A critique of popular astrology. The critical examination outlines a number of serious concerns with the theory underlying astrology.

The traditional use of conventional media by businesses for audience targeting has shifted with the rise of influencer marketing, notably on platforms like TikTok, posing challenges in content adaptation and technological adaptation. Albert Bandura's Social Cognitive Theory examines factors shaping purchasing behavior, particularly relevant for young professionals. A quantitative correlational study focused on young professionals engaging with TikTok and influenced by Filipino TikTok creators, revealing education level as a key determinant of purchasing behavior. Extended TikTok engagement positively correlates with increased (...) purchasing likelihood. Filipino TikTok influencers significantly impact young professionals' purchasing decisions, emphasizing the need for tailored marketing strategies targeting this demographic. Recommendations were provided for effective influencer and digital marketing strategies targeting young professionals. (shrink)

La description en langue naturelle est l’artefact permettant de débuter un processus d’automatisation. La tâche principale de l’ingénieur du logiciel, c’est de combler le clivage entre langue naturelle et langue de la machine. Après avoir présenté quelques ontologies définies pour les processus d’automatisation, quelques pour et quelques contre l’emploi d’ontologies dans le génie logiciel sont présentées. Des indications pour dépasser cette simple opposition sont ensuite décrites. Des évaluations sur le réductionnisme dans les ontologies en ce qui concerne les possibles interactions (...) entre humains, machines et réalité muette terminent la présentation. (shrink)

In this talk, I’d like to focus not on external technologies like computers, smart boards, virtual experience, nor the Orgasmatron in Woody Allen’s movie Sleeper (1973), but rather on some of the possible social implications of bodily implanted devices on the future of human nature and society. In other words, I’ll leave the science underlying cyborgs to the boffins in engineering, computer science and artificial intelligence, and just focus on some conceptualizations of the word ‘cyborg’, along with possible social implications (...) and concerns surrounding cyborgization. (shrink)

In her landmark book, Language, Thought, and Other Biological Categories (Millikan1984),1 Ruth Garrett Millikan utilizes the idea of a biological function to solve philosophical problems associated with the phenomena of language, thought, and meaning. Language and thought are activities of biological organisms, according to Millikan, and we should treat them as such when trying to answer related philosophical questions. Of special interest is Millikan’s treatment of intentionality. Here Millikan employs the notion of a biological function to explain what it is (...) for one thing in nature, a bee dance (43), for example, to be about another, in this case, the location of a nectar source. My concern in this paper is to understand whether Millikan’s account of intentionality adequately explains how humans achieve reference, in language or thought, to individuals and groups in their environment. In bringing her theory of intentional content to bear on human activities, Millikan focuses largely on natural language. Thus, in what follows, I begin by laying out the biology-based principles that underlie Millikan’s theory of content, then proceed with an explanation of how the theory is to apply to natural language. As it appears, Millikan’s account of how content is determined for natural language terms and sentences rests on the determinacy of intentional content at the psychological level. This leads me to take a careful look at what Millikan says about the content of mental representations, in hopes of finding a sufficient basis there for the application of Millikan’s theory of content to natural language. Ultimately, I conclude that Millikan’s theory faces a problem of vacuity. If we approach the theory as a theory of intentional content, intended to explain the nature of reference, the theory is lacking in an extremely important respect: Millikan explains how it could be one of the biological functions of a mental or natural language term to refer, without telling us precisely what in the natural order constitutes the reference relation.. (shrink)

