Hardcore actualism (HA) grounds all modal truths in the concrete constituents of the actual world (see, e.g., Borghini and Williams (2008), Jacobs (2010), Vetter (2015)). I bolster HA, and elucidate the very nature of possibility (and necessity) according to HA, by considering if it can validate S5 modal logic. Interestingly, different considerations pull in different directions on this issue. To resolve the tension, we are forced to think hard about the nature of the hardcore actualist's modal reality and how (...) radically this departs from possible worlds orthodoxy. Once we achieve this departure, the prospects of a hardcore actualist validation of S5 look considerably brighter. This paper thus strengthens hardcore actualism by arguing that it can indeed validate S5–arguably the most popular logic of metaphysical modality–and, in the process, it elucidates the very nature of modality according to this revisionary, but very attractive, modal metaphysics. (shrink)

Dispositions are modal properties. The standard conception of dispositions holds that each disposition is individuated by its stimulus condition(s) and its manifestation(s), and that their modality is best captured by some conditional construction that relates stimulus to manifestation as antecedent to consequent. I propose an alternative conception of dispositions: each disposition is individuated by its manifestation alone, and its modality is closest to that of possibility — a fragile vase, for instance, is one that can break easily. The view is (...) expounded in some detail and defended against the major objections. (shrink)

According to essentialism, metaphysical modality is founded in the essences of things, where the essence of a thing is roughly akin to its real definition. According to potentialism (also known as dispositionalism), metaphysical modality is founded in the potentialities of things, where a potentiality is roughly the generalized notion of a disposition. Essentialism and potentialism have much in common, but little has been written about their relation to each other. The aim of this paper is to understand better the relations (...) between essence and potentiality, on the one hand, and between essentialism and potentialism, on the other. It is argued, first, that essence and potentiality are not duals but interestingly linked by a weaker relation dubbed ‘semi-duality’; second, that given this weaker relation, essentialism and potentialism are not natural allies but rather natural competitors; and third, that the semi-duality of essence and potentiality allows the potentialist to respond to an important explanatory challenge by using essentialist resources without thereby committing to essentialism. (shrink)

My aim in this paper is to sketch, with a broad brush and in bare outlines, an approach to modal epistemology that is characterized by three distinctive features. First, the approach is agency-based: it locates the roots of our modal thought and knowledge in our experience of our own agency. Second, the approach is ambitious in that it takes the experience of certain modal properties in agency to be the sole distinctive feature of specifically modal thought and knowledge; everything that (...) we know about modality beyond the experience of agency is a matter of applying standard methods of inquiry such as deduction, induction and abductive methods for choosing between theories. Third, the account holds that modal thought and knowledge is, first and foremost, about modal properties that are sufficiently like those encountered in agency. (shrink)

Dispositionalists try to provide an account of modality—possibility, necessity, and the counterfactual conditional—in terms of dispositions. But there may be a tension between dispositionalist accounts of possibility on the one hand, and of counterfactuals on the other. Dispositionalists about possibility must hold that there are no impossible dispositions, i.e., dispositions with metaphysically impossible stimulus and/or manifestation conditions; dispositionalist accounts of counterfactuals, if they allow for non-vacuous counterpossibles, require that there are such impossible dispositions. I argue, first, that there are in (...) fact no impossible dispositions; and second, that the dispositionalist can nevertheless acknowledge the non-vacuity of some counterpossibles. The strategy in the second part is one of ‘divide and conquer’ that is not confined to the dispositionalist: it consists in arguing that counterpossibles, when non-vacuous, are read epistemically and are therefore outside the purview of a dispositional account. (shrink)

It is a familiar point that many ordinary dispositions are multi-track, that is, not fully and adequately characterisable by a single conditional. In this paper, I argue that both the extent and the implications of this point have been severely underestimated. First, I provide new arguments to show that every disposition whose stimulus condition is a determinable quantity must be infinitely multi-track. Secondly, I argue that this result should incline us to move away from the standard assumption that dispositions are (...) in some way importantly linked to conditionals, as presupposed by the debate about various versions of the ‘conditional analysis’ of dispositions. I introduce an alternative conception of dispositionality, which is motivated by linguistic observations about dispositional adjectives and links dispositions to possibility instead of conditionals. I argue that, because of the multi-track nature of dispositions, the possibility-based conception of dispositions is to be preferred. (shrink)

Abilities are in many ways central to what being an agent means, and they are appealed to in philosophical accounts of a great many different phenomena. It is often assumed that abilities are some kind of dispositional property, but it is rarely made explicit exactly which dispositional properties are our abilities. Two recent debates provide two different answers to that question: the new dispositionalism in the debate about free will, and virtue reliabilism in epistemology. This paper argues that both answers (...) fail as general accounts of abilities, and discusses the ramifications of this result. (shrink)

This paper surveys recent "new actualist" approaches to modality that do without possible worlds and locate modality squarely in the actual world. New actualist theories include essentialism and dispositionalism about modality, each of which can come in different varieties. The commonalities and differences between these views, as well as their shared motivations, are layed out.

