a la nueva cultura virtual o cibercultura?, ¿Cómo se reflexiona teológicamente sobre la cibercultura?, ¿Cómo puede la iglesia usar el ciberespacio para hacerlo?, ¿Qué se está (...) haciendo en este campo de la ciberteología? Se analizan las posibilidades y límites de una reflexión llamada ciberteología, con base epistémica y comunidad académica todavía incipientes, pero que con una teología colaborativa puede aportar a la reflexión teológica del siglo XXI donde hay problemas graves para resolver desde la fe, como son la transmisión de la experiencia, la corporalidad y la presencia, el desafío a la autoridad y la solidaridad. (shrink)

Tanto las teorías causales como las teorías no causales de la acción consideran la relación de justificación entre razones y acción como una relación no causal, de caracter puramente lógico o conceptual. Según las teodas causales, la acción intencional ha de satisfacer, independientemente de la condicion de justificación, una condición adicional de causalidad. En este artículo se sostiene, en cambio, que el concepto de justificación es ya causal, de modo que no es necesario exigir un requisito causal independiente para entender (...) el concepto de acción intencional. Esta concepción causal de la justificación y de la acción intencional no se ve expuesta al problema de las cadenas causales desviadas que afecta a las teorías causales ortodoxas ni a la amenaza deI epifenomenismo de las propiedades mentales. -/- Both causal and non-causal action theories take the justification relation to be a non-causal, purely conceptual or logical relation between reasons and action. According to causal theorists, intentional action has to satisfy, besides the justification condition, an additional and independent causal condition. In this paper it is held, however, that justification is already a causal concept, so that there is no need to resort to an independent causal requirement in order to understand the concept of intentional action. This causal view of justification and intentional action does not face either the problem of wayward causalchains which infects orthodox causal theories or the threat of epiphenomenalism of mental properties. (shrink)

La migración internacional nos enfrenta con problemas irresolubles desde la figura moderna del Estado nacional, su concepto de ciudadanía y su noción de justicia. Juan Carlos Velasco critica las limitaciones y la orientación de las políticas contemporáneas que nos hacen percibir a la migración como una “invasión”, y propone un modo radicalmente diferente de entender e intervenir el fenómeno desde lo trasnacional. Nacer de uno u otro lado de una línea divisoria es un evento azaroso, no obstante delimitar la (...) frontera es una construcción histórico-política: la desigualdad en las oportunidades que ofrecen las naciones es una situación estructural de injusticia que se perpetúa con las políticas de exclusión de los migrantes y la deslegitimación de su derecho a buscar una vida mejor. Esa circunstancia genera fracturas sociales, injustificables pero normalizadas, que imposibilitan alcanzar la justicia global. Velasco presenta un análisis completo que abarca las dimensiones política, jurídica y moral del tema, en el que lleva a la filosofía política a un terreno práctico del que se desprenden las claves para entender y actuar en esta nueva era en la que, debido a los conflictos sociales y políticos, la migración vuelve a ser argumento de discusión relevante. (Texto de la CONTRAPORTADA del libro). (shrink)

Benchmarking automated theorem proving (ATP) systems using standardized problem sets is a well-established method for measuring their performance. However, the availability of such libraries for non-classical logics is very limited. In this work we propose a library for benchmarking Girard's (propositional) intuitionistic linear logic. For a quick bootstrapping of the collection of problems, and for discussing the selection of relevant problems and understanding their meaning as linear logic theorems, we use translations of the collection of Kleene's intuitionistic theorems in the (...) traditional monograph "Introduction to Metamathematics". We analyze four different translations of intuitionistic logic into linear logic and compare their proofs using a linear logic based prover with focusing. In order to enhance the set of problems in our library, we apply the three provability-preserving translations to the propositional benchmarks in the ILTP Library. Finally, we generate a comprehensive set of reachability problems for Petri nets and encode such problems as linear logic sequents, thus enlarging our collection of problems. (shrink)

Expressivists claim that normative judgments (NJ) are non-cognitive states. But what kind of states are they, exactly? Expressivists need to provide us with an adequate account of their nature. Here, I argue that there are structural features that render this task rather daunting. The worry takes the form of a looming dilemma: NJ are either conative states (i.e. states with a world-to-mind direction of fit) or they are not. If they are, then they are either attitudes de se (i.e. attitudes (...) about oneself) or they are not. If they are, then they’re unable to account for disagreement. If they are not, then they're unable to account for agent-relative NJ. So NJ cannot be conative states (they cannot have a world-to-mind direction of fit). On the other hand, however, if NJ are not conative states (if they are states without a direction of fit, like affective or other sui generis non-cognitive, non-conative attitudes) then it remains a mystery how they support relations of disagreement. (shrink)