The following article begins with my recollection of the only academic conference on Zdziechowski that was organised still under the communist regime in the autumn of 1984 at the Jagiellonian University and ends with a description of the discussion on the genesis and power of evil, with the participation of Czesław Miłosz and Leszek Kołakowski, which was triggered in Poland immediately after the publication of the last edition of On Cruelty in 1993. On Cruelty was first published in 1928 in (...) the journal Przegla̧d Współczesny [Contemporary Review] in Krakow, a second time in 1938 in the volume of articles In the Face of the End, Krakow 1938, and a third – and so far last – time also in Krakow in 1993. On Cruelty, published three times but so far only in Polish, has never been thoroughly analysed or even discussed, which is why this article focuses on discussing it and related questions about the origins and nature of evil, mainly in Europe and Asia, from the earliest times to the present. Zdziechowski was particularly outraged when the cruelty he condemned was justified by religion, especially Christianity (Catholic and Protestant). From these condemnations, he described the activities of the Inquisition, the witch trials, cruelty to animals, and – in the introduction – the “psychology of cruelty.” At the same time, however, he meticulously listed the names of those political and spiritual leaders in Europe and Asia, theologians and thinkers, who, over many centuries, up to the present day, have resolutely spoken out against evil, including cruelty, within and outside the Church. A separate and important issue is Zdziechowski’s attitude to Tsarist Russia and Bolshevism, as outlined in his work On Cruelty. On the one hand, he pointed out that at least two rulers of Russia before 1917 – Ivan the Terrible and Peter the Great – had made major contributions to the history of cruelty in Europe and Asia. But Bolshevism, which Zdziechowski condemned in the strongest terms, was in his eyes not a continuation of pre-1917 Russian despotism, but emanated from the depths of Asia. (shrink)

According to a prominent objection, deflationist theories of truth can’t account for the explanatory connection between true belief and successful action [Putnam 1978]. Canonical responses to the objection show how to reformulate truth-involving explanations of particular successful actions to omit any mention of truth [Horwich 1998]. According to recent critics, though, the canonical strategy misses the point. The deflated paraphrases lack the generality or explanatory robustness of the original explanatory appeals to truth [Kitcher 2002; Lynch 2009; Gamester 2018]. This article (...) diagnoses the canonical response’s failure and shows how deflationists can make sense of appeals to truth in explaining practical success, in all their generality and robustness, without construing truth as a substantial property. (shrink)

We might suppose it is not only instrumentally valuable for beliefs to be true, but that it is intrinsically valuable – truth makes a non-derivative, positive contribution to a belief's overall value. Some intrinsic goods are better than others, though, and this article considers the question of how good truth is, compared to other intrinsic goods. I argue that truth is the worst of all intrinsic goods; every other intrinsic good is better than it. I also suggest the best explanation (...) for truth's inferiority is that it is not really an intrinsic good at all. It is intrinsically neutral. (shrink)

According to strong pluralist theories of truth, ‘true’ designates different properties depending on which sentences it’s applied to. An influential objection to strong pluralism claims it can’t make sense of logically complex sentences whose components have different truth-properties. For example, if ‘true’ designates correspondents for ‘Tabby is a cat’, and it designates coherence for ‘Tabby is beautiful’, what does it designate for ‘Tabby is a beautiful cat’ (Tappolet 1997)? Will Gamester (2019) has proposed a novel pluralist theory meant to avoid (...) the problem. The theory construes ‘true’ as designating a different property for each possible logical structure, and he has challenged monists to identify shortcomings of the theory in virtue of its pluralism. This paper answers Gamester’s challenge and identifies three such shortcomings. (1) The theory can’t make sense of the idea that all true conjunctions share the property of having true conjuncts, in virtue of which they are true. (2) The theory imposes unmotivated syntactic constraints on the language in which the theory of truth is formulated. (3) Avoiding the second shortcoming requires arbitrary choices among equally good candidates for “the” logical form of sentences and hence the designation of ‘true’ as applied to them. (shrink)

This paper argues against the almost universally held view that truth is an instrumentally valuable property of beliefs. For truth to be instrumentally valuable in the way usually supposed, it must play a causal role in the satisfaction of our desires. As it happens, truth can play no such role, because it is screened off from causal relevance by some of the truth-like properties first discussed by Stephen Stich. Because it is not causally relevant to the success of our actions, (...) truth is not instrumentally valuable in the way usually supposed. (shrink)

