Abstract: This paper aims to establish the problems of the Stoic concept of cognitive representation (καταληπτική φαντασία). So I intend to reconstruct the scholarly debate on this definition. For it, I state the debate around its two most conflictive terms: the participle ὑπάρχον and the preposition ἀπό. By analyzing the Stoic fragments in which these terms appear, I explore both textual and philosophical arguments in order to find the different senses of both. By doing so, my aim is highlighting the (...) limits of those interpretations. My conclusion is proposing certain issues to constitute a research agenda on the Stoic definition of cognitive representation, in order to, to some extent, possible solutions might be discerned.---- . Resumen: El objetivo de este artículo es mostrar cuáles son y en qué consisten los problemas interpretativos de la definición estoica de representación cognitiva (καταληπτική φαντασία). Para tal fin, propongo una reconstrucción del debate académico sobre esta definición. Dicha reconstrucción articula el debate en torno a sus dos términos más problemáticos: el participio ὑπάρχον y la preposición ἀπό. A partir de un análisis de los fragmentos estoicos en los que aparecen estos términos, exploro las razones tanto filosóficas como textuales a favor y en contra de cada uno de los diferentes sentidos de ἀπό y cada una de las diferentes acepciones de ὑπάρχον. Al hacer esto, me propongo evidenciar las limitaciones de las interpretaciones de la definición de representación cognitiva que se han propuesto. Basándome en este examen, propongo en las conclusiones una serie de cuestiones centrales que deben formar parte de la agenda de investigación sobre la definición estoica de representación cognitiva. De esta manera, pueden observarse los retos que supone defender una interpretación determinada y, en cierta medida, podrían también vislumbrarse posibles soluciones. (shrink)

Neopragmatism has been accused of having ‘an experience problem’. This paper begins by outlining Hume's understanding of perception according to which ideas are copies of impressions thought to constitute a direct confrontation with reality. This understanding is contrasted with Peirce's theory of perception according to which percepts give rise to perceptual judgments which do not copy but index the percept (just as a weather-cock indicates the direction of the wind). Percept and perceptual judgment thereby mutually inform and correct one another, (...) as the perceiver develops mental habits of interpreting their surroundings, so that, in this theory of perception, as Peirce puts it: “[n]othing at all…is absolutely confrontitional”. Paul Redding has argued that Hegel’s “idealist understanding of logical form” ran deeper than Kant’s in recognising that Mind is essentially embodied and located, and therefore perspectival. Peirce’s understanding arguably dives deeper still in distributing across the space of reasons (and thus Being) not just Mind’s characteristic features of embodiedness and locatedness, but also its infinite corrigibility. (shrink)

En este artículo reconstruyo y analizo las respuestas de los escépticos académicos a la objeción de apraxia. Esta objeción afirma que el escepticismo es una doctrina imposible de practicar puesto que sus tesis conducen a la apraxia, esta es, un estado de privación o imposibilidad de acción. Las respuestas a la objeción se dividen en dos clases. La primera prueba que el asentimiento no es una condición necesaria para realizar acciones, por lo que la recomendación escéptica de suspender global y (...) permanentemente el asentimiento no conduciría a la apraxia. La segunda prueba que es posible deliberar y orientar racionalmente nuestras acciones sin impresiones aprehensivas, por lo que la tesis escéptica de que no existen impresiones aprehensivas tampoco conduciría a la apraxia. Tras unas breves consideraciones generales, en la primera parte de este artículo presento las respuestas de Arcesilao y en la segunda parte las repuestas de Carnéades. (shrink)

This paper addresses some apparent philosophical tensions between realism and enactivism by means of Charles Peirce’s pragmatism. Enactivism’s Mind-Life Continuity thesis has been taken to commit it to some form of anti-realist ‘world-construction’ which has been considered controversial. Accordingly, a new realist enactivism is proposed by Zahidi (_Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences,_ _13_(3), 461–475, 2014 ), drawing on Ian Hacking’s ‘entity realism’, which places subjects in worlds comprised of the things that they can successfully manipulate. We review this attempt, and (...) argue that whilst Zahidi rightly urges enactivists towards ‘internal realism’, he cannot sustain a non-negotiable aspect of realism that is crucial for scientific progress – the claim that multiple subjects inhabit _the same world_. We explore Peirce’s pragmatism as an alternative solution, foregrounding his distinction between existence and reality, and his inquiry-based account of cognition. These theoretical innovations, we argue, fruitfully generalize Zahidi’s _manipulation-based_ enactivist realism to a richer, _inquiry-based_ enactivist realism. We explore how this realism’s pan-species monism about truth encourages and supports the investigation of non-human animal cognition, and conclude by considering some implications of our discussion for long-standing realism debates within pragmatism. (shrink)

Teaching Internship is an integral journey for pre-service teachers, providing a platform to apply academic knowledge in the workplace. However, emotional experiences are prevalent during the internship, posing challenges for pre-service teachers. Consequently, this study aims to understand the emotional experiences of pre-service teachers during their internship and assess how it impacts their performance. The current study employed a qualitative method, adhering to a multiple case study design. Ten (10) fourth-year elementary pre-service teachers from Immaculate Conception College of Balayan Inc. (...) were selected using purposive sampling technique. Then thematic analysis was utilized to analyze the data. Results revealed that participants experienced both positive and negative emotional experiences that challenge their self-confidence, time management, teaching abilities, and relationship with cooperating teachers and students. These results indicate that emotional experiences are highly evident during teaching internship. With this, the suggested advocacy plan in this study proposes interventions such as seminars, workshops, and tours to enhance the emotional resilience, emotional support, and emotional management of pre-service teachers. Furthermore, future research is advised to utilize diverse methodological techniques and include a larger sample of pre-service teachers from various majors to encompass broader perspectives on the discussed topic, building upon the findings of the current study. (shrink)

