We prove that all extensions of Heyting Arithmetic with a logic that has the finite frame property possess the de Jongh property.

In this paper the system IL for relative interpretability is studied.

We prove that all extensions of Heyting Arithmetic with a logic that has the finite frame property possess the de Jongh property.

Albert Einstein a proposé trois tests de relativité générale, appelés plus tard les tests classiques de relativité générale, en 1916 : la précession de l'orbite de Mercure, la déviation de la lumière du soleil, et le décalage vers le rouge gravitationnel de la lumière. Dicke et Schiff ont établi un cadre pour tester la relativité générale , y compris par le biais d'expériences nulles et en utilisant la physique de l'exploration spatiale, de l'électronique et de la matière condensée, comme l'expérience (...) Pound-Rebka et l'interférométrie laser. DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.2.33735.93607. (shrink)

Spanish version of my analysis of Oaxaca-based experimental filmmaker Bruno Varela's 2022 feature-length film El Prototipo, which draws on ideas from Philip K. Dick's novel Valis.

The book covers scientific and philosophical topics by bringing them closer to literature. Some topics are scientific explanation, the concept of cause, rational argumentation, pseudoscience, language, ethics, philosophy of mind, posthumanism, and democracy. Summary Prefazione di Severino Saccardi. Introduzione. Capitolo 1: Le scrivanie di Eddington. 1.1. Il vecchio Qfwfq (I. Calvino. Le cosmicomiche). 1.2. L’assassino invisibile (L.F. Celine, Il dottor Semmelweis). 1.3. Gli gnommeri di Ingravallo (C.E. Gadda, Quer pasticciaccio brutto de via Merulana). 1.4. I sergenti di Napoleone (L. Tolstoj, (...) Guerra e pace). 1.5. Tex e il Coyote nero (G. Bonelli, Il Coyote nero). 1.6. “Elementare Watson!” (A.C. Doyle, Il segno dei quattro). Capitolo 2. Non saranno mai delusi. 2.1. L’albero di Natale. (V. Perrin, Cambiare l’acqua ai fiori). 2.2. Il dagherrotipo di Buendia. (G.G. Marquez, Cent’anni di solitudine). 2.3. Don Ferrante e la peste. (A. Manzoni, I promessi sposi). Capitolo 3. Capitolo puffo. 3.1. L’Accademia di Lagado. (J. Swift, I viaggi di Gulliver). 3.2. Bruto è uomo d’onore. (W. Shakespeare, Giulio Cesare). 3.3. Le oche mute. (G. Orwell, 1984). Capitolo 4. “Quarantadue!” 4.1. Lo zio N’Ba N’Ga. (I. Calvino, Le cosmicomiche). 4.2. La mosca cocchiera. (J. de La Fontaine, Favole). 4.3. Il fiore del dr. Dek. (E. Salgari, Le meraviglie del Duemila). Capitolo 5. L’ultimo uomo. 5.1. La pernice accusatrice. (Cyrano de Bergerac, Gli stati e gli imperi del Sole). 5.2. Pallino in via Mjasnickaja. (M.A. Bulgakov, Cuore di cane). Capitolo 6. Scenari perturbanti. 6.1. Dissipatio. (G. Morselli, Dissipatio H.G.). 6.2. Un mammifero meccanizzato. (S. Butler, Erewhon). 6.3. Mlle Olimpia. (E.T.A. Hoffmann, Racconti notturni). Capitolo 7. La gente perbene. 7.1. La balena bianca. (H. Melville, Moby Dick). 7.2. Betsabea Everdeene. (T. Hardy, Via dalla pazza folla). 7.3. Un’idea francese. (C. McCarthy, Cavalli selvaggi). 7.4. Le montagne del Montana. (D. Delillo, Rumore bianco). (shrink)

A central question in contemporary ethics and political philosophy concerns which entities have moral status. In this article, I provide a detailed analysis of the view that moral status comes in degrees. I argue that degrees of moral status can be specified along two dimensions: (i) the weight of the reason to protect an entity’s morally significant rights and interests; and/or (ii) the rights and interests that are considered morally significant. And I explore some of the complexities that arise when (...) we link degrees of moral status to the weight of reasons to protect bundles and/or the content and size of these bundles, in particular regarding the attribution of moral status to nonparadigmatic entities (e.g. people with severe cognitive disabilities, children, embryos and foetuses, robots, non-human animals, ecosystems, and rivers). (shrink)

Carl Knight argues that lexical sufficientarianism, which holds that sufficientarian concerns should have lexical priority over other distributive goals, is ‘excessive’ in many distinct ways and that sufficientarians should either defend weighted sufficientarianism or become prioritarians. In this article, I distinguish three types of weighted sufficientarianism and propose a weighted sufficientarian view that meets the excessiveness objection and is preferable to both Knight’s proposal and prioritarianism. More specifically, I defend a multi-threshold view which gives weighted priority to benefits directly above (...) and below its thresholds, but gives benefits below the lowest threshold lexical priority over benefits above the highest threshold. (shrink)

