Black holes are extremely relativistic objects. Physical processes around them occur in a regime where the gravitational field is extremely intense. Under such conditions, our representations of space, time, gravity, and thermodynamics are pushed to their limits. In such a situation philosophical issues naturally arise. In this chapter I review some philosophical questions related to black holes. In particular, the relevance of black holes for the metaphysical dispute between presentists and eternalists, the origin of the second law of thermadynamics and (...) its relation to black holes, the problem of information, black holes and hypercomputing, the nature of determinsim, and the breakdown of predictability in black hole space-times. I maintain that black hole physics can be used to illuminate some important problems in the border between science and philosophy, either epistemology and ontology. (shrink)

Transformar el modo de vida individual es necesario para abordar la crisis ecosocial, y resulta perentorio que las políticas comprometidas con su resolución promocionen una capacidad individual de acción ecosocial. Sin embargo, parece que cierta brecha motivacional está obstaculizando la transformación del modo de vida individual. A fin de dar respuesta a esta brecha, ensayamos una mixtura del enfoque de las capacidades con las teorías de Hartmut Rosa. Argumentamos que la resonancia natural funge de factor personal de conversión necesario, si (...) bien no suficiente, para la capacidad de acción ecosocial; y que una política que promocione la resonancia natural se adecuaría también a los requisitos impuestos al desarrollo humano tanto por el enfoque de las capacidades como por la sostenibilidad. (shrink)

It is generally agreed that one of the key differences between ancient skepticism and modern and contemporary skepticism is that the ancient skeptic does not call into question the existence of the external world, but only our ability to know the properties or qualities of external objects. In this paper, I argue that in Sextus Empiricus's attack on the Epicurean criterion of truth one finds evidence that the ancient Pyrrhonist also suspends judgment about the existence of external objects.

En "Paraconsistencia y fundamentación de las matemáticas" se reformula un aspecto del programa formalista de Hilbert, problema clásico dentro del panorama de la filosofía de las matemáticas. Lo anterior se hace desde un enfoque no clásico de la lógica, particularmente desde LP de Priest. Finalizando el articulo se rescatan las virtudes de la reformulación de este problema clásico y se evalúa hasta qué punto puede ser posible hablar del programa formalista desde la luz de la aritmética inconsistente de Priest.

Comenzamos este texto con una pregunta, por algo que podríamos llamar un signo propio de la época, a saber, la proliferación de aproximaciones espaciales a los más diversos problemas y desde las más diversas disciplinas. No podemos dejar de notar que eso, cuyos signos se dejan recoger a pesar de su dispersión, en algo que llamamos época, sobreviene después de un agotamiento de la radicalización del historicismo y de un pensamiento del tiempo.

I present a discussion of some issues in the ontology of spacetime. After a characterisation of the controversies among relationists, substantivalists, eternalists, and presentists, I offer a new argument for rejecting presentism, the doctrine that only present objects exist. Then, I outline and defend a form of spacetime realism that I call event substantivalism. I propose an ontological theory for the emergence of spacetime from more basic entities. Finally, I argue that a relational theory of pre-geometric entities can give rise (...) to substantival spacetime in such a way that relationism and substantivalism are not necessarily opposed positions, but rather complementary. In an appendix I give axiomatic formulations of my ontological views. (shrink)

A supertask consists in the performance of an infinite number of actions in a finite time. I show that any attempt to carry out a supertask will produce a divergence of the curvature of spacetime, resulting in the formation of a black hole. I maintain that supertaks, contrarily to a popular view among philosophers, are physically impossible. Supertasks, literally, collapse under their own weight.

There has been much debate recently on the question whether essence can explain modality. Here, I examine two routes to an essentialist account of modality. The first is Hale's argument for the necessity of essence, which I will argue is — notwithstanding recent attempted defences of it — invalid by its very structure. The second is the proposal that it is essential to essential truth that it is necessary. After offering three possible versions of the view, I will argue that (...) each fails to provide a metaphysical explanation of necessity in terms of essence. (shrink)

The Pyrrhonian skeptic’s stance, as described by Sextus Empiricus, is in good part defined by his suspending judgment or belief about all the matters he has so far investigated. Most interpreters of Pyrrhonism maintain that it is a mistake to understand this form of skepticism in terms of doubt because suspension as conceived of by the Pyrrhonist is markedly different from the state of doubt. In this article, I expound the reasons that have been offered in support of that prevailing (...) view and assess their strength. (shrink)

En este artículo se presenta una caracterización del concepto de falacia, con énfasis en la llamada ‘falacia de apelación a lo natural’. Se explica el alcance de esta falacia, y su peligrosidad, en particular en el ámbito de las ciencias de la salud y de alimentos.