The no-miracles argument and the pessimistic induction are arguably the main considerations for and against scientific realism. Recently these arguments have been accused of embodying a familiar, seductive fallacy. In each case, we are tricked by a base rate fallacy, one much-discussed in the psychological literature. In this paper we consider this accusation and use it as an explanation for why the two most prominent `wholesale' arguments in the literature seem irresolvable. Framed probabilistically, we can see very clearly why realists (...) and anti-realists have been talking past one another. We then formulate a dilemma for advocates of either argument, answer potential objections to our criticism, discuss what remains (if anything) of these two major arguments, and then speculate about a future philosophy of science freed from these two arguments. In so doing, we connect the point about base rates to the wholesale/retail distinction; we believe it hints at an answer of how to distinguish profitable from unprofitable realism debates. In short, we offer a probabilistic analysis of the feeling of ennui afflicting contemporary philosophy of science. (shrink)

An epistemic duty would be a duty to believe, disbelieve, or withhold judgment from a proposition, and it would be grounded in purely evidential or epistemic considerations. If I promise to believe it is raining, my duty to believe is not epistemic. If my evidence is so good that, in light of it alone, I ought to believe it is raining, then my duty to believe supposedly is epistemic. I offer a new argument for the claim that there are no (...) epistemic duties. Though people do sometimes have duties to believe, disbelieve, or withhold judgment from propositions, those duties are never grounded in purely epistemic considerations. (shrink)

This paper argues against the realization principle, which reifies the realization relation between lower-level and higher-level properties. It begins with a review of some principles of naturalistic metaphysics. Then it criticizes some likely reasons for embracing the realization principle, and finally it argues against the principle directly. The most likely reasons for embracing the principle depend on the dubious assumption that special science theories cannot be true unless special science predicates designate properties. The principle itself turns out to be false (...) because the realization relation fails the naturalistic test for reality: it makes no causal difference to the world.Footnote11This paper resulted from work done at John Heil's 2006 Mind and Metaphysics NEH Summer Seminar at Washington University in St. Louis. An early version of it was presented in a special symposium on realization at the 2007 meeting of the Southern Society for Philosophy and Psychology. I owe thanks to all the participants in both events for helpful discussions, and I owe particular thanks to Ken Aizawa, Torin Alter, Jason Ford, Carl Gillett, John Heil, Nicholas Helms, Pete Mandik, John Post, Gene Witmer, Michelle Wrenn, Tad Zawidzki, and two anonymous referees for the AJP. (shrink)

Lawrence Kohlberg's Approach to Moral Education presents what the late Lawrence Kohlberg regarded as the definitive statement of his educational theory. Addressing the sociology and social psychology of schooling, the authors propose that school culture become the center of moral education and research. They discuss how schools can develop as just and cohesive communities by involving students in democracy, and they focus on the moral decisions teachers and students face as they democratically resolve problems. As the authors put it: "...we (...) propose an educational renewal of our democratic society.... We have attempted to establish schools that do more than just teach about democratic citizenship, that are themselves democratic societies.". (shrink)

Laurence BonJour has recently proposed a novel and interesting approach to the problem of induction. He grants that it is contingent, and so not a priori, that our patterns of inductive inference are reliable. Nevertheless, he claims, it is necessary and a priori that those patterns are highly likely to be reliable, and that is enough to ground an a priori justification induction. This paper examines an important defect in BonJour's proposal. Once we make sense of the claim that inductive (...) inference is "necessarily highly likely" to be reliable, we find that it is not knowable a priori after all. (shrink)

The following four assumptions plausibly describe the ideal rational agent. (1) She knows what her beliefs are. (2) She desires to believe only truths. (3) Whenever she desires that P → Q and knows that P, she desires that Q. (4) She does not both desire that P and desire that ~P, for any P. Although the assumptions are plausible, they have an implausible consequence. They imply that the ideal rational agent does not believe and desire contradictory propositions. She neither (...) desires the world to be any different than she thinks it is, nor thinks it is any different than she desires it to be. The problem of preserving our intuitions about desire, without embracing the implausible conclusion, is what I call “the Wishful Thinking Puzzle.” In this paper, I examine how this puzzle arises, and I argue that it is surprisingly difficult to solve. Even the decision theoretic conception of desire is not immune to the puzzle. One approach, the contrastive conception of desire, does avoid the puzzle without being ad hoc, but it remains too inchoate to win our full confidence. (shrink)