This paper responds to the contributions by Alexander Bird, Nathan Wildman, David Yates, Jennifer McKitrick, Giacomo Giannini & Matthew Tugby, and Jennifer Wang. I react to their comments on my 2015 book Potentiality: From Dispositions to Modality, and in doing so expands on some of the arguments and ideas of the book.

Williamsonian modal epistemology is characterized by two commitments: realism about modality, and anti-exceptionalism about our modal knowledge. Williamson’s own counterfactual-based modal epistemology is the best known implementation of WME, but not the only option that is available. I sketch and defend an alternative implementation which takes our knowledge of metaphysical modality to arise, not from knowledge of counterfactuals, but from our knowledge of ordinary possibility statements of the form ‘x can F’. I defend this view against a criticism indicated in (...) Williamson’s own work, and argue that it is better connected to the semantics of modal language. (shrink)

According to ecological psychology, animals perceive not just the qualities of things in their environment, but their affordances: in James Gibson’s words, ’what things furnish, for good or ill’. I propose a metaphysics for affordances that fits into a contemporary anti-Humean metaphysics of powers or potentialities. The goal is to connect two debates, one in the philosophy of perception and one in metaphysics, that stand to gain much from each other.

This paper explores the prospects for dispositional accounts of abilities. According to so-called new dispositionalists, an agent has the ability to Φ iff they have a disposition to Φ when trying to Φ. We show that the new dispositionalism is beset by some problems that also beset its predecessor, the conditional analysis of abilities, and bring up some further problems. We then turn to a different approach, which links abilities not to motivational states but to the notion of success, and (...) consider ways of implementing that approach. Our results suggest that there are principled disanalogies between abilities and disposition which prevent any dispositional account of abilities from succeeding. (shrink)

Manley and Wasserman (2008) have provided a convincing case against analyses of dispositions in terms of one conditional, and a very interesting positive proposal that links any disposition to a ‘suitable proportion’ of a particular set of precise conditionals. I focus on their positive proposal and ask just how precise those conditionals are to be. I argue that, contrary to what Manley and Wasserman imply in their paper, they must be maximally specific, describing in their antecedents complete centred worlds. This (...) suggests a natural semantics for dispositional expressions, which I briefly explore to argue that it lacks uniformity. I end by suggesting a variation on Manley and Wasserman's view which would preserve uniformity, though at the cost of some new puzzling questions. (shrink)

Modal dispositionalism is the view that possibilities are a matter of the dispositions of individual objects: it is possible that p if and only if something has a disposition for p to be the case. We raise a problem for modal dispositionalism: nothing within the theory rules out that there could be necessary, perfect masks, which make the manifestation of a disposition impossible. Unless such necessary perfect masks are ruled out, modal dispositionalism runs the risk of failing to provide a (...) sufficient condition for possibility, and indeed of engendering contradictions. But to rule them out, modal dispositionalism would have to revise a crucial tenet of the view, its localism. (shrink)

In this thesis, I develop a nonreductive and general conception of potentiality, and explore the prospects of a realist account of possibility based on this account of potentiality. Potentialities are properties of individual objects; they include dispositions such as fragility and abilities such as the ability to play the piano. Potentialities are individuated by their manifestation alone. In order to provide a unified account of potentialities, I argue in chapter 2 that dispositions, contrary to philosophical orthodoxy, are best understood in (...) terms only of their manifestations (as disposi- tions to ...), rather than in terms of a stimulus and a manifestation condition (as dispositions to ... if ...). Chapter 3 provides some preliminary motivation for a nonreductive and gen- eral account of potentiality, and chapter 4 develops such an account. The guiding question is how far the notion of potentiality can be extended from the initial ex- amples of familiar dispositions and abilities, and it is argued that it can be extended very far. Various features of potentialities are explored, among them extrinsicality, iterations of potentiality, and the behaviour of potentiality with regard to logical equivalence. In chapter 5, the account is set to work in providing the outlines and a defense of a potentiality-based account of possibility. The basic idea of such an account is that it is possible that p just in case some thing has a potentiality for p. The account is defended against the objection that there may not be enough potential- ities to ground all the possibilities that there are. Finally, in chapter 6, a logic of potentiality is formulated and the logic of possibility derived from it, showing that the potentiality-based account of possibility is formally adequate: it provides pos- sibility with the formal features that modal logicians have studied. I conclude that the proposed account of possibility is a promising research programme. (shrink)