En esta nota ofrezco una caracterización de los conceptos de experiencia estética, valor estético y belleza.

I offer an analysis of the Principle of Sufficient Reason and its relevancy for the scientific endeavour. I submit that the world is not, and cannot be, rational—only some brained beings are. The Principle of Sufficient Reason is not a necessary truth nor a physical law. It is just a guiding metanomological hypothesis justified a posteriori by its success in helping us to unveil the mechanisms that operate in Nature.

Ofrezco una justificación breve del valor de la actividad científica y una vindicación de su defensa.

Se presenta un breve análisis comparativo del lenguaje religioso y el lenguaje científico.

La representación científica del mundo se construye sobre un tejido de teorías en las cuales hay enunciados generales que representan leyes naturales. Estas leyes son patrones de sucesos regulares. Un presupuesto básico de la ciencia es que todo acontecimiento es legal: ocurre regido por leyes que son fijas. ¿Es compatible esa legalidad con la libertad de elección que creemos tener? ¿Cuáles son las implicaciones para la libertad política que debemos esperar en una sociedad organizada y racional? ¿Cuál es el rol (...) de la ética en todo esto? Trataré de responder a estas preguntas aquí, defendiendo la concepción de una sociedad abierta, democrática y plural, que maximice la libertad de elección y acción de las personas que la forman. (shrink)

It is common in psychiatry and other sciences to describe an individual or a type of individual in terms of its disposition to manifest specific effects in a particular range of circumstances. According to one understanding, dispositions are statistical regularities of an individual or type of individual in specific circumstances. According to another understanding, dispositions are properties of individuals in virtue of which such regularities hold. This entry considers a number of ways of making each of these senses of disposition (...) more precise while discussing a number of dangers lurking in careless use of the concept of a disposition. (shrink)

There are several types of truths. In this paper I focus on semantic truths, and within these on factual truths. These truths are attributed to statements. I review the theory of the truth proposed by Bunge and discuss some problems that it presents. I suggest that a theory of truth of factual statements should be complemented by a theory of relevance, and propose the basic tenets of it. Finally, I briefly discuss the nature of propositions and the problem of scientific (...) truth in the light of the presented semantic theory. (shrink)

This paper argues for the following three claims. First, the Agrippan mode from disagreement does not play a secondary role in inducing suspension of judgment. Second, the Pyrrhonist is not committed to the criteria of justification underlying the Five Modes of Agrippa, which nonetheless does not prevent him from non-doxastically assenting to them. And third, some recent objections to Agrippan Pyrrhonism raised by analytic epistemologists and experimental philosophers fail to appreciate the Pyrrhonist's ad hominem style of argumentation and the real (...) challenge posed by the mode from disagreement. (shrink)

An objection that has been raised to the conciliatory stance on the epistemic significance of peer disagreement known as the Equal Weight View is that it is self-defeating, self-undermining, or self-refuting. The proponent of that view claims that equal weight should be given to all the parties to a peer dispute. Hence, if one of his epistemic peers defends the opposite view, he is required to give equal weight to the two rival views, thereby undermining his confidence in the correctness (...) of the Equal Weight View. It seems that the same objection could be leveled against those who claim to suspend judgment in the face of pervasive unresolvable disagreements, as do the Pyrrhonian skeptics. In this paper, I explore the kind of response to the objection that could be offered from a neo-Pyrrhonian perspective, with the aim of better understanding the intriguing character of Pyrrhonian skepticism. (shrink)

Macroscopic irreversible processes emerge from fundamental physical laws of reversible character. The source of the local irreversibility seems to be not in the laws themselves but in the initial and boundary conditions of the equations that represent the laws. In this work we propose that the screening of currents by black hole event horizons determines, locally, a preferred direction for the flux of electromagnetic energy. We study the growth of black hole event horizons due to the cosmological expansion and accretion (...) of cosmic microwave background radiation, for different cosmological models. We propose generalized McVittie co-moving metrics and integrate the rate of accretion of cosmic microwave background radiation onto a supermassive black hole over cosmic time. We find that for flat, open, and closed Friedmann cosmological models, the ratio of the total area of the black hole event horizons with respect to the area of a radial co-moving space-like hypersurface always increases. Since accretion of cosmic radiation sets an absolute lower limit to the total matter accreted by black holes, this implies that the causal past and future are not mirror symmetric for any spacetime event. The asymmetry causes a net Poynting flux in the global future direction; the latter is in turn related to the ever increasing thermodynamic entropy. Thus, we expose a connection between four different “time arrows”: cosmological, electromagnetic, gravitational, and thermodynamic. (shrink)