Epistemic teleology is the view that (a) some states have fundamental epistemic value, and (b) all other epistemic value and obligation are to be understood in terms of promotion of or conduciveness to such fundamentally valuable states. Veritistic reliabilism is a paradigm case: It assigns fundamental value to true belief, and it makes all other assessments of epistemic value or justification in terms of the reliable acquisition of beliefs that are true rather than false. Teleology faces potentially serious problems from (...) cases of cross-propositional tradeoffs and cases of epistemic self-promotion. Both are cases in which committing some intuitive epistemic ill (such as believing against one’s evidence) promotes the greater epistemic good. It can seem that epistemic teleologies must incorrectly endorse intuitively unjustified beliefs as justified in such cases. This paper defends epistemic teleology on two fronts. First, I argue that the problems of tradeoffs and self-promotion do not affect minimally plausible epistemic teleologies. Second, I rehearse some of what I take to be the main reasons to prefer epistemic teleology to alternative views. A theme that develops along the way is that plausible teleologies evaluate belief-forming methods by appeal to their promotion of epistemic goals, but they evaluate individual beliefs by appeal to their causal histories. That is the feature that enables them to avoid tradeoff problems, without abandoning teleology and without resorting to ad hoc epicycles. (shrink)

Philip Kitcher has argued for a causal correspondence view of truth, as against a deflationary view, on the grounds that the former is better poised than the latter to explain systematically successful patterns of action. Though Kitcher is right to focus on systematically successful action, rather than singular practical successes, he is wrong to conclude that causal correspondence theories are capable of explaining systematic success. Rather, I argue, truth bears no explanatory relation to systematic practical success. Consequently, the causal correspondence (...) view is not in a better position to explain success than the deflationary view; theories of truth are the wrong place to look for explanations of systematic practical success. (shrink)

In this paper, I consider an argument of Harvey Siegel's according to which there can be no hypothetical normativity anywhere unless there is categorical normativity in epistemology. The argument fails because it falsely assumes people must be bound by epistemic norms in order to have justified beliefs.

According to a common objection to epistemological naturalism, no empirical, scientific theory of knowledge can be normative in the way epistemological theories need to be. In response, such naturalists as W.V. Quine have claimed naturalized epistemology can be normative by emulating engineering disciplines and addressing the relations of causal efficacy between our cognitive means and ends. This paper evaluates that "engineering reply" and finds it a mixed success. Based on consideration of what it might mean to call a theory "normative," (...) seven versions of the normativity objection to epistemological naturalism are formulated. The engineering reply alone is sufficient to answer only the four least sophisticated versions. To answer the others, naturalists must draw on more resources than their engineering reply alone provides. (shrink)

There are two primary arguments against scientific realism, one pertaining to underdetermination, the other to the history of science. While these arguments are usually treated as altogether distinct, P. Kyle Stanford's ‘problem of unconceived alternatives’ constitutes one kind of synthesis: I propose that Stanford's argument is best understood as a broad modus ponens underdetermination argument, into which he has inserted a unique variant of the historical pessimistic induction. After articulating three criticisms against Stanford's argument and the evidence that he offers, (...) I contend that, as it stands, Stanford's argument poses no threat to contemporary scientific realism. Nonetheless, upon identifying two useful insights present in Stanford's general strategy, I offer an alternative variant of the modus ponens underdetermination argument, one that, although historically informed by science, requires no inductive premises. I contend that this non-inductive but historically informed variant of the modus ponens clarifies and considerably strengthens the case against scientific realism. (shrink)

The problem of underdetermination is thought to hold important lessons for philosophy of science. Yet, as Kyle Stanford has recently argued, typical treatments of it offer only restatements of familiar philosophical problems. Following suggestions in Duhem and Sklar, Stanford calls for a New Induction from the history of science. It will provide proof, he thinks, of “the kind of underdetermination that the history of science reveals to be a distinctive and genuine threat to even our best scientific theories” (Stanford 2001, (...) p. S12). This paper examines Stanford’s New Induction and argues that it – like the other forms of underdetermination that he criticizes – merely recapitulates familiar philosophical conundra. (shrink)

A “self-effacing” property is one that is definable without referring to it. Colin McGinn (2000) has argued that there is exactly one such property: truth. I show that if truth is a self-effacing property, then there are very many others—too many even to constitute a set.