Alexander Bird puts forward a modest version of anti-Humeanism about the non-fundamental, by providing an argument for the existence of a certain select class of non-fundamental but sparse dispositions: those that have an evolutionary function. I argue that his argument over-generates, so much so that the sparse–abundant distinction, and with it the tenet of his anti-Humean view, becomes obsolete. I suggest an alternative way of understanding anti-Humeanism in the non-fundamental realm, one which is not concerned with the existence of sparse (...) properties but with explanatory relations. (shrink)

Dispositionalism about modality is the view that metaphysical modality is a matter of the dispositions possessed by actual objects. In a recent paper, David Yates has raised an important worry about the formal adequacy of dispositionalism. This paper responds to Yates’s worry by developing a reply that Yates discusses briefly but dismisses as ad hoc: an appeal to a ’plenitude of powers’ including such powers as the necessarily always manifested power for 2+2\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} (...) \begin{document}$$2+2$$\end{document} to be 4. I argue that the reply is not ad hoc at all, by defending the metaphysics of dispositions that should underly it. I then argue, first, that a proper understanding of dispositions’ degrees provides us with an argument for such necessarily always manifested dispositions; second, that all the natural attempts to block that argument can be resisted without being ad hoc; and third, that pragmatic considerations explain our intuitive resistance to the ascription of necessarily always manifested dispositions. Dispositionalism can be formally adequate after all. (shrink)

In this review of Ann Whittle's book, I take a closer look at, and raise some concerns about, two crucial steps in the argument of the book. First, I consider the ‘all-in can’, the sense of ‘can’ that is relevant for freedom, and argue that it sits uneasily with Whittle’s foundation in the semantics of agentive modals. Second, I take a closer look at the notion of ‘robust control’ and its role in Whittle's argument for contextualism about moral responsibility, and (...) argue that Whittle’s own conception of control is in tension with her argument for contextualism about moral responsibility. (shrink)

John Maier’s Options and Agency is an excellent book. It is brimming with insights and original ideas; in just about 160 pages of text, it provides the reader with an entirely novel perspective on...

Η πρόσφατη δυναμική επανεμφάνιση των λαϊκιστικών κομμάτων διεθνώς αναζωπύρωσε τη συζήτηση γύρω από τον λαϊκισμό και τη σχέση που αναπτύσσει με τη (φιλελεύθερη) δημοκρατία. Πολλές από τις «κυρίαρχες» επιστημονικές αναλύσεις άσκησαν ισχυρή κριτική στον λαϊκισμό μέσα από μια στερεοτυπική οπτική, εντοπίζοντας συγκεκριμένα παθολογικά χαρακτηριστικά στο φαινόμενο, ενώ υπήρξε ένας αριθμός μελετών που κράτησε τις αποστάσεις του από τις στρεβλές θεωρητικές αναγνώσεις. Ένα από τα πολιτικά κόμματα που απασχόλησαν τους ακαδημαϊκούς στην Ελλάδα ήταν η περίπτωση του ΣΥΡΙΖΑ, τόσο στην αντιπολίτευση όσο (...) και στην εξουσία. Δεν ήταν λίγοι οι ερευνητές που επιχείρησαν να ιχνηλατήσουν και να κατανοήσουν τη μετάβαση της ριζοσπαστικής αριστεράς από ένα κινηματικό κόμμα της νεολαίας σε κόμμα εξουσίας μέσα από την ανάλυση Λόγου. Στο συγκεκριμένο άρθρο μελετάμε την έννοια του λαϊκισμού και την περίπτωση του ΣΥΡΙΖΑ μετά το ξέσπασμα της οικονομικής κρίσης. Αρχικά, εννοιολογούμε τον λαϊκισμό, ακολουθώντας τις θεωρητικές και μεθοδολογικές κατευθύνσεις τριών σημαντικών προσεγγίσεων [των Ερνέστο Λακλάου και της Σχολής του Έσσεξ (λογοθεωρητική), Πιερ Οστιγκί (κοινωνικοπολιτισμική) και Μπέντζαμιν Μόφιτ (επιτελεστική)], οι οποίες παρά τις διαφορές που παρουσιάζουν διαθέτουν ιδιαίτερα σημεία σύνδεσης, ενώ υπογραμμίζουμε και τη στερεοτυπική ανάγνωση των αντι-λαϊκιστικών αναλύσεων. Στη συνέχεια, αναδεικνύουμε τα χαρακτηριστικά που έλαβαν στο πέρασμα των ετών διάφορες λαϊκιστικές εμπειρίες, ενώ στο τέλος επικεντρωνόμαστε στην περίπτωση της ελληνικής ριζοσπαστικής αριστεράς (ΣΥΡΙΖΑ), με στόχο να εξετάσουμε τα χαρακτηριστικά του πολιτικού της λόγου στην αντιπολίτευση και την εξουσία (2009-2019). Εξέφρασε έναν λαϊκιστικό λόγο; Ποιες ήταν οι επιπτώσεις του αριστερού λαϊκισμού στην δημοκρατία, την κοινωνία και τη πολιτική;. (shrink)