Pyrrhonism was one of the two main ancient skeptical traditions. In this second paper of the three‐part series devoted to ancient skepticism, I present and discuss some of the issues on Pyrrhonian skepticism which have been the focus of much attention in the recent literature. The topics to be addressed concern the outlooks of Pyrrho, Aenesidemus, and Sextus Empiricus.

It is sometimes claimed that conciliatory views on disagreement ultimately lead to either global or widespread scepticism. This is deemed to be a serious problem for conciliationism either because scepticism of either kind is a patently untenable stance or because it poses a serious threat to our intellectual and social lives. In this paper, I first argue that the alleged untenability of both types of scepticism is far from being obvious and should therefore be established rather than taken for granted, (...) and then that those who reject them because of the threat they pose surprisingly confuse pragmatic reasons with epistemic reasons. (shrink)

This paper approaches the current epistemological debate on peer disagreement from a neo-Pyrrhonian perspective, thus adopting a form of skepticism which is more radical than those discussed in the literature. It makes use of argumentative strategies found in ancient Pyrrhonism both to show that such a debate rests on problematic assumptions and to block some maneuvers intended to offer an efficacious way of settling a considerable number of peer disputes. The essay takes issue with three views held in the peer (...) disagreement debate: there is an objective fact of the matter about at least most controversial questions; we possess theory-neutral evidence bearing on those questions which grants us access to the truth of the matter; and many peer controversies are resolved by attending to which disputant has correctly evaluated the objective evidence. With respect to the first two views, it is argued that the belief in both objective facts and theory-neutral evidence is subject to fierce dispute, and should not therefore be taken for granted in the discussion of peer disagreement. As for the third view, it is argued that from either a first- or a third-person perspective, there seems to be epistemic symmetry between the disputants which makes it necessary to suspend judgment. (shrink)

The present paper has two, interrelated objectives. The first is to analyze the different senses in which arguments are characterized as persuasive in the extant writings of Sextus Empiricus. The second is to examine the Pyrrhonist’s therapeutic use of arguments in the discussion with his Dogmatic rivals – more precisely, to determine the sense and basis of Sextus’ distinction between therapeutic arguments that appear weighty and therapeutic arguments that appear weak in their persuasiveness.

My purpose in this paper is to examine whether Pyrrhonian skepticism, as this stance is described in Sextus Empiricus’s extant works, has practical or epistemic value. More precisely, I would like to consider whether the Pyrrhonist’s suspension of judgment (ἐποχή) and undisturbedness (ἀταραξία) can be deemed to be of practical or epistemic value. By ‘practical’ value I mean both moral value and prudential value. Moral value refers to moral rightness and wrongness; prudential value to the value of well-being, personal or (...) social. Hence, when I ask whether the Pyrrhonist’s suspension and undisturbedness have practical value, I mean whether they make us behave in a manner that is morally right or wrong, and whether they allow us to attain those goals that would make it possible to live well. As for ‘epistemic’ value, it refers basically to the values of attaining truth and avoiding error. Hence, when I ask whether the Pyrrhonist’s suspension has epistemic value, I mean whether it allows us to attain truth and avoid error. My main focus will be the practical value of both suspension and undisturbedness because this is the value on which ancient philosophy scholars critical of Pyrrhonism have laid emphasis. The reason for examining the epistemic value of suspension is that doing so will enable a fuller assessment of the significance of Pyrrhonism as a kind of philosophy, which is my primary concern. (shrink)