What do you know when you know what a sentence means? According to some theories, understanding a sentence is, in part, knowing its truth-conditions. Dorit Bar-On, Claire Horisk, and William Lycan have defended such theories on the grounds of an “epistemic determination argument”. That argument turns on the ideas that understanding a sentence, along with knowledge of the non-linguistic facts, suffices to know its truth-value, and that being able to determine a sentence’s truth-value given knowledge of the non-linguistic facts is (...) knowing its truth-conditions. I argue that the EDA withstands the objections recently raised by Daniel Cohnitz and Jaan Kangilaski, but fails for other reasons. It equivocates between a fine-grained and a coarse grained conception of “facts.”. (shrink)

C. S. Peirce once defined pragmatism as the opinion that metaphysics is to be largely cleared up by the application of the following maxim for attaining clearness of apprehension: ‘Consider what effects that might conceivably have practical bearings we conceive the object of our conception to have. Then, our conception of these effects is the whole of our conception of the object.’ (Peirce 1982a: 48) More succinctly, Richard Rorty has described the position in this way.

Philip Kitcher develops the Galilean Strategy to defend realism against its many opponents. I explore the structure of the Galilean Strategy and consider it specifically as an instrument against constructive empiricism. Kitcher claims that the Galilean Strategy underwrites an inference from success to truth. We should resist that conclusion, I argue, but the Galilean Strategy should lead us by other routes to believe in many things about which the empiricist would rather remain agnostic. 1 Target: empiricism 2 The Galilean Strategy (...) 3 Strengthening the argument 4 Success and truth 5 Conclusion. (shrink)

I argue that an analogy between pains and sounds suggests a way to give an objective account of pain which fits well with a naïve perceptualist account of feeling pain. According to the proposed metaphysical account, pains are relational physical events with shared qualitative nature, each of which is constituted by tissue damage and the activation of nociceptors. I proceed to show that the metaphysical proposal is compatible with platitudes about pains being animate, private, and self-intimating states.

It has been common wisdom for centuries that scientific inference cannot be deductive; if it is inference at all, it must be a distinctive kind of inductive inference. According to demonstrative theories of induction, however, important scientific inferences are not inductive in the sense of requiring ampliative inference rules at all. Rather, they are deductive inferences with sufficiently strong premises. General considerations about inferences suffice to show that there is no difference in justification between an inference construed demonstratively or ampliatively. (...) The inductive risk may be shouldered by premises or rules, but it cannot be shirked. Demonstrative theories of induction might, nevertheless, better describe scientific practice. And there may be good methodological reasons for constructing our inferences one way rather than the other. By exploring the limits of these possible advantages, I argue that scientific inference is neither of essence deductive nor of essence inductive. (shrink)

Matija Vlačić Ilirik was one of the pillars of Luther’s Reformation. In a special way, he dedicated himself to one of its most important issues – the understanding of the Scriptures, and can, therefore, be considered a significant instigator of the founding of modern hermeneutics. As an excellent connoisseur of classical languages (Hebrew, Greek and Latin) he recognized the importance and dealt with many issues of language, grammar, logic, and dialectic, as essential prerequisites for understanding everything which exists, and hence (...) of the written text also. In this connection, his skepticism towards philosophy is apparent, since the main source of theological cognition, for him, is revelation, and not the human reason, which was principally destroyed by Original Sin. He found the confirmation of his ideas in the current debates with both proponents and opponents of the Reformation, as well as in his research into church history, wherein he incessantly tried to find the witnesses of the truth, as he perceived it. (shrink)