In this paper, I argue that limitarian policies are a good means to further political equality. Limitarianism, which is a view coined and defended by Robeyns, is a partial view in distributive justice which claims that under non-ideal circumstances it is morally impermissible to be rich. In a recent paper, Volacu and Dumitru level two arguments against Robeyns’ Democratic Argument for limitarianism. The Democratic Argument states that limitarianism is called for given the undermining influence current inequalities in income and wealth (...) have for the value of democracy and political equality. Volacu and Dumitru’s Incentive Objection holds that limitarianism places an excessive and inefficient burden on the rich in ensuring political equality. The Efficacy Objection holds that even if limitarianism limits excessive wealth it still fails to ensure the preservation of political equality. In this paper, I will argue that both of these objections fail, but on separate grounds. I argue that the Incentive objection fails because one could appeal to limitarian policies that are different from the ones discussed by Volacu and Dumitru and which escape the problem of reduced productivity. I argue against the Efficacy Objection that limitarian policies are a partial but highly valuable step towards establishing political equality, and that they can and should complement or be complemented by other strategies. (shrink)

Despite the prominence of thresholds in theories of distributive justice, there is no general account of what sort of role is played by the idea of a threshold within such theories. This has allowed an ongoing lack of clarity and misunderstanding around views that employ thresholds. In this article, I develop an account of the concept of thresholds in distributive justice. I argue that this concept contains three elements, which threshold views deploy when ranking possible distributions. These elements are (i) (...) the level of the threshold, (ii) what constitutes the value of the threshold, and (iii) how benefits above and below the threshold must be allocated. I highlight three contributions that this particular account of thresholds makes: it clarifies the nature of the shift that occurs at the threshold; it resolves a common misunderstanding about headcount principles; and it shows how the arbitrariness objection can be met. (shrink)

The philosophy of biomimicry, I argue, consists of four main areas of inquiry. The first, which has already been explored by Freya Mathews, concerns the “deep” question of what Nature ultimately is. The second, third, and fourth areas correspond to the three basic principles of biomimicry as laid out by Janine Benyus. “Nature as model” is the poetic principle of biomimicry, for it tells us how it is that things are to be “brought forth”. “Nature as measure” is the ethical (...) principle of biomimicry, for it tells us that Nature places ethical limits or standards on what it is possible for us to accomplish. And “Nature as mentor” is the epistemological principle of biomimicry, for it affirms that Nature is the ultimate source of truth, wisdom, and freedom from error. Within this overall framework, I argue that seeing Nature as physis—understood as “self-production” or “self-placing-into-the-open”—constitutes the requisite ground for the poetic, ethical, and epistemological principles of biomimicry, and that biomimicry thus conceived involves a new philosophical paradigm, which I call “enlightened naturalism”. (shrink)

Limitarianism holds that there is an upper limit to how many resources, such as wealth and income, people can permissibly have. In this article, I examine the conceptual structure of limitarianism. I focus on the upper limit and the idea that resources above the limit are ‘excess resources’. I distinguish two possible limitarian views about such resources: (i) that excess resources have zero moral value for the holder; and (ii) that excess resources do have moral value for the holder but (...) that their claim to such resources is outweighed by other normative concerns. Moreover, I argue that, depending on the values limitarianism seeks to promote, limitarians should care about the number of people with excess resources or the total amount of excess resources (or both), that they can adopt redistributive measures and/or predistributive measures, and that some versions of limitarianism should take into account the distribution of risk among those above the riches line. (shrink)

In this article, I propose a novel characterization of sufficientarianism. I argue that sufficientarianism combines three claims: a priority claim that we have non-instrumental reasons to prioritize benefits in certain ranges over benefits in other ranges; a continuum claim that at least two of those ranges are on one continuum; and a deficiency claim that the lower a range on a continuum, the more priority benefits in that range have. This characterization of sufficientarianism sheds new light on two long-standing philosophical (...) debates, namely about the distinctiveness of sufficientarianism as a distributive principle and about the common objections to sufficientarianism. (shrink)

According to the sufficiency theory of justice in health, justice requires that people have equal access to adequate health. In this article, I lay out the structure of this view and I assess its distributive implications for setting priority (i) between health needs across persons and (ii) between health care spending and other societal goods. I argue, first, that according to the sufficiency theory, deficiency in health cannot be completely offset by providing other societal goods. And, second, that it can (...) prevent the medicalization of societies by stressing that improvements beyond the level of adequate health have relatively little weight, if any, from the standpoint of justice. (shrink)