In a paper published in 1998, Ricardo Salles argues that the Stoic theory of action cannot account for practical knowledge, i.e., knowledge about what action is appropriate to be carried out in certain circumstances. The aim of this paper is to propose a solution to this problem. For this aim, I argue that the Stoics developed a perceptual theory of moral knowledge. According to this theory, the moral properties instantiated in objects, people, and actions are known through perception. After explaining (...) this theory, I argue that it allows us to show that the Stoics deemed perception as a source of practical knowledge. (shrink)

This paper deals with the Stoic concept of misprinted representation (φαντασία παρατυπωτική), which has received little attention compared to other concepts of Stoic epistemology and philosophy of mind. I aim at showing that a better understanding of this concept is important for grasping some elements of the Stoic account of mental representations that have been ignored or misunderstood in modern Stoic scholarship. First, by clarifying the status of the misprinted representation as a genuine representation, we can understand what it means (...) (and does not mean) to say, from the Stoic point of view, that the intentional object of a representation is the external object that caused it. Second, by understanding this issue, we obtain some resources to deal with the ambiguity of the preposition ἀπό in the definition of cognitive representation. Thus, the concept of misprinted representation proves to be important for appropriately understanding the Stoic concepts of representation and cognitive representation. (shrink)

Pursuing difficult long-term goals typically involves encountering substantial evidence of possible future failure. If decisions to pursue such goals are serious only if one believes that one will act as one has decided, then some of our lives’ most important decisions seem to require belief against the evidence. This is the puzzle of difficult action, to which I offer a solution. I argue that serious decisions to φ do not have to give rise to a belief that one will φ, (...) but can instead be accompanied by a hope to φ. Hope can motivate and rationalize the various actions that we associate with serious commitment. It can also account for the existence of special pressures to adopt an agential stance toward one’s future. Because hope can be cognitively rational when belief is not, there is no problematic tension between the ideal of epistemic rationality and the phenomenon of difficult action. (shrink)

Este artículo de reflexión problematiza la didáctica de las lenguas extranjeras desde una inquietud filosófica-intercultural para contextos mayoritaria e históricamente monolingües como el latinoamericano. Inicialmente, se describen los rasgos de colonialidad latentes en el enfoque que el Marco Común Europeo de Referencia asume para tratar la interculturalidad. Seguidamente, se realiza un análisis crítico-filosófico de los desafíos que la interculturalidad enfrenta en América Latina en el contexto anteriormente mencionado, y se revisan las relaciones que existen entre interculturalidad y glotopolítica, asumiendo que (...) el latinoamericanismo de Mendieta, la resemantización del orientalismo de Said, el mimetismo y la hibridación bhabhiana, así como la filosofía intercultural, son quizá los desafíos filosóficos más grandes. Finalmente, se presenta un exordio para una interculturalidad crítica en lenguas-culturas extranjeras, en el que se tienen en cuenta algunas contribuciones del Grupo Modernidad/Colonialidad, concretamente de Dussel, Walsh, Castro-Gómez y Fornet-Betancourt, reconociendo que la didáctización de la interculturalidad en las licenciaturas de lenguas modernas de Colombia está por construirse. (shrink)

I defend the thesis that friendship can constitutively require epistemic irrationality against a recent, forceful challenge, raised by proponents of moral and pragmatic encroachment. Defenders of the “encroachment strategy” argue that exemplary friends who are especially slow to believe that their friends have acted wrongly are simply sensitive to the high prudential or moral costs of falsely believing in their friends’ guilt. Drawing on psychological work on epistemic motivation (and in particular on the notion of “need for closure”), I propose (...) a different picture of what friendship requires in the doxastic realm. I argue that contrary to what the encroachment strategy suggests, exemplary friends’ belief formation ought not be guided by a concern with accuracy or error avoidance, but instead by a need to avoid a “specific closure” – namely, a need to avoid concluding in their friends’ guilt. I propose that exemplary friendship often generates a defeasible, doxastic obligation to exemplify such a need, despite its inherent corrupting effects on exemplary friends’ epistemic faculties. (shrink)

Este artículo examina de qué forma se refleja el conservatismo de Cayetano Betancur en su filosofía política. El primer capítulo recoge dos acepciones del término conser- vador que abarcan, a grandes rasgos, las dos principales tendencias del conservatismo político. El segundo capítulo está dedicado a examinar cómo cada una de estas dos acepciones (que llamamos negativa y positiva) se reflejan en la obra de Betancur. Como conclusión, se hace referencia a los posibles rumbos hacia los que una investi- gación más (...) exhaustiva del conservatismo político en Betancur podría encaminarse. (shrink)

This paper presents a Peircean take on Wittgenstein's famous rule-following problem as it pertains to 'knowing how to go on in mathematics'. I argue that McDowell's advice that the philosophical picture of 'rules as rails' must be abandoned is not sufficient on its own to fully appreciate mathematics' unique blend of creativity and rigor. Rather, we need to understand how Peirce counterposes to the brute compulsion of 'Secondness', both the spontaneity of 'Firstness' and also the rational intelligibility of 'Thirdness'. This (...) is a written version of a presentation I gave at the “Peirce’s Mathematics” conference, Universidad Nacional de Colombia, November 25-27, 2015, which was organized by Professor Fernando Zalamea. The piece owes much to the inspiration of Prof. Zalamea's writings on philosophy of mathematics. (shrink)