Este trabalho tem por objetivo a compreensão da ação em Aristóteles. Para este fim será utilizado o livro III da Ética a Nicômaco, passando antes por uma breve definição da virtude, tal como aparece no livro II, a qual, pode-se dizer ser o bem para a ação, na medida em que é aquilo que se deve alcançar com ela. No campo específico da ação será visto como ela pode ser distinguida entre voluntária, involuntária e não-voluntária. Neste espectro insere-se igualmente a (...) discussão sobre o que significa agir por e na ignorância. Além disso, se abordará também a questão relacionada à deliberação e à escolha.: This study aims to understand the action in Aristotle. For this purpose, we will use the book III of the Nicomachean Ethics, after doing a brief definition of virtue, as it appears in the Book II, which can be said to be the good for the action, as that is what should be reached by her. In the specific field of action, it will be seen how she can be distinguished between voluntary, involuntary and non-voluntary. This spectrum is also part of the discussion about what it means to act by and in the ignorance. In addition, the study will also address the issue related to deliberation and choice. Keywords: Deliberation, Choice, Action, Nicomachean Ethics. (shrink)

El concepto de trastorno mental permite justificar intervenciones médicas, psicológicas y judiciales. Además, facilita a la/el consultante acceder a tratamientos mediante reembolsos o programas de salud pública, y por otro lado, podría conllevar estereotipos sociales. No obstante, el significado de dicho concepto no ha dejado de suscitar debate. En el presente artículo argumentaré que los trastornos de personalidad, tal como son definidos en el DSM-5, no cumplen con los criterios de patología de las propuestas principales (i.e. teoría bio-estadística de la (...) salud, disfunción dañina, o entidad patológica) debido a tres razones independientes: (i) no se han propuesto dis/funciones a la base de cada trastorno y, dado el estado del arte de la psicología evolucionista, es poco probable que se pueda llevar a cabo ese programa en el futuro; (ii) el concepto de daño (distrés, perjuicio) aplicable a los trastornos de personalidad es constitutivamente social (aunque no exclusivamente social), por lo que resulta más adecuado hablar de grados de discapacidad que de trastornos del individuo; y (iii) que la ausencia de condiciones patognomónicas para cada trastorno, junto a la elevada comorbilidad y multimorbilidad entre trastornos de personalidad, horada la validez de la nosología actual y de los diagnósticos diferenciales. Propondré como solución la eliminación de los trastornos de personalidad de la nosología psiquiátrica. Eliminar los trastornos de personalidad no equivale a desconocer el sufrimiento de las personas diagnosticadas, ni a ignorar que dicho sufrimiento precede a, –y no acaba con la disolución de– la etiqueta diagnóstica. Por ello, se propondrá una reconceptualización de dicho sufrimiento en términos de discapacidad, entendida desde el modelo social, y que no presupone patología. (shrink)

A multidisciplinary study of trust. The papers in this publication address the question of what generates, maintains, substitutes or collapses trusting relations.

Sextus Empiricus associates the skeptical stance with the activity of inquiry or investigation. My purpose in this paper is to examine the Pyrrhonist's involvement in that activity because getting an accurate understanding of the nature and purpose of skeptical inquiry makes it possible to delineate some of the distinctive traits of Pyrrhonism as a kind of philosophy. I defend the minority view among specialists according to which (i) Sextus describes both the prospective Pyrrhonist and the full-fledged Pyrrhonist as inquirers into (...) truth, and (ii) the full-fledged Pyrrhonist can, without inconsistency, engage in truth-directed inquiry. (shrink)

En su libro Mind and nature Gregory Bateson elabora un argumento que él llama ‘convencional’ para concluir que “nunca podremos ser capaces de reclamar conocimiento definitivo en asunto alguno [final knowledge of anything whatsoever]”. La conclusión es correcta, pero el argumento es engañoso y desorienta más de lo que ayuda. Además, Bateson, disimuladamente, introduce algunas afirmaciones falsas en medio de premisas verdaderas. Revisarlo nos permitirá aclarar algunos malentendidos comunes en filosofía de la ciencia, además de ser la excusa perfecta para (...) esbozar una introducción a la interpolación polinomial de Lagrange y una pequeña reflexión sobre los límites del conocimiento. (shrink)

Pressupõe que boa parte dos estudantes universitários na atualidade demonstra dificuldade ou resistência no modo de entender o debate conceitual documento e arquivo e a sua relação com a práxis científica. O pressuposto está baseado na observação e no diálogo em sala nas disciplinas sobre pesquisa, ciência e filosofia ofertadas nos Cursos de Graduação em Biblioteconomia e de Pós-Graduação em Ciência da Informação da Universidade Federal de Pernambuco. Este artigo tem como objetivo propor um debate conceitual sobre arquivos a partir (...) de Michel Foucault e com algumas referências das áreas supracitadas. O procedimento metodológico foi exploratório e bibliográfico. Conclui que o senso comum estudantil não concebe o fazer científico com o debate conceitual. Colabora com a produção de bibliografia didático-teórica para uso dos estudantes. Põe em prática certa versão de confrontamento de conceitos que possam ser esboçadas, compartilhadas e debatidas, pois disso trata o arquivo, propriamente dito. (shrink)