En este texto presentamos el modelo que se ha diseñado para implementar la evaluación por colegas pares en la Universidad del Rosario. Explicamos los principios que lo guían y las etapas y procedimientos para realizar esta evaluación; además, exponemos algunos aprendizajes que ha dejado su implementación en dos facultades en los últimos años, y presentamos algunos retos y desarrollos que enfrenta el modelo a futuro.

Two attitudes are possible: one, that the world is an absolute jungle and that the exercise of coercive power by rulers is only a manifestation of this; and the other, that it is both necessary and right that there should be this exercise of power, that through it the world is much less of a jungle than it could possibly be without it, so that one should in principle be glad of the existence of such power, and only take exception (...) to its unjust exercise. (shrink)

One of the main challenges faced by Frankfurt-style Cases has been elaborated by Carlos Moya. According to this argument, seemingly insignificant alternatives can become significant and exempting due to the context in which agents find themselves. Given that Frankfurt-style Cases involve extreme situations, seemingly insignificant alternatives become robust, rendering Frankfurt Cases ineffective against the Principle of Alternative Possibilities. This paper provides an overview of the contextual alternatives and Frankfurt Cases debate, presents Moya’s strategy, and ultimately advances an argument to cast (...) doubt on the effectiveness of Moya’s attack on Frankfurt Cases. (shrink)

Rolla (2021) argumentou que a prática de avaliar teorias epistemológicas com base em intuições geradas pela consideração de certos casos, como os cenários hipotéticos envolvendo cérebros encubados, clarividentes e anjos da guarda epistêmicos, é um erro. Um erro que, uma vez reconhecido, faria com que os problemas e métodos que ocupam a epistemologia mudassem significativamente. Neste artigo, defendo que a argumentação de Rolla não se sustenta: há falhas no modo como Rolla caracteriza o uso das intuições, as suposições de Rolla (...) podem gerar consequências implausíveis e há um contraexemplo para as alegações dele. Portanto, epistemólogos podem manter os problemas e a metodologia que Rolla critica. (shrink)

While the idea that philosophy requires self-transformation is historically pervasive, it exerts considerable influence on the post-Kantians who first aim to systematize Kant’s idealism by grounding it on a first principle. In the 1790s, Fichte and Schelling offer competing accounts of the self-transformation that they regard as essential to positing a first principle. Their accounts raise two central questions. First, what makes this kind of self-transformation possible? Second, are there different possible expressions of philosophical self-transformation? In what follows, I will (...) articulate the Fichtean and Schellingian answers to these central questions. For Fichte, the one who summons me to posit a first principle makes possible my philosophical self-transformation, although the latter has an exclusively idealist expression in that I can only genuinely posit the I as first principle, which is to say that philosophical self-transformation depends on mutual recognition and vindicates precisely one philosophical system (Section 1). For Schelling, a brute act of will makes possible my philosophical self-transformation, although the latter has either an idealist or a realist expression in that I can genuinely posit either the I or the not-I as first principle, which is to say that philosophical self-transformation does not depend on mutual recognition and vindicates one of two possible philosophical systems (Section 2). Thus, whereas Fichtean self-transformation is recognitive and non-pluralistic, Schellingian self-transformation is pluralistic and non-recognitive. I conclude with a discussion of how Jacobi poses a challenge to Fichte’s and Schelling’s answers to the two central questions (Section 3). (shrink)