This paper sets mathematics among the sciences, despite not being empirical, because it studies relations of various sorts, like the sciences. Each empirical science studies the relations among objects, which relations determining which science. The mathematical science studies relations as such, regardless of what those relations may be or be among, how relations themselves are related. This places it at the extreme among the sciences with no objects of its own (A Subject with no Object, by J.P. Burgess and G. (...) Rosen). Examples are discussed. The historical development of written mathematics from algorithms on clay tablets to theorems with proofs is said to show that application of algorithms to specific problems and theorems to scientific objects is like allegorical interpretation. Mathematics fits into the modern scientific context because the sciences, beginning with Galileo, have been constructed in imitation of mathematics. Viewing mathematics this way does not solve any ontological problems, but it does show how mathematics avoids them. Epistemological problems, insuperable for object realism, are simplified. For example, we have access to relations among any objects that we can consider objectively, first physical objects and then mathematical objects of greater and greater abstraction. (shrink)

The phenomenon of self-love elicits conflicting reactions. Some believe it is the key to happiness, while others are skeptical. This essay defines self-love as wholehearted concern for one's well-being, argues that it does not imply selfishness, arrogance, or vanity, discusses reasons to value self-love, and describes ways Logic-Based Therapy can be used to help people love themselves.

Obóz Kultury 2.0 Mirosław Filiciak, Alek Tarkowski, Agata Jałosińska, Andrzej Klimczuk, Maciej Rynarzewski, Jacek Seweryn, Stunża M., D. Grzegorz, Marcin Wilkowski & Anna Orlik .

A con-reason is a reason which plays a role in motivating and explaining an agent's behaviour, but which the agent takes to count against the course of action taken. Most accounts of motivating reasons in the philosophy of action do not allow such things to exist. In this essay, I pursue two aims. First, I argue that, whatever metaphysical story we tell about the relation between motivating reasons and action, con- reasons need to be acknowledged, as they play an explanatory (...) role not played by pro- reasons. Second, I respond to an argument recently developed by David-Hillel Ruben to the effect that a causal theory of action – still known as ‘the standard story’ – cannot account for con- reasons. His argument attempts to show that a fundamental principle of the causal theory cannot be reconciled with the role con- reasons play in a certain kind of imagined case. I first argue that a causal theorist is not, in fact, committed to the problematic. (shrink)

Phrase structure trees have a hierarchical structure. In many subjects, most notably in {\bf taxonomy} such tree structures have been studied using ultrametrics. Here syntactical hierarchical phrase trees are subject to a similar analysis, which is much simpler as the branching structure is more readily discernible and switched. The occurrence of hierarchical structure elsewhere in linguistics is mentioned. The phrase tree can be represented by a matrix and the elements of the matrix can be represented by triangles. The height at (...) which branching occurs is not prescribed in previous syntactic models, but it is by using the ultrametric matrix. In other words the ultrametric approach gives a complete description of phrase trees, unlike previous approaches. The ambiguity of which branching height to choose, is resolved by postulating that branching occurs at the lowest height available. An ultrametric produces a measure of the complexity of sentences: presumably the complexity of sentences increases as a language is acquired so that this can be tested. All ultrametric triangles are equilateral or isosceles. Here it is shown that \={X} structure implies that there are no equilateral triangles. Restricting attention to simple syntax a minimum ultrametric distance between lexical categories is calculated. A matrix constructed from this ultrametric distance is shown to be different than the matrix obtained from features. It is shown that the definition of {\sc c-command} can be replaced by an equivalent ultrametric definition. The new definition invokes a minimum distance between nodes and this is more aesthetically satisfying than previous varieties of definitions. From the new definition of {\sc c-command} follows a new definition of of the central notion in syntax namely {\sc government}. (shrink)