Locke’s property rights are now usually understood to be both fundamental and strictly negative. Fundamental because they are thought to be basic constraints on what we may do, unconstrained by anything deeper. Negative because they are thought to only protect a property holder against the claims of others. Here, I argue that this widespread interpretation is mistaken. For Locke, property rights are constrained by the deeper ‘fundamental law of nature,’ which involves positive obligations to those in need and confines the (...) right to excess property within circumstances where it is not needed to preserve human life. (shrink)

Although Heidegger thinks cybernetics is the “supreme danger,” he also thinks that it harbours within itself poiēsis, the “saving power.” This article providesa justification of this position through an analysis of its relation to Humberto Maturana and Francisco Varela’s Santiago theory of cognition and James Lovelock and Lynn Margulis’ Gaia theory. More specifically, it argues that Maturana and Varela’s criticism of cybernetics and their concomitant theory of “autopoiesis” constitutes the philosophical disclosure of “Being itself,” and that the extension of Santiago (...) theory’s various different conceptualizations of poiēsis to Gaia theory makes possible the rise of the “saving power.”. (shrink)

In earlier work on limitarianism, I argued that setting an upper limit to the amount of wealth that people can permissibly have is justified when decision-makers are unaware of or disagree about the appropriate distributive criterion or if they are unaware of people’s relevant features (or both). Robert Huseby has raised several powerful objections to this presumptive argument for limitarianism. Some of these objections call for a revision of my defence of presumptive limitarianism while others call for clarification, both of (...) which I aim to do in this chapter. I will argue that unless decision-makers have substantive reasons to suggest otherwise, they must act as if there is an upper limit to the amount of wealth that people can permissibly have. (shrink)

The growing concentration of wealth has acquired a new urgency in recent years. One particular view in this context is developed by Ingrid Robeyns in her ground-breaking work on limitarianism. According to this view, no one should have more than a certain amount of valuable goods, such as income and wealth. The contributors to this symposium, Brian Berkey, David Axelsen and Lasse Nielsen, Jessica Flanigan and Christopher Freiman, and Lena Halldenius, critically examine various aspects of limitarianism. In particular, they examine (...) how limitarianism should be interpreted and developed as a principle of justice, on what reasons speak in favour and against limitarianism, and on how limitarianism relates to other principles of distributive justice. Our hope is that this symposium will contribute to the ongoing debate in political philosophy about the concentration of wealth and economic justice. (shrink)

Aldo Leopold accorded great significance to the images he used to describe both the land and humankind’s relation to it. Focusing on three key images of Leopold’s “ecological imaginary”—the balance, the pyramid, and the round river—this article argues that the most profound of these is the round river. Contrasting this image with James Lovelock’s portrayal of the earth as Gaia, it further argues that Leopold’s round river can be interpreted as a contemporary, ecological reworking of the primordial, Homeric experience of (...) Being, according to which the foundation of the world is a round river, Oceanus. (shrink)

During emerging public health crises, both policymakers and members of the public are looking to scientific experts to provide guidance. Even in cases where there are significant uncertainties, there is pressure for experts to “speak with one voice” to avoid confusion, allow officials to make evidence-based decisions rapidly, and encourage public support for such decisions. This can lead experts to engage in masking of information about the state of the science or regarding assumptions involved in policy recommendations. Although experts might (...) have good reasons for masking disagreements, uncertainties, or assumptions when offering policy advice, we argue that this strategy can result in epistemic harms. Using the case of the COVID-19 pandemic, we show that public health authorities masked two types of information necessary for laypersons to evaluate public health recommendations: (1) experts’ disagreements about the scientific evidence and (2) the role of values in making inferences from the science to policy positions. We contend that this resulted in epistemic harms against laypeople that provide a pro tanto case against masking information. We further argue that when the science is in flux and policies need to be implemented despite significant uncertainties, there is an all-things-considered case against masking the types of information discussed. (shrink)

Este artigo busca adentrar pelas questões relacionadas à biopolítica do corpo, sobretudo, daquelas ligadas à estatização do biológico e do racismo do Estado, que aparecem nos trabalhos de Michel Foucault e que aqui evocamos para analisar o corpo enquanto objeto discursivo analisável dessa biopolítica em duas produções francesas de horror, - Frontière(s) e em À l’interieur – que exibem imagens dos tumultos de Outubro de 2005, acontecimento marcado pelos protestos contra a política de perseguição aos sans-papiers que vitimou três jovens (...) de origem africana. É a partir daí que retomaremos a discussão do “quem somos nós”, em Foucault, para refletir sobre o sujeito, a menoridade e a liberdade na estatização do corpo, um lugar da memória nacional. (shrink)