Much discussion of meaning by philosophers over the last 300 years has been predicated on a Cartesian first-person authority (i.e. “infallibilism”) with respect to what one’s terms mean. However this has problems making sense of the way the meanings of scientific terms develop, an increase in scientific knowledge over and above scientists’ ability to quantify over new entities. Although a recent conspicuous embrace of rigid designation has broken up traditional meaning-infallibilism to some extent, this new dimension to the meaning of (...) terms such as “water” is yet to receive a principled epistemological undergirding (beyond the deliverances of “intuition” with respect to certain somewhat unusual possible worlds). Charles Peirce’s distinctive, naturalistic philosophy of language is mined to provide a more thoroughly fallibilist, and thus more realist, approach to meaning, with the requisite epistemology. Both his pragmatism and his triadic account of representation, it is argued, produce an original approach to meaning, analysing it in processual rather than objectual terms, and opening a distinction between “meaning for us”, the meaning a term has at any given time for any given community and “meaning simpliciter”. the way use of a given term develops over time (often due to a posteriori input from the world which is unable to be anticipated in advance). This account provocatively undermines a certain distinction between “semantics” and “ontology” which is often taken for granted in discussions of realism. (shrink)

Sydney Shoemaker has been arguing for more than a decade for an account of the mind–body problem in which the notion of realization takes centre stage. His aim is to provide a notion of realization that is consistent with the multiple realizability of mental properties or events, and which explains: how the physical grounds the mental; and why the causal work of mental events is not screened off by that of physical events. Shoemaker's proposal consists of individuating properties in terms (...) of causal powers, and defining realization as a relation of inclusion between sets of causal powers. Thus, as the causal powers that define a mental property are a subset of the causal powers that characterize a physical property, it can be said that physical properties realize mental properties. In this paper we examine the physicalist credentials of Shoemaker's mind–body theory in relation to three important issues: the direction of the relation of dependence that the theory is committed to; the possibility of mental properties existing without being anchored by physical properties; and the compatibility of the theory with the causal closure of the physical world. We argue that Shoemaker's theory is problematic in all three respects. After that we consider whether the theory should count as a mind–body theory at all, given that it seems to be committed to a distorted view of mental properties. (shrink)

Wittgenstein's discussion of rule-following is widely regarded to have identified what Kripke called "the most radical and original sceptical problem that philosophy has seen to date". But does it? This paper examines the problem in the light of Charles Peirce's distinctive "scientific hierarchy". Peirce identifies a phenomenological inquiry which is prior to both logic and metaphysics, whose role is to identify the most fundamental philosophical categories. His third category, particularly salient in this context, pertains to general predication. Rule-following scepticism, the (...) paper suggests, results from running together two questions: "How is it that I can project rules?", and, "What is it for a given usage of a rule to be right?". In Peircean terms the former question, concerning the irreducibility of general predication (to singular reference), must be answered in phenomenology, while the latter, concerning the difference between true and false predication, is answered in logic. A failure to appreciate this distinction, it is argued, has led philosophers to focus exclusively on Wittgenstein's famous public account of rule-following rightness, thus overlooking a private, phenomenological dimension to Wittgenstein's remarks on following a rule which gives the lie to Kripke's reading of him as a sceptic. (shrink)

The account of natural kinds as stable property clusters is premised on the possibility of separating the epistemic value of natural kinds from their underlying metaphysics. On that account, the co-instantiation of any sub-cluster of the properties associated with a given natural kind raises the probability of the co-instantiation of the rest, and this clustering of property instantiation is invariant under all relevant counterfactual perturbations. We argue that it is not possible to evaluate the stability of a cluster of properties (...) without taking stock of the metaphysical picture used to account for that stability. Thus, even on the stable property cluster account, the epistemic value of natural kinds remains partly grounded in their metaphysical status. (shrink)

El artículo reconstruye sucintamente, en primer lugar, la historia de la llamada teoría de los climas desde la Antigüedad hasta la Ilustración, prestando especial atención a las ideas de Hipócrates, Aristóteles y Montesquieu. Se demuestra, en segundo lugar, cómo dicha teoría es revaluada al rango de mitología científica en virtud de la nueva configuración epistemológica que la geografía y la climatología adquirieron en el siglo xix. En tercer lugar, se postula que, a pesar de la crisis de su estatuto científico, (...) la teoría de los climas no desapareció en sus efectos, sino que antes bien sobrevivió en la organización colonial y en la construcción ideológica de la hegemonía occidental. Finalmente, a través de un análisis de la categoría «medio» se muestra cómo las relaciones entre el ser humano y sus condiciones geográficas se desarrollan en forma de un rico entramado de influencias que permiten postular una nueva comprensión ética y estética de dicha relación. (shrink)

Mainstream philosophy has seen a recent flowering in discussions of intellectualism which revisits Gilbert Ryle’s famous distinction between ‘knowing how’ and ‘knowing that’, and challenges his argument that the former cannot be reduced to the latter. These debates so far appear not to have engaged with pragmatist philosophy in any substantial way, which is curious as the relation between theory and practice is one of pragmatism’s main themes. Accordingly, this paper examines the contemporary debate in the light of Charles Peirce’s (...) habit-based epistemology. We argue both that knowing-that can be understood as a particularly sophisticated form of knowing-how, and that all bodily competencies—if sufficiently deliberately developed—can be analysed as instantiating propositional structure broadly conceived. In this way, intellectualism and anti-intellectualism are seen to be not opposed, and both true, although Peirce’s original naturalistic account of propositional structure does lead him to reject what we shall call ‘linguistic intellectualism’. (shrink)

Charles Peirce's diagrammatic logic — the Existential Graphs — is presented as a tool for illuminating how we know necessity, in answer to Benacerraf's famous challenge that most ‘semantics for mathematics’ do not ‘fit an acceptable epistemology’. It is suggested that necessary reasoning is in essence a recognition that a certain structure has the particular structure that it has. This means that, contra Hume and his contemporary heirs, necessity is observable. One just needs to pay attention, not merely to individual (...) things but to how those things are related in larger structures, certain aspects of which relations force certain other aspects to be a certain way. (shrink)