As opposed to a ‘one size fits all’ approach, precision medicine uses relevant biological, medical, behavioural and environmental information about a person to further personalize their healthcare. This could mean better prediction of someone’s disease risk and more effective diagnosis and treatment if they have a condition. Big data allows for far more precision and tailoring than was ever before possible by linking together diverse datasets to reveal hitherto-unknown correlations and causal pathways. But it also raises ethical issues relating to (...) the balancing of interests, viability of anonymization, familial and group implications, as well as genetic discrimination. This article analyses these issues in light of the values of public benefit, justice, harm minimization, transparency, engagement and reflexivity and applies the deliberative balancing approach found in theEthical Framework for Big Data in Health and Research to a case study on clinical genomic data sharing. Please refer to that article for an explanation of how this framework is to be used, including a full explanation of the key values involved and the balancing approach used in the case study at the end. Our discussion is meant to be of use to those involved in the practice as well as governance and oversight of precision medicine to address ethical concerns that arise in a coherent and systematic manner. (shrink)

Fichte assigns ‘intellectual intuition’ a new meaning after Kant. But in 1799, his doctrine of intellectual intuition is publicly deemed indefensible by Kant and nihilistic by Jacobi. I propose to defend Fichte’s doctrine against these charges, leaving aside whether it captures what he calls the ‘spirit’ of transcendental idealism. I do so by articulating three problems that motivate Fichte’s redirection of intellectual intuition from being to acting: (1) the regress problem, which states that reflecting on empirical facts of consciousness leads (...) only to further facts and so cannot yield a first principle; (2) the rhapsody problem, which states that the categories form a haphazard set and so lack necessity unless they derive from a first principle; and (3) the nihilism problem, which states that a first principle cannot lie outside our cognition of it, lest it be the cause of our cognition and, being first, the cause of all our actions, reducing us to machines. Crucially, Fichte’s three motivating problems are in fact aspects of a single problem. Leaving any aspect unsolved spoils putative solutions to the other two. Consequently, Fichte requires a single unified solution to all three, which his doctrine of intellectual intuition provides. (shrink)

The study investigated the effect of cognitive restructuring on junior secondary school mathematics test anxiety in Oshimili south L.G.A of Delta State. Two research questions and two hypotheses tested at 0.05 level of significance guided the study. Quasi-experimental research design was adopted for this study. The population for this study was a total of 1224 students. These comprised of all the JSS 2 students from Oshimili South Local Government Area of Delta State. Research sample consisted of 120 JSS 2 students (...) with high level of mathematics test anxiety selected through purposive sampling technique. The instrument adopted for this study was Maths anxiety rating scale-R. Data collected from the study were analyzed using mean and ANCOVA. Results obtained from the study indicated that Cognitive restructuring therapy (CRT) was effective on mathematics test anxiety of junior secondary school students. The results equally showed that Cognitive restructuring therapy was more effective on the female students’ mathematics anxiety than their male counterparts. Furthermore, the results indicated a significant difference in the post-test mathematics test anxiety mean scores of students treated with CRT and those in the control group. Also, there was significant difference in the post-test mathematics test anxiety mean scores of male and female students treated with CRT. Based on the findings of this study, some recommendations were noted. The researcher recommended, among others that Schools’ Guidance Counselors should be empowered to make good use of the cognitive restructuring technique, in counseling students who find it difficult to comprehend mathematics skills. (shrink)

Mi propósito en este texto es el de denunciar un problema grave que se está presentando por el uso de las redes sociales y por la aparición de algoritmos que nos ofrecen información específica basados en nuestras preferencias pasadas. Este problema tiene que ver con la imagen que nosotros formamos de nosotros mismos y, gracias a ello, con nuestra identidad personal. El problema, dicho en pocas palabras, es el de una forma de autoengaño que se está haciendo omnipresente sin que (...) nos demos cuenta de ello. Para explicar esto, comenzaré por explicar algunas distinciones esenciales del autoconocimiento (o el conocimiento que tenemos de nosotros mismos), para explicar luego dos modelos del autoengaño en la filosofía. Con estas piezas podré, en una tercera parte, construir el argumento que muestra cómo, en este mundo lleno de redes sociales y algoritmos mercantiles, caemos más frecuentemente en el autoengaño de lo que pensamos. (shrink)

Este texto puede dividirse en dos secciones: en la primera se expone la filosofía de Hume: los principios que adopta y defiende, y cómo ellos lo han de llevar inevitablemente a sus conclusiones escépticas, en especial acerca de la necesidad de las relaciones causales. En la segunda se examina el lazo que hay entre Hume y Kant, cómo la filosofía del primero da pie para que el segundo comience sus investigaciones críticas o, como él lo llama, permite que “despierte de (...) su sueño dogmático”, y se presenta la progresiva construcción de la respuesta a Hume, por medio del enlace de las distintas partes de la filosofía crítica y la argumentación trascendental, permitiendo así ver su lugar en el todo y su relevancia. (shrink)