La comprensión lectora constituye un tema de estudio y preocupación en todo el sistema educativo venezolano, desde la primaria hasta el postgrado. A partir de diferentes enfoques y con diferentes métodos y estrategias se han buscado alternativas para mejorar las competencias que tienen los estudiantes. En el caso de este estudio se partió de las teorías constructivistas y de la metodología investigación acción en el aula para que los estudiantes desarrollaran la comprensión de la lectura a través de un conjunto (...) de estrategias interactivas. En cuanto a las técnicas para la recolección y análisis de la información, se utilizaron cuantitativas y cualitativas, como la observación participante, el diario de clase y la triangulación, entre otros. La investigación se efectuó en dos ciclos con estudiantes del Programa Educación, Proyecto Educación Integral, de la Universidad Nacional Experimental “Rafael María Baralt”. Los resultados evidencian mejoras sustantivas en los niveles de comprensión de la lectura del grupo, sobre todo en la lectura inferencial. Se evidencia que los aspectos como el clima del aula, aprendizaje cooperativo, aprender haciendo, aprendizaje significativo, las estrategias para la mediación de aprendizaje y los procesos metacognitivos en el proceso de aprendizaje son importantes para desarrollar la comprensión de la lectura. Asimismo, se consideran relevantes los elementos afectivos y sociales en el diseño de las estrategias. Por último, se concluye que más que consolidar la comprensión de la lectura, se consolidan los procesos cognitivos que posibilitan la comprensión. (shrink)

Ancient philosophy knew two main skeptical traditions: the Pyrrhonian and the Academic. In this final paper of the three‐part series devoted to ancient skepticism, I present some of the topics about Academic skepticism which have recently been much debated in the specialist literature. I will be concerned with the outlooks of Arcesilaus, Carneades, and Philo of Larissa.

The following text is divided in four parts. The first presents the inner relation between the phenomenological concept of intentionality and space in a general mathematical sense. Following this train of though the second part brie_ly characterizes the use of the geometrical concept of manifold (Mannigfaltigkeit) in Husserl’s work. In the third part we present some examples of the use of the concept in Husserl’s analyses of space, time and intersubjectivity, pointing out some dif_iculties in his endeavor. In the fourth (...) and _inal part we offer some points of coincidence between phenomenology and category theory suggesting that the latter can work as a formal frame for ontology in the former. Our thesis is that intentionality operates in different levels as a morphism, functor and natural transformation. (shrink)

Every time we perceive the scent of an end, we are summoned to position ourselves, to express what has been, what is our condition and what is to come. Ours is, certainly the time of the end of times. A time in which the end has become the void center around which we revolve. Philosophy only speaks when there is a limit at stake: a beginning, an end, a border, a frontier. And yet, there is no measure anymore to determine (...) what is actuality or the present, what is contemporary. Time is fragmented as well as space. There is a multiplicity of time scales (cosmic, planetary, human, cultural, personal) and velocities (the human body, our cars and trains, information), but also of subjective appropriations (what is urgent, what should come first, how much time do we have left). There is no “fundamental” difference between life-time and clock-time. There are several clocks and several lives. There is also a multiplicity of space scales (elemental particles, molecules, living organisms, living collectives, all living-species), different modes (continuous, discontinuous, with borders, infinite, homogeneous, non-trivially connected), different subjective relationships to it (earth as our space -be it in terms of Husserl or of Galilei-, the cultural world-worlds, my city, my house, my body). Far is the possibility of fixing a last instance or a fundamental scale, the possibility of a whole in which we could univocally place the particulars, or the chance of finding the last constituents of being (the atoms: physical, logical, metaphysical, social, etc.). (shrink)

En este texto deseamos hacer una presentación global del pensamiento de Schelling a partir de su idea de absoluto en conexión con el concepto de Dios y la enigmática “B” que significa lo “real” en sus diferentes sistemas. Para ello mostramos las principales ideas de lo absoluto y cómo se articulan, de manera problemática, con lo real, lo efectivo y lo singular, conceptos diferentes pero entrelazados y resumidos en esa letra “B” que aparecerá en sus ecuaciones del absoluto.