In this article, I introduce the term “cognitivism” as a name for the thesis that degrees of belief are equivalent to full beliefs about truth-valued propositions. The thesis (of cognitivism) that degrees of belief are equivalent to full beliefs is equivocal, inasmuch as different sorts of equivalence may be postulated between degrees of belief and full beliefs. The simplest sort of equivalence (and the sort of equivalence that I discuss here) identifies having a given degree of belief with having a (...) full belief with a specific content. This sort of view was proposed in [C. Howson and P. Urbach, Scientific reasoning: the Bayesian approach. Chicago: Open Court (1996)].In addition to embracing a form of cognitivism about degrees of belief, Howson and Urbach argued for a brand of probabilism. I call a view, such as Howson and Urbach’s, which combines probabilism with cognitivism about degrees of belief “cognitivist probabilism”. In order to address some problems with Howson and Urbach’s view, I propose a view that incorperates several of modifications of Howson and Urbach’s version of cognitivist probabilism. The view that I finally propose upholds cognitivism about degrees of belief, but deviates from the letter of probabilism, in allowing that a rational agent’s degrees of belief need not conform to the axioms of probability, in the case where the agent’s cognitive resources are limited. (shrink)

Human cloning until recently has been considered to belong to the domain of science fiction; now it is a tangible possibility, a hopeful as well as a fearsome one. One of the fears that necessarily come along with it is about the peril cloning might represent for human uniqueness, since the clones are expected to be identical to their prototypes; this would unavoidably compromise moral agents’ right to a unique identity. In this paper I will put under examination the argument (...) against cloning that is based upon the right to a unique identity; I will argue that cloning represents no actual threat for anybody’s unique identity, therefore this argument is futile. I will also support the view that the so-called right to a unique identity is not as indisputable as to serve as the basis of a moral argument against human reproductive cloning. (shrink)

El presente trabajo de Alex Ibarra Peña recoge los resultados de una investigación cuyo tema es la constitución de un campo de estudios ligado a la filosofía analítica en Chile. El autor se propone una tarea informativa y crítica en la que cifra la novedad de su propuesta. En otros términos, la suya es una labor de rescate, de algunos filósofos y corrientes de pensamiento relegados en las narraciones hegemónicas de la institucionalización de la filosofía en Chile y una tarea (...) que busca corregir el papel asignado a Chile en las visiones panorámicas de mayor circulación sobre la emergencia de la filosofía analítica en nuestro continente. En el cruce de estos dos vectores radica la novedad de la empresa de Ibarra Peña: proponer una visión más ajustada de la recepción de los filósofos analíticos en Chile. En nuestra reseña comentamos los núcleos centrales del trabajo y proponemos algunas hiótesis sobre los conflictos internos al campo cultural que subyacen a las opciones realizadas por el autor. Para finalizar indicamos lo que nos parece ser una falencia del trabajo: un estudio de la constitución de la filosofía analística como campo de estudios no debería dejar de tener en cuenta que el énfasis en la delimitación de la cientificidad por la filosofía analítica tenía en los años 60 y 70 adversarios concretos en el marxismo y el psicoanálisis. (shrink)

The paper argues that Sartre’s work as both a literary critic and social philosopher is deeply indebted to his early commitment to phenomenology. The first part of the paper examines the nature of reading and writing in the account of literary meaning that is presented in the transitional text, 'Qu’est-ce que la littérature?' While acknowledging the political turn that occurs in Sartre’s work, we then discuss how the theme of history emerges in the later essay, 'Questions de méthode,' as one (...) that opens up a “double reading” of human motivation. Our conclusion maintains that the Marxist phase of Sartre’s work is based on the hermeneutical notion of comprehension, which provides an anthropological grounding for his existential philosophy. (shrink)

This paper is concerned with Maurice Merleau-Ponty’s contribution to the hermeneutical theory of expressive meaning that has been developed on the basis of an ongoing dialogue with traditional phenomenology. The early portion of the paper examines the unstable boundaries between expression and indication as a key to a new approach to expressive meaning. The paper then takes up Merleau-Ponty’s understanding of expressive life as it emerges in ‘Phenomenology of Perception,’ his first attempt to discuss perception, aesthetics, and temporality in comprehensive (...) terms. The third part of the paper examines Merleau-Ponty’s return to the paintings of Paul Cezanne, which not only clarifies his earlier position but also deepens the philosophical meaning of his reflections on language. My final comments are concerned with how phenomenology can be broadened in a way that can become responsive to the hermeneutical theory of expressive meaning. (shrink)