It can be hard to see where money fits in the world. Money seems both real and imaginary, since it has obvious causal powers, but is also, just as obviously, something humans have just made up. Recent philosophical accounts of money have declared it to be real, but for very different reasons. John Searle and Francesco Guala disagree over whether money is just whatever acts like money, or just whatever people believe to be money. In developing their accounts of institutions (...) as a part of social reality, each uses money as a paradigm institution, but they disagree on how institutions exist. Searle argues that the institution of money belongs to an ontological level separate from the physical world, held up by the collective intentions of a group, while Guala claims that money is a part of the ordinary physical world and is just whatever performs a “money-like function” in a group, regardless of what that group believes about it. Here, we argue that any purely functional account like Guala’s will be unable to capture the distinctive phenomenon of money, since monetary transactions are defined by the attitudes transactors hold toward them. Money will be obscured or misidentified if defined functionally. As we go on to show by examining recent work by Smit et al., belief in money does not require taking on all of Searle’s ontological commitments, but money and mental contents will stand or fall together. (shrink)

In their simplest form, consensus gentium arguments for theism argue that theism is true on the basis that everyone believes that theism is true. While such arguments may have been popular in history, they have all but fallen from grace in the philosophy of religion. In this short paper, we reconsider the neglected topic of consensus gentium arguments, paying particular attention to the value of such arguments when deployed in the defence of theistic belief. We argue that while consensus gentium (...) arguments are unlikely to offer anything close to overwhelming support for theism, their probative value is nevertheless underappreciated, and that they have been unfairly maligned as a consequence. (shrink)

This is the report on the XVI BRAZILIAN LOGIC CONFERENCE (EBL 2011) held in Petrópolis, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil between May 9–13, 2011 published in The Bulletin of Symbolic Logic Volume 18, Number 1, March 2012. -/- The 16th Brazilian Logic Conference (EBL 2011) was held in Petro ́polis, from May 9th to 13th, 2011, at the Laboratório Nacional de Computação o Científica (LNCC). It was the sixteenth in a series of conferences that started in 1977 with the aim of (...) congregating logicians from Brazil and abroad, furthering interest in logic and its applications, stimulating cooperation, and contributing to the development of this branch of science. EBL 2011 included more than one-hundred and fifty participants, all of them belonging to prominent research institutes from Brazil and abroad, especially Latin America. The conference was sponsored by the Academia Brasileira de Ciências (ABC), the As- sociation for Symbolic Logic (ASL), Universidade Estadual de Campinas (UNICAMP), Centre for Logic, Epistemology and the History of Sciences (CLE), Laboratório Nacional de Computação o Científica (LNCC), Pontif ́ıcia Universidade Cato ́lica do Rio de Janeiro (PUC- Rio), Sociedade Brasileira de Lógica (SBL), and Universidade Federal Fluminense (UFF). Funding was provided by Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Cient ́ıfico e Tecnolo ́ gico (CNPq), Fundac ̧a ̃o de Amparo `a Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP), Fundação Euclides da Cunha (FEC), and Universidade Federal Fluminense (UFF). The members of the Scientific Committee were: Mário Folhadela Benevides (COPPE- UFRJ), Fa ́bio Bertato (CLE-IFCH-UNICAMP), Jean-Yves Béziau (UFRJ), Ricardo Bianconi (USP), Juliana Bueno-Soler (UFABC), Xavier Caicedo (Universidad de Los An- des), Walter Carnielli (CLE-IFCH-UNICAMP), Oswaldo Chateaubriand Filho (PUC-Rio), Marcelo Esteban Coniglio (CLE-IFCH-UNICAMP), Newton da Costa (UFSC, President), Antonio Carlos da Rocha Costa (UFRG), Alexandre Costa-Leite (UnB), I ́tala M. Loffredo D’Ottaviano (CLE-IFCH-UNICAMP), Marcelo Finger (USP), Edward Hermann Haeusler (PUC-Rio), Décio Krause (UFSC), João Marcos (UFRN), Ana Teresa de Castro Martins (UFC), Maria da Paz Nunes de Medeiros (UFRN), Francisco Miraglia (USP), Luiz Car- los Pereira (PUC-Rio and UFRJ), Elaine Pimentel (UFMG), and Samuel Gomes da Silva (UFBA). The members of the Organizing Committee were: Anderson de Araujo (UNICAMP), Walter Carnielli (CLE-IFCH-UNICAMP), Oswaldo Chateaubriand Filho (PUC-Rio, Co- chair), Marcelo Correa (UFF), Renata de Freitas (UFF), Edward Hermann Haeusler (PUC- RJ), Hugo Nobrega (COPPE-UFRJ), Luiz Carlos Pereira (PUC-Rio e IFCS/UFRJ), Leandro Suguitani (UNICAMP), Rafael Testa (UNICAMP), Leonardo Bruno Vana (UFF), and Petrucio Viana (UFF, Co-chair). (shrink)