The following text is divided in four parts. The first presents the inner relation between the phenomenological concept of intentionality and space in a general mathematical sense. Following this train of though the second part brie_ly characterizes the use of the geometrical concept of manifold (Mannigfaltigkeit) in Husserl’s work. In the third part we present some examples of the use of the concept in Husserl’s analyses of space, time and intersubjectivity, pointing out some dif_iculties in his endeavor. In the fourth (...) and _inal part we offer some points of coincidence between phenomenology and category theory suggesting that the latter can work as a formal frame for ontology in the former. Our thesis is that intentionality operates in different levels as a morphism, functor and natural transformation. (shrink)

A nadie sorprende decir que lenguaje y dinero son sistemas simbólicos o sistemas de intercambio de información. Tampoco sorprende a nadie resaltar el hecho de que las computadores funcionan esencialmente con la versión más formalizada del lenguaje. Pero si hiciésemos las conexiones no opondríamos el lenguaje a la técnica, reservando la poesía para el primero y la técnica al segundo. El lenguaje posee un elemento estructural, formal, “maquínico” que le permite copiarse en toda una población. Éramos ya máquina antes de (...) inventar una. Pero este acontecimiento de producir una máquina fuera de nosotros, de darle energía a un “inconsciente” es un acto inédito. Si entendiéramos cómo es que el capitalismo contemporáneo se realiza a través de la virtualidad informática comenzaríamos a contemplar la posibilidad de que ahora sean los algoritmos y no la ambición subjetiva lo que producirá las nuevas burbujas inmobiliarias. O al menos entenderíamos que mientras más extendemos el mundo hacia regiones virtuales, el capital lo sigue para crear ahí nuevos nichos de mercado. Y viceversa, la expansión virtual del dinero exige la creación de nuevos programas, algoritmos, portales de inversión y de consumo. (shrink)

This paper engages with Svavar Svavarsson’s recent essay, “Sextus Empiricus on Persuasiveness and Equipollence,” arguing against both (i) his interpretation of whether two rival arguments appear equipollent to the Pyrrhonist because he himself is equally persuaded by both of them, and (ii) his interpretation of the way in which the argument from possible disagreement is supposed to induce suspension of judgment in the Pyrrhonist. In so doing, I aim to dispel some serious misunderstandings regarding key aspects of the Pyrrhonist’s skeptical (...) outlook and argumentative practice. (shrink)

In his account of Pyrrhonism, Sextus Empiricus talks about the disturbance concerning matters of opinion that afflicts his dogmatic rivals and that he himself was afflicted by before his conversion to Pyrrhonism. The aim of the present paper is to identify the distinct sources of doxastic disturbance that can be found in that account, and to determine whether and, if so, how they are related. The thesis to be defended is that it is possible to discern three sources of doxastic (...) disturbance and that two of them are to be explained by reference to the third, which is the real cause of mental distress. The paper also considers whether the thesis in question entails that there is no reason for the Pyrrhonist to suspend judgment across the board, but only to suspend judgment about evaluative matters. (shrink)

Several scholars familiar with Sextus Empiricus’s Pyrrhonism who have attentively read his Against the Ethicists have gotten the impression that something strange is going on in this book. For, at variance with the ‘official’ Pyrrhonian attitude of universal suspension of judgment, a number of passages of Against the Ethicists seem to ascribe to the Pyrrhonist both a type of negative dogmatism and a form of realism, which together amount to what may be called ‘moderate ethical realism’. The purpose of this (...) paper is to determine whether Sextus does embrace such a position in Against the Ethicists. (shrink)

Como introducción al monográfico sobre reduccionismo y emergencia brindamos aquí un contexto teórico al debate contemporáneo. Hablaremos primero del acercamiento naturalista en filosofía (§2), así como de dos de las características más importantes de la emergencia: autonomía y universalidad (§3). Finalmente, basándonos en la literatura contemporánea (principalmente en Patricia Palacios y Jessica Wilson, además de Mario Bunge y Alicia Juarrero) presentamos algunas de las definiciones y distinciones más importantes para entender mejor el debate sobre la emergencia (§4).