It is argued that colour name strategy, object name strategy, and chunking strategy in memory are all aspects of the same general phenomena, called stereotyping, and this in turn is an example of a know-how representation. Such representations are argued to have their origin in a principle called the minimum duplication of resources. For most the subsequent discussions existence of colour name strategy suffices. It is pointed out that the BerlinA- KayA universal partial ordering of colours and the frequency of (...) traffic accidents classified by colour are surprisingly similar; a detailed analysis is not carried out as the specific colours recorded are not identical. Some consequences of the existence of a name strategy for the philosophy of language and mathematics are discussed: specifically it is argued that in accounts of truth and meaning it is necessary throughout to use real numbers as opposed to bi-valent quantities; and also that the concomitant label associated with sentences should not be of unconditional truth, but rather several real-valued quantities associated with visual communication. The implication of real-valued truth quantities is that the Continuum Hypothesis of pure mathematics is side-stepped, because real valued quantities occur ab initio. The existence of name strategy shows that thought/sememes and talk/phonemes can be separate, and this vindicates the assumption of thought occurring before talk used in psycho-linguistic speech production models. (shrink)

O utopianismo científico de Neurath é a proposta para que as ciências sociais se envolvam na elaboração, desenvolvimento e comparação de cenários contrafactuais, as ‘utopias’. Tais cenários podem ser entendidos como peças centrais de experimentos de pensamento científicos, isto é, em exercícios da imaginação que não apenas promovem a revisão conceitual, mas também estimulam a criatividade para lidar com problemas vivenciados, já que utopias são esforços para imaginar como o futuro poderia ser. Ademais, experimentos de pensamento utópicos podem oferecer conhecimento (...) científico para informar debates e decisões políticas, contribuindo para formatar a sociedade. Este ensaio reconstrói um evento histórico como um exemplo da metodologia utopianista de Neurath. No final dos anos 1970 e início dos anos 1980, uma comissão científica e política designada pelo parlamento da Alemanha Ocidental inventou e comparou quatro cenários para políticas energético-econômicas futuras. Conclusões da comissão informaram decisões políticas que puseram a Alemanha Ocidental (e depois reunificada) em um caminho para se tornar uma potência industrial verde. Uma parte fundamental do trabalho da comissão envolveu um apelo à imaginação, permitindo a caracterização sob a metodologia de Neurath. (shrink)

During the last two centuries, occidental philosophical meditation has triumphantly advanced through previously poorly charted fields. Science has reallocated the methods as well as the goals of philosophy, forcing scholars to advance a little further, embrace new cognitive challenges and correspond to new social needs. As a result, our everyday life has become easier and our world is a better place to live in. But still, an optimum situation is not achieved. As a matter of fact, there are more things (...) at stake in our era than there were in previous ones. Even basic prerequisites for a prosperous life are not fully met. For the first time in the history of mankind, we can not even be sure about the survival of our planet, not to mention well being of it’s living entities –man included. So far, where is the improvement? Our ancestors may not have had the luxury of fast transportation, immediate information or adequate medical treatment, still they could take some things for granted: they positively knew that they and their successors would be given the minimum of chances: they, at least, would have a place to live. (shrink)

In this paper I will discuss a recent attempt of justifying democracy and its authority. It pertains to recently published papers by Niko Kolodny, which complement each other and taken together practically assume a form of a monograph. It could be said that Kolodny's approach is a non-standard one given that he avoids typical ways of justifying democracy. Namely, when a justification of democracy is concerned, Kolodny maintains that it is necessary to offer a kind of an independent justification. It (...) is not so much that he insists that the usual approaches are wrong as much as that an independent justification is necessary in order to discern what it is that gives them their significance. Kolodny's independent justification of democracy is based on the idea of social equality. In this paper I will try to reconstruct and critically assess Kolodny's approach by paying special attention to the question of democratic authority. (shrink)