Two studies investigated how planning affects intention-behavior consistency. In Study 1 an experimental group and control group which each consisted of 14 undergraduates were requested in computerized interviews to indicate which activities they intended to perform on the following day. Subjects in the experimental group were also requested in a second phase of the interviews to specify when and where they intended to perform the activities. The results showed that activities for which time and place had been specified were more (...) likely to be performed. In Study 2 another 75 undergraduates volunteered to participate in an experiment in which they were requested to perform an activity (reporting mood effects of reading a prose excerpt) by themselves on one of three following days. One group of subjects only agreed to perform the activity, another group agreed to perform the activity as well as indicated when and where they would do it, and a third group in addition to this indicated which other activities they would perform on the same day. In support of the hypothesis that planning an activity increases the likelihood that it will be performed, the results showed that subjects who indicated other activities more frequently performed the target activity. More efficient time management resulting from planning may account for the findings, although further research is needed to show this conclusively. (shrink)

During the past two decades or so, the emergence and ever-accelerating development of digital media have sparked scholarly interest, debates, and complex challenges across many disciplines in the social sciences and the humanities. Within this diverse scholarship, the research on digitality, gender, sexuality, and embodiment has contributed substantially to many academic fields, such as media studies, sociology, religion, philosophy, and education studies. As a part of the special issue “Gender, Sexuality, and Embodiment in Digital Spheres: Connecting Intersectionality and Digitality,” this (...) roundtable consists of a conversation between five researchers from different (inter)disciplinary locations, all addressing matters of methodology, intersectionality, positionality, and theory in relation to the topics of gender, sexuality, and embodiment in digital spheres. Said roundtable begins with a critical self-positioning of the participants’ (inter)disciplinary and embodied locations using examples from their own research. The conversation then progresses to how these researchers have employed contemporary theories, conceptual vocabularies, methods, and analyses of gender, sexuality, and embodiment in digital spheres to then conclude with some ethico-political notes about collaborations between scholars and (digital) activists. (shrink)

In this article we defend a moral conception of cosmopolitanism and its relevance for moral education. Our moral conception of cosmopolitanism presumes that persons possess an inherent dignity in the Kantian sense and therefore they should be recognised as ends‐in‐themselves. We argue that cosmopolitan ideals can inspire moral educators to awaken and cultivate in their pupils an orientation and inclination to struggle against injustice. Moral cosmopolitanism, in other words, should more explicitly inform the work that moral educators do. Real‐world constraints (...) on moral action and the need to prioritise one’s sometimes conflicting responsibilities will often qualify cosmopolitan justice as supererogatory. This fact does not absolve persons from aspiring to see themselves as having the moral obligation to help others in need, while recognising that their factual obligations are more modest in being bound by what they are actually able to do. (shrink)

The relationship between topological explanation and mechanistic explanation is unclear. Most philosophers agree that at least some topological explanations are mechanistic explanations. The crucial question is how to make sense of this claim. Zednik (Philos Psychol 32(1):23–51, 2019) argues that topological explanations are mechanistic if they (i) describe mechanism sketches that (ii) pick out organizational properties of mechanisms. While we agree with Zednik’s conclusion, we critically discuss Zednik’s account and show that it fails as a general account of how and (...) when topological explanations are mechanistic. First, if topological explanations were just mechanism sketches, this implies that they could be enriched by replacing topological terms with mechanistic detail. This, however, conflicts how topological explanations are used in scientific practice. Second, Zednik’s account fails to show how topological properties can be organizational properties of mechanisms that have a place in mechanistic explanation. The core issue is that Zednik’s account ignores that topological properties often are _global_ properties while mechanistic explanantia refer to _local_ properties. We demonstrate how these problems can be solved by a recent account of mechanistic completeness (Craver and Kaplan in Br J Philos Sci 71(1):287–319, 2020; Kohár and Krickel in Calzavarini and Viola (eds) Neural mechanisms—new challenges in the philosophy of neuroscience, Springer, New York, 2021) and use a multilayer network model of Alzheimer’s Disease to illustrate this. (shrink)

In this paper I claim that perceptual discriminatory skills rely on a suitable type of environment as an enabling condition for their exercise. This is because of the constitutive connection between environment and perceptual discriminatory skills, inasmuch as such connection is construed from an ecological approach. The exercise of a discriminatory skill yields knowledge of affordances of objects, properties, or events in the surrounding environment. This is practical knowledge in the first-person perspective. An organism learns to perceive an object by (...) becoming sensitized to its affordances. I call this position ecological disjunctivism. A corollary of this position is that a case of perception and its corresponding case of hallucination—which is similar to the former only in some respects—are different in nature. I show then how the distinguishability problem is addressed by ecological disjunctivism. (shrink)