The COVID-19 pandemic revealed numerous weaknesses in pandemic preparedness and response, including underfunding, inadequate surveillance, and inequitable distribution of countermeasures. To overcome these weaknesses for future pandemics, WHO released a zero draft of a pandemic treaty in February, 2023, and subsequently a revised bureau's text in May, 2023. COVID-19 made clear that pandemic prevention, preparedness, and response reflect choices and value judgements. These decisions are therefore not a purely scientific or technical exercise, but are fundamentally grounded in ethics. The latest (...) treaty draft reflects these ethical considerations by including a section entitled Guiding Principles and Approaches. Most of these principles are ethical—they establish core values that undergird the treaty. Unfortunately, the treaty draft's set of principles are numerous, overlapping, and show inadequate coherence and consistency. We propose two improvements to this section of the draft pandemic treaty. First, key guiding ethical principles should be clearer and more precise than they currently are. Second, the link between ethical principles and policy implementation should be clearly established and define boundaries on acceptable interpretation, ensuring that signatories abide by these principles. (shrink)

In the Vocation of Man, Fichte makes the striking claim that life is eternal, rational, our true being, and the final cause of nature in general and of death in particular. How can we make sense of this claim? I argue that the public lectures that compose the Vocation are a popular expression of Fichte’s pre-existing commitment to what I call immortalism, the view that life is the unconditioned condition of intelligibility. Casting the I as an absolutely self-active or living (...) power enables his philosophical account of both the intelligibility of objects and of what it means to die. This explains his characterization of the Wissenschaftslehre as a system in which ‘all is act, movement, and life’. In Sect. 1, I explain the context of Jacobi’s use of ‘caput mortuum’ as a term for the thing in itself. In Sects. 2 and 3, I reconstruct two immortalist arguments from Fichte’s Jena period. The first is that the I’s self-activity rules out the existence of the thing in itself and thereby vanquishes ‘death’s head’. The second is that, insofar as the I charges us with the moral perfection of nature, it is the final cause of our entire life, including its end. This is to say that the I puts our every moment into question, even our last. In Sect. 4, I use these immortalist arguments to interpret the striking claim from the Vocation. (shrink)

Este capítulo trata la división, o brecha, que hay entre las ciencias sociales y humanas, por un lado, y las ciencias naturales, por el otro. Analiza el pasado de esta brecha, rastreando algunos de sus orígenes, y muestra lo dañina que esta división ha llegado a ser (sin desconocer la importancia de respetar los límites disciplinares). Termina por ofrecer algunas recomendaciones de cara al futuro para ir cerrando los aspectos más perjudiciales de esta brecha.

‘Facticity’ is a concept that classical phenomenologists like Heidegger use to denote the radically contingent or underivably brute conditions of intelligibility. Yet Fichte coins the term, to which he gives the opposing use of denoting unacceptably brute conditions of intelligibility. For him, radical contingency is a problem to be solved by deriving such conditions from reason. Heidegger rejects Fichte's recoil from facticity with his hermeneutics of facticity, supplanting Fichte's metaphor of our always being in reason's hand with the metaphor of (...) our always having been thrown. How does Heidegger inherit and diametrically repurpose Fichte's neologism? Whence the reversed meaning of ‘facticity’ in post-Kantian thought? The answer is Lask's doctoral thesis, which exerts an acknowledged impact on Heidegger's habilitation thesis. Lask interprets ‘facticity’ as Fichte's term for the individuality problem, that is, the resistance of the material particularity of individuals to explanation by the categories genetically deduced from reason. On his interpretation, ‘facticity’ denotes radical contingency in the guise of haecceity, that is, the brute uniqueness of individuals. Lask credits Fichte with registering the problem of individuality, which highlights the world's irreducibly precategorial character. But how is ‘facticity’ transmitted from Lask to Heidegger, given their opposing interpretations of how Fichte understands its meaning? I argue that (1) Lask misreads Fichte as a proponent of facticity, that is, one whose accommodation of radical contingency deflates the Wissenschaftslehre's systematic ambitions, and (2) Lask's misreading, without deceiving Heidegger regarding the sincerity of Fichte's ambitions, encourages Heidegger's own hermeneutics of facticity. (shrink)