In many diagrams one seems to perceive necessity – one sees not only that something is so, but that it must be so. That conflicts with a certain empiricism largely taken for granted in contemporary philosophy, which believes perception is not capable of such feats. The reason for this belief is often thought well-summarized in Hume's maxim: ‘there are no necessary connections between distinct existences’. It is also thought that even if there were such necessities, perception is too passive or (...) localized a faculty to register them. We defend the perception of necessity against such Humeanism, drawing on examples from mathematics. (shrink)

Ecological Psychology and Enactivism both challenge representationist cognitive science, but the two approaches have only begun to engage in dialogue. Further conceptual clarification is required in which differences are as important as common ground. This paper enters the dialogue by focusing on important differences. After a brief account of the parallel histories of Ecological Psychology and Enactivism, we cover incompatibility between them regarding their theories of sensation and perception. First, we show how and why in ecological theory perception is, crucially, (...) not based on sensation. We elucidate this idea by examining the biological roots of work in the two fields, concentrating on Gibson and Varela and Maturana. We expound an ecological critique of any sensation-based approach to perception by detailing two topics: classic retinal image theories and perception in single-celled organisms. The second main point emphasizes the importance of the idea of organism-environment mutuality and its difference from structural coupling of sensations and motor behavior. We point out how ecological - phenomenological methods of inquiry grow out of mutualism and compare Gibson’s idea of visual kinesthesis to Merleau-Ponty’s idea of the lived body. Third, we conclude that Ecological Psychology and varieties of Enactivism are laying down different paths to pursue related goals. Thus, convergence of Ecological Psychology and Enactivism is not possible given their conflicting assumptions, but cross-fertilization is possible and desirable. (shrink)

Ethnobotanical research provides ample justification for comparing diverse biological nomenclatures and exploring ways that retain alternative naming practices. However, how (and whether) comparison of nomenclatures is possible remains a subject of discussion. The comparison of diverse nomenclatural practices introduces a suite of epistemic and ontological difficulties and considerations. Different nomenclatures may depend on whether the communities using them rely on formalized naming conventions; cultural or spiritual valuations; or worldviews. Because of this, some argue that the different naming practices may not (...) be comparable if the ontological commitments employed differ. Comparisons between different nomenclatures cannot assume that either the naming practices or the object to which these names are intended to apply identifies some universally agreed upon object of interest. Investigating this suite of philosophical problems, I explore the role grey nomenclatures play in classification. ‘Grey nomenclatures’ are defined as those that employ names that are either intentionally or accidentally non-Linnaean. The classification of the lichen thallus (a symbiont) has been classified outside the Linnaean system by botanists relying on the International Code of Nomenclature for algae, fungi, and plants (ICN). But, I argue, the use of grey names is not isolated and does not occur exclusively within institutionalized naming practices. I suggest, ‘grey names’ also aptly describe nomenclatures employed by indigenous communities such as the Samí of Northern Finmark, the Sherpa of Nepal, and the Okanagan First Nations. I pay particular attention to how naming practices are employed in these communities; what ontological commitments they hold; for what purposes are these names used; and what anchors the community’s nomenclatural practices. Exploring the history of lichen naming and early ethnolichenological research, I then investigate the stakes that must be considered for any attempt to preserve, retain, integrate, or compare the knowledge contained in both academically formalized grey names and indigenous nomenclatures in a way that preserves their source-specific informational content. (shrink)

Homology is a natural kind concept, but one that has been notoriously elusive to pin down. There has been sustained debate over the nature of correspondence and the units of comparison. But this continued debate over its meaning has focused on defining homology rather than on its use in practice. The aim of this chapter is to concentrate on the practices of homologizing. I define “homologizing” to be a concept-in-use. Practices of homologizing are kinds of rule following, the satisfaction of (...) which demarcates a category—that of being a homologue. Identifying, explaining, discovering, and understanding are exchanges that connect practice to concept through the performance of a rule by practitioners. These practices are constitutive of natural kinding activities. If homologizing is a kind of kinding, consideration of these practices of discovery, tracking, and identification not only clarifies the meaning, use, and progression of the concept of homology, but provides further understanding of the processes and progression of natural kinds and kinding practices in general. (shrink)

A conspicuous feature of contemporary modelling practices is the use of the same mathematical forms and modelling methods across different scientific domains. This model transfer raises many philosophical questions concerning, for example, the exact object of transfer, the relationship between the model and the target domain, the specific challenges such transfer confronts, and the ways in which model transfer relates to scientific progress. While the interest in studying model transfer has increased among philosophers of science in recent years, the phenomenon (...) has not yet received its due attention. The literature is scattered and much of it has addressed questions around the factors that might explain model transfer, such as whether the different target phenomena to which a model is applied eventually prove to be structurally and dynamically similar, or whether they have to share more fundamental ontological features that explain the interdisciplinary success of distinct models. This chapter surveys the existing literature on model transfer with the main goal of highlighting the main findings of existing discussions and pointing out open issues whose discussion would improve our understanding of this highly relevant phenomenon in science. (shrink)

A commonly raised criticism against celebrity culture is that it celebrates people who become famous without any connection to their skills, talents or achievements. A culture in which people become famous simply for being famous is criticized for being shallow and inauthentic. In this paper we offer a defence of celebrity by arguing against this criticism. We begin by outlining what we call the Talent Argument: celebrity is a negative cultural phenomenon because it creates and sustains fame without any connection (...) to the accomplishments that arise from an expression of talent or skill. By appealing to the metaphysics of talent and skill, we argue against the Talent Argument and propose that being a celebrity requires the skills that are necessary to acquire and maintain one’s status as a celebrity. A celebrity is more likely to be talented and successful in their expression of these skills, and even celebrities who are ‘famous for being famous’ will often display talents and skills that give rise to their fame. This means that those who critique celebrity culture should not do so by appealing to the Talent Argument. We show how our account of celebrity, talent and skill works to reject both the strong version of the Talent Argument, as well as a weaker and more plausible version of the argument we call the Valuable Talents argument. We conclude by noting that our analysis has demonstrated the need to explore more closely the kinds of skills that are necessary to cultivate celebrity status. This allows for a more nuanced understanding of what a celebrity is, and the values that are attached to celebrity culture. (shrink)