Philosophers of science have come to accept that contextual values can play unavoidable and desirable roles in science. This has raised concerns about the need to distinguish legitimate and illegitimate value influences in scientific inquiry. I discuss here four such concerns: epistemic distortion, value imposition, undermining of public trust in science, and the use of objectionable values. I contend that preserving epistemic integrity and avoiding value imposition provide good reasons to attempt to distinguish between legitimate and illegitimate influences of values (...) in science. However, the trust and the objectionable values concerns constitute no good reason for demarcation criteria. (shrink)

Kant was never satisfied with the version of his “Refu- tation” published in 1787 (KrV, B 275-279). His dissatisfaction is already evident in the footnote added to the preface of the second edition of the Critique in 1787. As a matter of fact, Kant continued to rework his argument for at least six years after 1787. The main exegetical problem is to figure out who is the target of the “Refutation”: a non-skeptic idealist, a global skeptic of Cartesian provenance or (...) both. In this last case, the related problem is to know whether either of them is the Cartesian skeptic of the first Meditation, the idealist skeptic of the second Meditation and first part of the third Meditation, or some other non-skeptic idealist. I present and defend a new reconstruction of Kant’s “Refu- tation” as a successful argument against Mendelssohnian idealism of Cartesian provenance. This defense is based on a simple logical sketch of the proof provided by Dicker but essentially modified in light of Dyck’s insight about Kant’s opponent. How shall I support my reading? First, by appealing to overwhelming textual evidence according to which the proof is of the existence of mind-independent things, showing that Kant’s main opponent is Mendelssohn’s idealism of Cartesian provenance. Finally, I support my reading by showing that Kant’s “Refutation” is doomed to fail against all forms of global skepticism but is quite successful against Mendelssohn’s idealism. (shrink)

Recent developments of transcendental arguments reflect the struggle to accommodate Stroud’s devastating objection by giving up on failed expectations in providing proof of what the external-world skeptic calls into question: knowledge of the existence of the outside world. Since Strawson's capitulation in 1984, the truth-direct transcendental arguments have given way to modest belief-direct transcendental arguments that concede that truth-direct transcendental arguments are doomed to fail to establish ambitious conclusions about reality but at the same time hold that they can nonetheless (...) successfully establish modest conceptual connection between the major beliefs within our conceptual scheme. This article seeks the “reactionary” rehabilitation of the old hubris: a new defense of the truth-direct transcendental argument. I set forth a new reconstruction of Kant’s Refutation as a successful truth-directed transcendental argument that meets Stroud’s objection. As with several papers and books about the theme, this article is of a systematic and a historical nature by connecting the contemporary debate about transcendental argument with Kant’s philosophy. (shrink)

In this paper we try to bring some clarification in the recent debate on causal pluralism. Our first aim is to clarify what it means to have a pluralistic theory of causation and to articulate the criteria by means of which a certain theory of causation can or cannot qualify as a pluralistic theory of causation. We also show that there is currently no theory on the\nmarket which meets these criteria, and therefore no full-blown pluralist theory of causation exists. Because (...) of this, we offer a general strategy by means of which pluralist theories of causation can be developed. (shrink)

How does one know the phenomenal character of one’s own experience? I aim to present and defend a new view of the epistemology of qualia that addresses this issue. My view results from a reworking of Dretske’s displaced perception model. The guiding line is the key Wittgensteinian insight of his Private Language Argument, namely the claim that no inner perception of qualia can justify our corresponding qualia beliefs. My reworking of the original model starts with the rejection of Dretske’s representationalism, (...) as well as any other metaphysical views about the ultimate nature of qualia. The reworking of the displaced perception model I am proposing is supposed to be compatible with any available metaphysical view on qualia. The second step consists of rejecting the epistemological misgivings of the original model, namely the view that knowing qualia requires “connecting beliefs” along with “meta-representations.” Yet, Dretske’s crucial mistake has been to force knowledge of qualia into the “belief-box.” As a matter of fact, there is only one belief involved in introspecting qualia, namely the qualia-belief itself. The third final step is this. Assuming the key Wittgensteinian insight, I argue that introspection of qualia is a process that is both epis- temically reliable and automatic. It is reliable because it dispenses with justification of any beliefs whatsoever. Moreover, it is automatic because it also dispenses with reflexive connecting beliefs. For example, it takes nonconceptual awareness of the color blue as an input and automatically yields the belief that phenomenal blue is the conscious character of my experience of the sky as an output just by employing the concept BLUE. (shrink)