-- 04.08.2024 -- Intervention held at the XXV World Congress of Philosophy in Rome, Italy -- The aim of this paper is to propose an interpretation of philosophy’s tasks as those of a “critical theoresis”. The formula draws from both Plato’s utilisation of the word ϑεώρησις and Herodotus’ particular use of the verb κρίνω. While the former indicates a cultural dimension that in itself implies an active participation of subjects in the objective social world, the latter expresses an hermeneutical principle (...) that unites the concepts of “explanation” and “interpretation”. Therefore, I intend to use these key-concepts together in order to picture a type of philosophy that tries to underline the criteria of a normative theory that does not fail to assume a critical standpoint in interpreting social reality. (shrink)

Biological evolution is a complex blend of ever changing structural stability, variability and emergence of new phe- notypes, niches, ecosystems. We wish to argue that the evo- lution of life marks the end of a physics world view of law entailed dynamics. Our considerations depend upon dis- cussing the variability of the very ”contexts of life”: the in- teractions between organisms, biological niches and ecosys- tems. These are ever changing, intrinsically indeterminate and even unprestatable: we do not know ahead of (...) time the ”niches” which constitute the boundary conditions on selec- tion. More generally, by the mathematical unprestatability of the ”phase space”, no laws of mo- tion can be formulated for evolution. We call this radical emergence, from life to life. The purpose of this paper is the integration of variation and diversity in a sound concep- tual frame and situate unpredictability at a novel theoretical level, that of the very phase space. Our argument will be carried on in close comparisons with physics and the mathematical constructions of phase spaces in that discipline. The role of symmetries as invariant preserving transformations will allow us to under- stand the nature of physical phase spaces and to stress the differences required for a sound biological theoretizing. In this frame, we discuss the novel notion of ”enablement”. Life lives in a web of enablement and radical emergence. This will restrict causal analyses to differential cases. Mutations or other causal differ- ences will allow us to stress that ”non conservation princi- ples” are at the core of evolution, in contrast to physical dynamics, largely based on conservation principles as sym- metries. Critical transitions, the main locus of symmetry changes in physics, will be discussed, and lead to ”extended criticality” as a conceptual frame for a better understanding of the living state of matter. (shrink)

-- 05.04.2024 -- Intervention held at the Italian Philosophical Society’s national congress’ section entitled "Texts, Words and Images: Philosophical Traditions and Translations", at Catholic University of the Sacred Heart, Milan, Italy -- -/- The aim of this intervention is to briefly advance an interpretation of the post- COVID19 digitalisation processes as to be recognised within the philosophical framework of Vorstellung Metaphysik, “metaphysics of representation”. I would maintain that the formula, firstly indicated by Martin Heidegger, can provide us with a tool (...) to interpret contemporary culture as founded on an “iteration” of individual and collective consciousness into non-existent digital realities. Moreover, I will argue that these concepts are philosophically relatable to those of alienation and reification that come from Marxist traditions. Ultimately, the analysis will try to use the above mentioned tools to delve into an interpretation of remote working and education as potential carriers of alienation. (shrink)

En este artículo ofrezco una defensa de la posibilidad de las obligaciones imposibles al ofrecer argumentos en contra de la idea según la cual estas obligaciones son un sinsentido, pues la función esencial de una obligación es la de ser una guía para la acción, y una obligación imposible no puede indicar ninguna acción a realizar. Pretendo mostrar cómo la idea de que las obligaciones han de ser guías de acción, en conjunto con la máxima “deber implica poder”, lleva a (...) consecuencias indeseables, y luego ofrezco argumentos para defender que las obligaciones imposibles están en mejor posición que otras obligaciones para guiar cierto tipo de acciones. (shrink)

The concept of facticity denotes conditions of experience whose necessity is not logical yet whose contingency is not empirical. Although often associated with Heidegger, Fichte coins ‘facticity’ in his Berlin period to refer to the conclusion of Kant’s metaphysical deduction of the categories, which he argues leaves it a contingent matter that we have the conditions of experience that we do. Such rhapsodic or factical conditions, he argues, must follow necessarily, independent of empirical givenness, from the I through a process (...) of ‘genesis.’ I reconstruct Fichte’s argument by tracing the origin of his neologism, presenting his Jena critique of Kant’s rhapsodic appeal to the forms of judgment, and illustrating the Jena period’s continuity with the Berlin period’s genetic method, while noting a methodological shift whereby Fichte directs his critique against his own doctrine of intellectual intuition in order to eliminate its ‘factical terms.’. (shrink)