Robert Brandom’s expressivism argues that not all semantic content may be made fully explicit. This view connects in interesting ways with recent movements in philosophy of mathematics and logic (e.g. Brown, Shin, Giaquinto) to take diagrams seriously - as more than a mere “heuristic aid” to proof, but either proofs themselves, or irreducible components of such. However what exactly is a diagram in logic? Does this constitute a semiotic natural kind? The paper will argue that such a natural kind does (...) exist in Charles Peirce’s conception of iconic signs, but that fully understood, logical diagrams involve a structured array of normative reasoning practices, as well as just a “picture on a page”. (shrink)

Discussions over whether these natural kinds exist, what is the nature of their existence, and whether natural kinds are themselves natural kinds aim to not only characterize the kinds of things that exist in the world, but also what can knowledge of these categories provide. Although philosophically critical, much of the past discussions of natural kinds have often answered these questions in a way that is unresponsive to, or has actively avoided, discussions of the empirical use of natural kinds and (...) what I dub “activities of natural kinding” and “natural kinding practices”. The natural kinds of a particular discipline are those entities, events, mechanisms, processes, relationships, and concepts that delimit investigation within it—but we might reasonably ask: How are these natural kinds discovered?, How are they made?, Are they revisable?, and Where do they come from? A turn to natural kinding practices reveals a new set of questions open for investigation: How do natural kinds explain through practice?, What are natural kinding practices and classifications and why should we care?, What is the nature of natural kinds viewed as a set of activities?, and How do practice approaches to natural kinds shape and reconfigure scientific disciplines? Natural kinds have traditionally been discussed in terms of how they classify the contents of the world. The metaphysical project has been one which identifies essences, laws, sameness relations, fundamental properties, and clusters of family resemblances and how these map out the ontological space of the world. But actually how this is done has been less important in the discussion than the resultant categories that are produced. I aim to rectify these omissions and suggest a new metaphysical project investigating kinds in practice. (shrink)

“Proof of concept” is a phrase frequently used in descriptions of research sought in program announcements, in experimental studies, and in the marketing of new technologies. It is often coupled with either a short definition or none at all, its meaning assumed to be fully understood. This is problematic. As a phrase with potential implications for research and technology, its assumed meaning requires some analysis to avoid it becoming a descriptive category that refers to all things scientifically exciting. I provide (...) a short analysis of proof of concept research and offer an example of it within synthetic biology. I suggest that not only are there activities that circumscribe new epistemological categories but there are also associated normative ethical categories or principles linked to the research. I examine these and provide an outline for an alternative ethical account to describe these activities that I refer to as “extended agency ethics”. This view is used to explain how the type of research described as proof of concept also provides an attendant proof of principle that is the result of decision-making that extends across practitioners, their tools, techniques, and the problem solving activities of other research groups. (shrink)

What role does the concept of naturalness play in the development of scientific knowledge and understanding? Whether naturalness is taken to be an ontological dimension of the world or a cognitive dimension of our human perspective within it, assumptions of naturalness seem to frame both concepts and practices that inform the partitioning of parts and the kinding of kinds. Within the natural sciences, knowledge of what something is as well as how it is studied rely on conceptual commitments. These conceptual (...) commitments shape how entities and processes are categorized _as_ natural depending on how naturalness has been understood within that discipline. In this paper, I explore how commitments to naturalness shape different conceptualizations of what were previously and what are now considered to be fundamental parts in plant morphology. Relying on an historically informed epistemological approach, I trace the origins and development of models of plant morphology from (1) Goethe’s classical LEAF-ROOT-STEM archetype model; (2) Agnes Arber’s revisions to Goethe’s model reconceived in her partial-shoot theory of the leaf; and (3) Rolf Sattler’s proposal for a processual model of plant morphology. These influential models posit ontologically and epistemologically inconsistent conceptualizations of the natural fundamental parts of plants and how they are related to each other. To explain what this inconsistency means for the concept of naturalness and the role it plays in plant morphology, I suggest naturalness might best be conceived of as a contextually bound classificatory concept that is made and remade through its operationalized use within a model, theory, set of practices, or discipline. (shrink)

This paper offers both a criticism of and a novel alternative perspective on current ontologies that take race to be something that is either static and wholly evident at one’s birth or preformed prior to it. In it I survey and critically assess six of the most popular conceptions of race, concluding with an outline of my own suggestion for an alternative account. I suggest that race can be best understood in terms of one’s experience of his or her body, (...) one’s interactions with other individuals, and one’s experiences within particular cultures and societies. This embeddedness of human experience has been left out of most discussions of race which tie race to a set of characteristics (either biologically or sociologically defined). To rectify this omission, I articulate what I call the “physiosocial” view of race. This emphasizes the situatedness of human experience, the reciprocal and dynamic nature of the racial identities of individuals and groups. Approaching racial identity in this way entails a union of two historically uncomfortable partners: biological and sociological conceptions of race. If successful, this philosophical stance may illuminate the process of racial self-ascription as well as provide an explanation for the potential changeability of an individual’s racial identity at different times and at different places. (shrink)

In this very brief comment, I try to show that the "drowning case" posed by McGowan et al. is not a good challenge to Hornsby & Langton's account of silencing, despite the fact that I agree with them in that the systematicity condition is not clear at all in Hornsby & Langton's account.