We set forth what one may call a “constitutional reading” in opposition to the traditional widespread “constructivist reading” of the object of cognition. In the light of the so-called one-object view reading of Transcendental idealism, the object of cognition is nothing but the object that exists in itself insofar as it appears to our cognitive apparatus. The object exists mind-independently, while our cognition of the same object must be mind-independent. The constructivist reading mistakes the epistemological problem of how we come (...) to cognize mind-dependently that what we represent (“the constitutional view”) are mind-independent objects with the Berkelian ontological problem of how we construct objects out of an undifferentiated, unstructured manifold (the constructivist view) My diagnosis is as follows. The first reason is the traditional “two-worlds view” reading of Kant’s idealism. If we take what exists in itself and the object of cognition as distinct things, then we must conclude that the object of cognition is a mind-dependent construction. Constructivist readers mistake the mind-dependent nature of our human cognition of objects for the putative mind-dependent nature of the known object. The second reason is overintellectualization. Constructivist readers mistake the objectifying syntheses of the imagination, below the threshold of self-consciousness, for cognitive conceptual operations by means of which we cognize (erkennen) the objects of cognition, or so I shall argue. (shrink)

This paper is a new non-descriptivist defense of non- conceptualism, based on a new interpretation of Kant’s metaphysics of concepts. We advance the following claim: What distinguishes non-conceptual from conceptual singular representations is the way partial representations of the object’s features are integrated into the whole representation of the object: while at the non-conceptual level this integration takes the form of images of the object’s features that are stored and projected, at the conceptual level this integration takes the form of (...) the recognition that those features are properties of a same object, what Kant calls “synthetic unity of Aperception”. (shrink)

The idea that what we perceive are tropes (abstract particulars) is anything but new. In fact, it was one of the reasons why the ontology of tropes was postulated in the first place. Still, the claim that we perceive tropes is invariably and purely based on pre-philosophical intuitions or, indirectly, as a supporting argument for the advantages of the content view when compared to the relational view of experience. In this paper, I take the content view for granted and argue (...) in favor of what is herein referred to as the trope-content view of experience. My defense is a case of inference to the best explanation. The trope-content view can meet all reasonable desiderata on the experience and its content without assuming gaps or making the ad hoc assumption that there are different layers of content, or so shall I argue. (shrink)

Content nonconceptualism and State conceptualism are motivated by different readings of what I want to call here Bermúdez’s conditions on content-attribution (2007). In one read- ing, what is required is a neo-Fregean content to solve problems of cognitive significance at the nonconceptual level (Toribio, 2008; Duhau, 2011). In the other reading, what is required is a neo-Russellian or possible-world content to account for how conspecifics join attention and cooperate, contemplating the same things from different perspectives in the same perceptual field. (...) The solution to this apparent contradiction is the rejection of the real content view and the adherence to what I call here Content-pragmatism: there is no such thing as the content of experience. According to content pragmatism, “proposition” is not as real as a mental state, but rather, it is a term of art that semanticists use, as a matter of theoretical convenience, to classify mental states. What follows from Content-pragmatism is Content- pluralism: there are so many contents that are required to meet Bermúdez’s condition on content attribution. Because both criticism and the defense of State conceptualism overlook the real scope of Bermúdez’s condition on content attribution, they are ineffective. In this paper, I will argue that the opposition between State and Content nonconceptualism is a real one, but only a relative one, that is, relative to the opposite constraints to be met. If we want to solve the problems of cognitive significance, the best we can do is to let the content of experience be modeled as neo-Fregean content, namely, a compound of nonconceptual modes of presentation of objects and properties. In this case, Content-nonconceptualism prevails. In contrast, if we want to account for how conspecifics join attention to the same entities in the same perceptual field from different perspectives, the best we can do is let the content of experience be modeled either as a structured Russellian proposition or as a function from possible worlds to truth-values. In this case, State-nonconceptualism prevails. (shrink)

This volume offers a collective study of the work of P. F. Strawson (1919-2006) and an exploration of its relevance for current philosophical debates. It is the first book since Strawson's death to cover the full range of his philosophy, with chapters by world-leading experts about his lasting contributions to the philosophy of language, metaphysics, epistemology, moral philosophy, and philosophical methodology. It aims to achieve a balance between exegesis of Strawson, critical engagement, and consideration of the reception and continuing value (...) of his work. It explores the intellectual relations between Strawson and some of his predecessors and contemporaries and it will be an indispensable source for scholars and students of twentieth-century philosophy and its influence in the twenty-first. With contributions by Anne Bezuidenhout, Ian Rumfitt, Paul Snowdon, Quassim Cassam, Michelle Montague, Hans-Johann Glock, Anil Gomes, Lilian Alweiss, Giuseppina D'Oro, A.P. Martinich, Paul Russell, Lucy Allais, and Victoria McGeer. (shrink)