It has recently been argued that reproductive genetic manipulation technologies like mitochondrial replacement and germline CRISPR modifications cannot be said to save anyone’s life because, counterfactually, no one would suffer more or die sooner absent the intervention. The present article argues that, on the contrary, reproductive genetic manipulations may be life-saving (and, from this, have therapeutic value) under an appropriate population health perspective. As such, popular reports of reproductive genetic manipulations potentially saving lives or preventing disease are not necessarily mistaken, (...) though such terminology still requires further empirical validation. (shrink)

Throughout his career, Schelling assigns knowledge of the absolute first principle of philosophy to intellectual intuition. Schelling's doctrine of intellectual intuition raises two important questions for interpreters. First, given that his doctrine undergoes several changes before and after his identity philosophy, to what extent can he be said to “hold onto” the same “sense” of it by the 1830s, as he claims? Second, given that his doctrine of intellectual intuition restricts absolute idealism to what he calls a “science of reason”, (...) which he says cannot prove the absolute’s existence, what other doctrine does he require in order to prove this? I will answer these questions by tracing the shifts in Schelling’s doctrine of intellectual intuition from the 1790s to the 1830s and drawing out its evolving methodological role within his science of intelligibility. (shrink)

It is commonplace to observe that digital technologies facilitate our access to information on a scale unimaginable in previous eras, leading many to call this the “Information Age.” The vaunted advantages of unprecedented data flow obscure a dark corollary: the more modes of engaging with data are available to a people, the more modes are available for manipulating them. Whether through social media, blogs, email, newspaper headlines, or doctored images and videos, the public is indeed bombarded by information, and much (...) of it is misleading or outright false. Much of it, in fact, is propaganda. As the methods for manipulating mass audiences continue to multiply, a clear understanding of the concept of propaganda has never been more relevant. -/- This Article constructs a precise, novel account of propaganda, incorporating notable scholarly insights into the concept as well as the overlooked lessons of the law’s fragmented efforts to regulate it. To bring this new theoretical framework into focus and demonstrate its importance in the Information Age, the Article connects the underlying theory to contemporary communications practices, many of which are enhanced by the availability of new technology. Notably, in doing so, the Article also develops the first systematic account of political gaslighting, which properly understood (and counterintuitively, perhaps) constitutes a form of propaganda. (shrink)

This chapter intervenes in recent debates in Kant scholarship about the possibility of a general logical alien. Such an alien is a thinker whose laws of thinking violate ours. She is third-personal as she is radically unlike us. Proponents of the constitutive reading of Kant’s conception of general logic accordingly suggest that Kant rules out the possibility of such an alien as unthinkable. I add to this an often-overlooked element in Kant’s thinking: there is reason to think that he grants—and (...) in fact presupposes—the possibility of a transcendental logical alien. Such an alien is a knower whose laws of experience purport to violate ours. She is first-personal as she is radically like us. In other words, she is us, insofar as we are alienated from ourselves and our experience. I go on to draw an analogy between her, a dogmatist, and another transcendental alien, an evil agent. Just as a dogmatist is alienated from her (our) experiential laws, an evil agent is alienated from her (our) moral law. These forms of theoretical and practical self-conceit require self-knowledge in the form of a critique of speculative or practical reason. In bringing this point out, I aim to shift from the question of whether logical laws constitute our thinking to the question of whether grasping our experiential and moral laws as our laws constitutes our reason. (shrink)

In recent years, in the era of multiple crises, there are many political parties and leaders that use conspiracy theories in their discourse, trying to explain facts and figures on politics, economy, society, environment and space. There is an ongoing debate in populism studies on the possible connection between the populist phenomenon and conspiracy theories, thus creating two main theoretical camps. On the one hand, there are many scholars who recognize a strong correlation between the two phenomena, with some of (...) them believing that they are directly equated. On the other hand, there are several researchers who consider populism as a phenomenon with its own unique essence without predetermined characteristics. Hence, the question that arises here is: Is conspiracism endogenous to populism, or not? In this article, I first look at the definitions of conspiracy theories/conspiracism and populism, attempting to avoid stereotypical readings. After that, I highlight the discussion that takes place in academia around the internal features of the populist phenomenon and its possible connection with conspiracism, with the aim of showing that populism presents a unique logic, without a necessary connection to conspiracism. Finally, I focus on the Greek case of recent years, describing an example where the concept of conspiracy theory became a polemical tool against political rivals, negatively affecting politics and society. My analysis is based on post-structuralist theory and methodological tools of the Essex School of Discourse Analysis, taking into account aspects of other approaches to populism. (shrink)