Discussions of psychiatric nosology focus on a few popular examples of disorders, and on the validity of diagnostic criteria. Looking at Anorexia Nervosa, an example rarely mentioned in this literature, reveals a new problem: the DSM has a strict taxonomic structure, which assumes that disorders can only be located on one branch. This taxonomic assumption fails to fit the domain of psychopathology, resulting in obfuscation of cross-category connections. Poor outcomes for treatment of Anorexia may be due to it being pigeonholed (...) as an Eating Disorder, when a disturbance of body perception may be a more central symptom than food restriction. This paper explores the possibility of restructuring the DSM taxonomy to allow for a pluralist classification of disorders. This change could improve treatment and research without requiring any changes to diagnostic criteria. (shrink)

Philosophical discussion of truthmaking has flourished in recent times, but what exactly does it mean to ‘make’ a truth-bearer true? I argue that ‘making’ is a concept with modal force, and this renders it a problematic deployment for truthmaker theorists with nominalist sympathies, which characterises most current theories. I sketch the outlines of what I argue is a more genuinely realist truthmaker theory, which is capable of answering the explanatory question: In virtue of what does each particular truthmaker make its (...) particular truthbearer(s) true? I do this by drawing on recent work by Frederik Stjernfelt on Charles Peirce’s account of the proposition as having a ‘particular double structure’, according to which a proposition not only depicts certain characters of an object, it also depicts itself claiming those characters to pertain to the object. This double structure, I shall argue, also resolves important issues in analytic philosophers’ truthmaker theory, including the proper distinction between reference and truthmaking, and a dilemma concerning an infinite regress of truthmaking. (shrink)

We often form intentions to resist anticipated future temptations. But when confronted with the temptations our resolutions were designed to withstand, we tend to revise our previous evaluative judgments and conclude that we should now succumb—only to then revert to our initial evaluations, once temptation has subsided. Some evaluative judgments made under the sway of temptation are mistaken. But not all of them are. When the belief that one should now succumb is a proper response to relevant considerations that have (...) newly emerged, can acting in line with one’s previous intention nonetheless be practically rational? To answer this question, I draw on recent debates on the nature of higher-order evidence and on what rationally responding to such evidence involves. I propose that agents facing temptation often have evidence of “deliberative unreliability”, which they ought to heed even when it is “misleading” (that is, even when their evaluative judgments are in fact proper responses to the relevant considerations then available). Because evidence of deliberative unreliability can “dispossess” agents of normative reasons for evaluative judgments and actions that they would otherwise have, being continent despite judging that one should now succumb can often be more rational than giving in. (shrink)

Charles Peirce famously divided all signs into icons, indices and symbols. The past few decades have seen mainstream analytic philosophy broaden its traditional focus on symbols to recognise the so-called essential indexical. Can the moral now be extended to icons? Is there an “essential icon”? And if so, what exactly would be essential about it? It is argued that there is and it consists in logical form. Danielle Macbeth’s radical new “expressivist” interpretation of Frege’s logic and Charles Peirce’s existential graphs (...) are mobilized in support of this claim. (shrink)

Enactivism has influentially argued that the traditional intellectualist ‘act-content’ model of intentionality is insufficient both phenomenologically and naturalistically, and minds are built from world-involving bodily habits – thus, knowledge should be regarded as more of a skilled performance than an informational encoding. Radical enactivists have assumed that this insight must entail non-representationalism concerning at least basic minds. But what if it could be shown that representation is itself a form of skilled performance? I sketch the outline of such an account (...) from the perspective of Peirce’s pragmatist semiotics, which theorises signs as habits of associating specific cues with appropriate acts and schemas of ensuing experience. Within this framework, I argue, a naturalistic account of propositional structure can be constructed which transcends the symbolic – and in some instances even the linguistic – sphere, and offers new insights regarding the Information Processing Challenge, and the Hard Problem of Content. (shrink)

Pragmatism’s heartening recent revival (spearheaded by Richard Rorty’s bold intervention into analytic philosophy Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature) has coalesced into a distinctive philosophical movement frequently referred to as ‘neopragmatism’. This movement interprets the very meaning of pragmatism as rejection of metaphysical commitments: our words do not primarily serve to represent non-linguistic entities, but are tools to achieve a range of human purposes. A particularly thorough and consistent version of this position is Huw Price’s global expressivism. We here critically (...) appraise Price’s understanding of a commitment to pragmatism as a rejection of metaphysics, and argue that such rejection is not as easy or desirable as Price claims. First we argue that Price’s global expressivism itself draws on significant metaphysical assumptions (a ‘word-world’ dualism, and a nominalism concerning the meaning of general terms). Then we seek to resolve neopragmatist anxieties about metaphysics by arguing that metaphysics is indispensable for pragmatist philosophizing insofar as it seeks ways for human beings to realise themselves through practices of understanding reality and their place in it. If, as we argue, metaphysics consists in a maximally general inquiry into the nature and structure of reality, to try to block it seems a puzzling exercise in epistemic self-harm. (shrink)

This paper contrasts the scholastic realisms of David Armstrong and Charles Peirce. It is argued that the so-called 'problem of universals' is not a problem in pure ontology (concerning whether universals exist) as Armstrong construes it. Rather, it pertains to which predicates should be applied where, issues which Armstrong sets aside under the label of 'semantics', and which from a Peircean perspective encompass even fundamentals of scientific methodology. It is argued that Peirce's scholastic realism not only presents a more nuanced (...) ontology (distinguishing existence and reality) but also illuminates why scholastic realism is a position worth fighting for. (shrink)