The complexities of how justice comes to be realized, and by which agents, is a relatively neglected element in contemporary theories of justice. This has left several crucial questions about agency and justice undertheorized, such as why some particular agents are responsible for realizing justice, how their contribution towards realizing justice should be understood, and what role agents such as activists and community leaders play in realizing justice. We aim to contribute towards a better understanding of the landscape of these (...) kinds of questions. First, we argue that theorists should distinguish between (i) agents who are responsible for realizing justice, but not committed to it, (ii) agents who are not responsible for realizing justice, but who are committed to it, and (iii) agents who are both responsible for and committed to realizing justice. Second, we discuss how to incorporate agents of justice more robustly into theorizing about justice. (shrink)

Book review : The philosophy of person‐centred healthcareBy Derek Mitchell, Michael Loughlin, Cambridge: Cambridge Scholars Publishing. 2023.201 pp. £64.99. ISBN (10): 1‐5275‐9058‐5, ISBN (13): 978‐1‐5275‐9058‐8.

Abstract: In this article I intend to highlight how the relationship between the psychic ego (seelischen Ich) and the spiritual ego (geistige Ich) is fundamental to the understanding of intersubjectivity and the lifeworld (Lebenswelt). In Ideas II, Husserl explains how, from the ego, natural, psychic and spiritual objectivities are constituted. These three strata of objectivity are known, first, in the theoretical attitude and, second, in the spiritual attitude. In this process, the ego becomes explicit. In the theoretical attitude, the constitution (...) of nature takes place, for which the body (Körper/Leib) is fundamental. This is followed by the constitution of objects of psychic nature, human or animal (tierisch), including self-perception. In assuming the spiritual attitude, the other is perceived (Urpräsenz) initially as a body together with things, and alongside this perception there is an apprehension (Appräsenz) of co-given horizons. There is an identity between the body of others and mine; it is the moment of empathy (Einfühlung). The scientific world constituted in the theoretical attitude is a reduction of the surrounding world (Umwelt) – the lifeworld (Lebenswelt). This lifeworld is the world of spiritual attitude and precedes any comprehension or explanation of the world. It is therefore through the spiritual attitude that a community of spiritual subjects is constituted and constitutes the lifeworld. Keywords: Husserl, Psyche, Spirit, Intersubjectivity, Lifeworld. (shrink)

This paper examines the role of awe and wonder in scientific practice. Drawing on evidence from psychological research and the writings of scientists and science communicators, I argue that awe and wonder play a crucial role in scientific discovery. They focus our attention on the natural world, encourage open-mindedness, diminish the self (particularly feelings of self-importance), help to accord value to the objects that are being studied, and provide a mode of understanding in the absence of full knowledge. I will (...) flesh out implications of the role of awe and wonder in scientific discovery for debates on the relationship between science and religion. Abraham Heschel argued that awe and wonder are religious emotions because they reduce our feelings of self-importance, and thereby help to cultivate the proper reverent attitude towards God. Yet metaphysical naturalists such as Richard Dawkins insist that awe and wonder need not lead to any theistic commitments for scientists. The awe some scientists experience can be regarded as a form of non-theistic spirituality, which is neither a reductive naturalism nor theism. I will attempt to resolve the tension between these views by identifying some common ground. (shrink)

In this paper, I present a new reading of transcendental idealism. For a start, I endorse Allison’s rejection of the traditional so-called two-world view and, hence, of Guyer and Van Cleve’s ontological phenomenalism. But following Allais, I also reject Allison’s metaphysical deflacionism: transcendental idealism is metaphysically committed to the existence of things in themselves, noumena in the negative sense. Nevertheless, in opposition to Allais, I take Kant’s claim that appearances are “mere representations” inside our minds seriously. In the empirical sense, (...) appearances are the undetermined object of our sensible intuition. Yet, in the transcendental sense, appearances are nothing but the mind-dependent way that noumena manifest inside our minds and, hence, our mind-dependent way of knowing the mind-independent reality in itself (epistemological phenomenalism). (shrink)

Definida como beleza lógica e forma do paradoxo, a ironia romântica de Friedrich Schlegel (1772-1829) assimila a antiga ironia socrática e a reinterpreta, inserindo-a como elemento central de sua teorização crítico-literária. O presente artigo analisa a ironia romântica, buscando situar sua alteração e abrangência no final do século XVIII, quando o conceito passa a significar metacrítica, reflexão filosófica, ruptura ficcional, distância estética e forma de exposição da arte literária. Defined as logical beauty and form of paradox, Friedrich Schlegel's (1772-1829) romantic (...) irony incorporates ancient Socratic irony and reinterprets it, inserting it as a nuclear element of his theorization on literary criticism. The current paper analyses the concept of romantic irony seeking to situate its alterations at the end of 18th century, when it changed its meaning for metacritics, philosophical reflexion, fictional rupture, aesthetical distance and form of art exposition. (shrink)