This paper assesses both the practical and the epistemic value of Pyrrhonism as this stance is described in Sextus Empiricus’s extant writings. It first explores whether the Pyrrhonist’s suspension of judgment and undisturbedness make us behave in a moral or immoral way, and whether they allow us to attain those goals that would make it possible to live well. It then examines whether the Pyrrhonist’s suspension of judgment makes it possible to reach the epistemic goals of attaining truth and avoiding (...) error. It finally considers whether the results of the previous analyses show that Pyrrhonism is of no philosophical interest to a contemporary audience. (shrink)

El nihilismo y el eterno retorno son conceptos centrales en el intento nietzscheano por comprender el surgimiento y la crisis de los valores, desde el advenimiento de la metafísica y la moral cristiana. Sin embargo, la valoración de estos conceptos dista de ser unívoca en la obra del filósofo alemán, ya que su sola enunciación no es suficiente para alcanzar una de las metas máximas de su pensamiento: la transvaloración. El presente artículo tiene por objetivo examinar los sentidos en los (...) que se habla de nihilismo en algunos pasajes de la obra de Nietzsche y la necesidad conceptual de llegar al pensamiento del eterno retorno como condición necesaria para efectuar la transvaloración; en este sentido, se sustentará la tesis de que el eterno retorno implica tanto la perfección como la superación del nihilismo, en la medida en que logra apartar de sí el resentimiento. Para ello, se mostrará el camino recorrido por el autor para superar la ambivalencia de la debilidad y la fuerza que acompaña el desarrollo de estos conceptos, en parte de la Ciencia Jovial y el tercer libro de Así habló Zaratustra. (shrink)

In this paper, we will motivate the application of specific rules of inference from the propositional calculus to natural language sentences. Specifically, we will analyse De Morgan’s laws, which pertain to the interaction of two central topics in syntactic research: negation and coordination. We will argue that the applicability of De Morgan’s laws to natural language structures can be derived from independently motivated operations of grammar and principles restricting the application of these operations. This has direct empirical consequences for the (...) hypothesised relations between natural language and logic. (shrink)

The purpose of the present paper is twofold. First, to examine what beliefs, if any, underlie (a) the Pyrrhonist’s desire for ataraxia and his account of how this state may be attained, and (b) his philanthropic therapy, which seeks to induce, by argument, ejpochv and ataraxia in the Dogmatists. Second, to determine whether the Pyrrhonist’s philanthropy and his search for and attainment of ataraxia are, as scholars have generally believed, essential aspects of his stance.

In his Pyrrhonian Outlines , Sextus Empiricus employs an argument based upon the possibility of disagreement in order to show that one should not assent to a Dogmatic claim to which at present one cannot oppose a rival claim. The use of this argument seems to be at variance with the Pyrrhonian stance, both because it does not seem to accord with the definition of Skepticism and because the argument appears to entail that the search for truth is doomed to (...) failure. In the present paper, I examine the passages in which Sextus utilizes the argument from possible disagreement and offer an interpretation that makes the use of this argument compatible with the Pyrrhonian outlook. (shrink)

Proof-theoretic models of grammar are based on the view that an explicit characterization of a language comes in the form of the recursive enumeration of strings in that language. That recur-sive enumeration is carried out by a procedure which strongly generates a set of structural de-scriptions Σ and weakly generates a set of strings S; a grammar is thus a function that pairs an element of Σ with elements of S. Structural descriptions are obtained by means of Context-Free phrase structure (...) rules or via recursive combinatorics and structure is assumed to be uniform: binary branching trees all the way down. In this work we will analyse natural language constructions for which such a rigid conception of phrase structure is descriptively inadequate, and pro-pose a solution for the problem of phrase structure grammars assigning too much or too little structure to natural language strings: we propose that the grammar can oscillate between levels of computational complexity in local domains, which correspond to elementary trees in a lexicalised Tree Adjoining Grammar. (shrink)

My purpose in this article is to revisit an issue concerning the state of undisturbedness or tranquility (ἀταραξία) in ancient Pyrrhonism as this skeptical stance is depicted in Sextus Empiricus’s extant works. The issue in question is whether both the pursuit and the attainment of undisturbedness in matters of opinion should be regarded as defining features of Pyrrhonism not merely from a systematic standpoint that examines Pyrrhonism as a kind of philosophy, but mainly according to Sextus’s own account of that (...) skeptical stance. In exploring this issue, I will develop an interpretation defended in previous work, responding to some objections, discussing alternative interpretations, offering further textual support, and putting forward new arguments. It is my contention that examining whether both the pursuit and the attainment of undisturbedness in matters of opinion are essential to Pyrrhonism will make it possible to gain a more accurate understanding of this brand of skepticism. (shrink)