Feminists note an association of arguing with aggression and masculinity and question the necessity of this connection. Arguing also seems to some to identify a central method of philosophical reasoning, and gendered assumptions and standards would pose problems for the discipline. Can feminine modes of reasoning provide an alternative or supplement? Can overarching epistemological standards account for the benefits of different approaches to arguing? These are some of the prospects for argumentation inside and outside of philosophy that feminists consider. -/- (...) The further concern is that the academic study of argumentation – in philosophy and other disciplines – has failed to account for the type of reasoning needed for social justice movements. What resources for addressing these concerns can be found in informal logic and interdisciplinary argumentation theory? Since part of the perceived problem derives from assuming that arguing is a contest, are more collaborative epistemological frameworks better? Can regular politeness or civility hedge against undesirable tendencies of argumentation? Can “critical thinking” pedagogy involving argument educations answer the needs of social justice? (shrink)

This entry explores Charles Peirce's account of truth in terms of the end or ‘limit’ of inquiry. This account is distinct from – and arguably more objectivist than – views of truth found in other pragmatists such as James and Rorty. The roots of the account in mathematical concepts is explored, and it is defended from objections that it is (i) incoherent, (ii) in its faith in convergence, too realist and (iii) in its ‘internal realism’, not realist enough.

Diversity is often announced as a solution to ethical problems in artificial intelligence (AI), but what exactly is meant by diversity and how it can solve those problems is seldom spelled out. This lack of clarity is one hurdle to motivating diversity in AI. Another hurdle is that while the most common perceptions about what diversity is are too weak to do the work set out for them, stronger notions of diversity are often defended on normative grounds that fail to (...) connect to the values that are important to decision-makers in AI. However, there is a long history of research in feminist philosophy of science and a recent body of work in social epistemology that taken together provide the foundation for a notion of diversity that is both strong enough to do the work demanded of it, and can be defended on epistemic grounds that connect with the values that are important to decision-makers in AI. We clarify and defend that notion here by introducing emergent expertise as a network phenomenon wherein groups of workers with expertise of different types can gain knowledge not available to any individual alone, as long as they have ways of communicating across types of expertise. We illustrate the connected epistemic and ethical benefits of designing technology with diverse groups of workers using the examples of an infamous racist soap dispenser, and the millimeter wave scanners used in US airport security. (shrink)

In economics, thought experiments are frequently justified by the difficulty of conducting controlled experiments. They serve several functions, such as establishing causal facts, isolating tendencies, and allowing inferences from models to reality. In this paper, I argue that thought experiments served a further function in economics: facilitating the quantitative definition and measurement of the theoretical concept of utility, thereby bridging the gap between theory and statistical data. I support my argument by a case study, the “hypothetical experiments” of the Norwegian (...) economist Ragnar Frisch (1895-1973). Frisch aimed to eliminate introspection and a subjective concept of utility from economic reasoning. At the same time, he sought behavioral foundations for economic theory that enabled quantitative reasoning. By using thought experiments to justify his set of choice axioms and facilitating the operationalization of utility, Frisch circumvented the problem of observing utility via actual experiments without eliminating the concept of utility from economic theory altogether. As such, these experiments helped Frisch to empirically support the theory’s most important results, such as the laws of demand and supply, without the input of new empirical findings. I suggest that Frisch’s experiments fulfill the main characteristics of thought experiments. (shrink)

We undeniably live in an information age—as, indeed, did those who lived before us. After all, as the cultural historian Robert Darnton pointed out: ‘every age was an age of information, each in its own way’ (Darnton 2000: 1). Darnton was referring to the news media, but his insight surely also applies to the sciences. The practices of acquiring, storing, labeling, organizing, retrieving, mobilizing, and integrating data about the natural world has always been an enabling aspect of scientific work. Natural (...) history and its descendant discipline of biological taxonomy are prime examples of sciences dedicated to creating and managing systems of ordering data. In some sense, the idea of biological taxonomy as an information science is commonplace. Perhaps it is because of its self-evidence that the information science perspective on taxonomy has not been a major theme in the history and philosophy of science. The botanist Vernon Heywood once pointed out that historians of biology, in their ‘preoccupation with the development of the sciences of botany and zoology… [have] diverted attention from the role of taxonomy as an information science’ (Heywood 1985: 11). More specifically, he argued that historians had failed to appreciate how principles and practices that can be traced to Linnaeus constituted ‘a change in the nature of taxonomy from a local or limited folk communication system and later a codified folk taxonomy to a formal system of information science [that] marked a watershed in the history of biology’ (ibid.). A similar observation could be made about twentieth-century philosophy of biology, which mostly skipped over practical and epistemic questions about information management in taxonomy. The taxonomic themes that featured in the emerging philosophy of biology literature in the second half of the twentieth century were predominantly metaphysical in orientation. This is illustrated by what has become known as the ‘essentialism story’: an account about the essentialist nature of pre- Darwinian taxonomy that used to be accepted by many historians and philosophers, and which stimulated efforts to document and interpret shifts in the metaphysical understanding of species and (natural) classification (Richards 2010; Winsor 2003; Wilkins 2009). Although contemporary debates in the philosophy of taxonomy have moved on, much discussion continues to focus on conceptual and metaphysical issues surrounding the nature of species and the principles of classification. Discussions centring on whether species are individuals, classes, or kinds have sprung up as predictably as perennials. Raucous debates have arisen even with the aim of accommodating the diversity of views: is monism, pluralism, or eliminativism about the species category the best position to take? In addition to these, our disciplines continue to interrogate what is the nature of these different approaches to classification: are they representational or inferential roles of different approaches to classification (evolutionary taxonomy, phenetics, phylogenetic systematics)? While there is still much to learn from these discussions—in which we both actively participate—our aim with this topical collection has been to seek different entrypoints and address underexposed themes in the history and philosophy of taxonomy. We believe that approaching taxonomy as an information science prompts new questions and can open up new philosophical vistas worth exploring. A twenty-first century information science turn in the history and philosophy of taxonomy is already underway. In scientific practice and in daily life it is hard to escape the imaginaries of Big Data and the constant threats of being ‘flooded with data’. In the life sciences, these developments are often associated with the socalled bioinformatics crisis that can hopefully be contained by a new, interdisciplinary breed of bioinformaticians. These new concepts, narratives, and developments surrounding the centrality of data and information systems in the biological and biomedical sciences have raised important philosophical questions about their challenges and implications. But historical perspectives are just as necessary to judge what makes our information age different from those that preceded us. Indeed, as the British zoologist Charles Godfray has often pointed out, the piles of data that are being generated in contemporary systematic biology have led to a second bioinformatics crisis, the first being the one that confronted Linnaeus in the mid-18th century (Godfray 2007). Although our aim is to clear a path for new discussions of taxonomy from an information science-informed point of view, we continue where others in the history, philosophy, and sociology of science have already trod. We believe that an appreciation of biological taxonomy as an information science raises many questions about the philosophical, theoretical, material, and practical aspects of the use and revision of biological nomenclatures in different local and global communities of scientists and citizen scientists. In particular, conceiving of taxonomy as an information science directs attention to the temporalities of managing an accumulating data about classified entities that are themselves subject to revision, to the means by which revision is accomplished, and to the semantic, material, and collaborative contexts that mediate the execution of revisions. (shrink)

This is a Spanish translation of an essay that offers a systematic exposition and partial defense of Kant's philosophy of prayer. "Does Kant even HAVE a philosophy of prayer?" you may ask. Read on...and you'll see!

Charles S. Peirce’s semiotics uniquely divides signs into: i) symbols, which pick out their objects by arbitrary convention or habit, ii) indices, which pick out their objects by unmediated ‘pointing’, and iii) icons, which pick out their objects by resembling them (as Peirce put it: an icon’s parts are related in the same way that the objects represented by those parts are themselves related). Thus representing structure is one of the icon’s greatest strengths. It is argued that the implications of (...) scaffolding education iconically are profound: for providing learners with a navigable road-map of a subject matter, for enabling them to see further connections of their own in what is taught, and for supporting meaningful active learning. Potential objections that iconic teaching is excessively entertaining and overly susceptible to misleading rhetorical manipulation are addressed. (shrink)

Much mainstream analytic epistemology is built around a sceptical treatment of modality which descends from Hume. The roots of this scepticism are argued to lie in Hume’s (nominalist) theory of perception, which is excavated, studied and compared with the very different (realist) theory of perception developed by Peirce. It is argued that Peirce’s theory not only enables a considerably more nuanced and effective epistemology, it also (unlike Hume’s theory) does justice to what happens when we appreciate a proof in mathematics.

This paper explores the role of speculative anticipation in ethics during the COVID-19 pandemic and provides a structure to think about ethical decision-making in times of extreme uncertainty. We identify three different but interwoven domains within which speculative anticipation can be found: global, local, and projective anticipation. Our analysis aims to open possibilities of seeing the situatedness of others both locally and globally in order to address larger social issues that have been laid bare by the presence of SARS-CoV-2. Our (...) account of speculative anticipation builds on the analyses of the gendered impact of anticipation in technoscience by Vincanne Adams, Michelle Murphy and Adele Clarke; studies in cultural anthropology by Ann Laura Stoler; and the recent research on speculative fiction by Esther Jones. Like theirs, ours is intended to be useful. We offer it as a tool to recast questions and revisit assumptions in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. It is hoped that by using the frame of the ethics of speculative anticipation, one might be able to consider how to avoid those futures that reproduce inequity, and instead actively and responsibly envision those futures that are informed by equity and sustainability. (shrink)

The premise of biological modularity is an ontological claim that appears to come out of practice. We understand that the biological world is modular because we can manipulate different parts of organisms in ways that would only work if there were discrete parts that were interchangeable. This is the foundation of the BioBrick assembly method widely used in synthetic biology. It is one of a number of methods that allows practitioners to construct and reconstruct biological pathways and devices using DNA (...) libraries of standardized parts with known functions. In this paper, we investigate how the practice of synthetic biology reconfigures biological understanding of the key concepts of modularity and evolvability. We illustrate how this practice approach takes engineering knowledge and uses it to try to understand biological organization by showing how the construction of functional parts and processes can be used in synthetic experimental evolution. We introduce a new approach within synthetic biology that uses the premise of a parts-based ontology together with that of organismal self-organization to optimize orthogonal metabolic pathways in E. coli. We then use this and other examples to help characterize semisynthetic categories of modularity, parthood, and evolvability within the discipline. (shrink)

Apoha, a Sanskrit term meaning exclusion, was used by the late fifth- to early sixth-century Buddhist philosopher Dignā ga as a keystone in his theory of denotation. According to Dignā ga, a word denotes its meaning through the exclusion of what is other (anyā poha). This idea provoked celebration and controversy that would last through the end of Sanskritic Indian Buddhism. In the hands of Dignā ga’s successor Dharmakīrti (seventh century), who developed what became the normative version of this theory, (...) apoha leverages the fact that a causally efficacious real thing is different from everything else to describe how the interaction between living beings and their worlds produces judgements that are either shared or not in accord with the various factors contributing to the judgement’s formation. Dharmakīrti argues that there’s an infinite number of ways that a real thing could be conceptualised since each real thing is different from the infinite expanse of other real things. Acting toward a real thing requires delimiting the scope of what one ignores so that just some of the differences are left over. A living being can afford to ignore the differences between the differences that are left over in this exclusion because these differences don’t impact the specific goal based on which the living being judges an object to be efficacious or not. (shrink)