Is the societal-level of analysis sufficient today to understand the values of those in the global workforce? Or are individual-level analyses more appropriate for assessing the influence of values on ethical behaviors across country workforces? Using multi-level analyses for a 48-society sample, we test the utility of both the societal-level and individual-level dimensions of collectivism and individualism values for predicting ethical behaviors of business professionals. Our values-based behavioral analysis indicates that values at the individual-level make a more significant contribution to (...) explaining variance in ethical behaviors than do values at the societal-level. Implicitly, our findings question the soundness of using societal-level values measures. Implications for international business research are discussed. (shrink)

Recently, there has been much discussion of ‘fair machine learning’: fairness in data-driven decision-making systems (which are often, though not always, made with assistance from machine learning systems). Notorious impossibility results show that we cannot have everything we want here. Such problems call for careful thinking about the foundations of fair machine learning. Sune Holm has identified one promising way forward, which involves applying John Broome's theory of fairness to the puzzles of fair machine learning. Unfortunately, his application of Broome's (...) theory appears to be fatally flawed. This article attempts to rescue Holm's central insight – namely, that Broome's theory can be useful to the study of fair machine learning – by giving an alternative application of Broome's theory, which involves thinking about fair machine learning in counterfactual (as opposed to merely statistical) terms. (shrink)

A growing amount of media is paid for by its consumers through their very consumption of it. Typically, this new media is web-based and paid for by advertising. It includes the services offered by Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, and YouTube. We offer an ethical assessment of the attention economy, the market where attention is exchanged for new media. We argue that the assessment has ethical implications for how the attention economy should be regulated. To conduct the assessment, we employ two heuristics (...) for evaluating markets. One is the “harm” criterion, which relates to whether the market tends to engender extremely harmful outcomes for individuals or society as a whole. The other is the “agency” criterion, which relates not to the outcomes of the market, but rather, to whether it somehow reflects or has its source in weakened agency. We argue that the attention economy animates concerns with respect to both criteria and that new media should be subject to the same sort of regulation as other harmful, addictive products. (shrink)

Charles S. Peirce (1839-1914) made relevant contributions to deductive logic, but he was primarily interested in the logic of science, and more especially in what he called 'abduction' (as opposed to deduction and induction), which is the process whereby hypotheses are generated in order to explain the surprising facts. Indeed, Peirce considered abduction to be at the heart not only of scientific research, but of all ordinary human activities. Nevertheless, in spite of Peirce's work and writings in the field of (...) methodology of research, scarce attention has been paid to the logic of discovery over the last hundred years, despite an impressive development not only of scientific research but also of logic. -/- Having this in mind, the exposition is divided into five parts: 1) a brief presentation of Peirce, focusing on his work as a professional scientist; 2) an exposition of the classification of inferences by the young Peirce: deduction, induction and hypothesis; 3) a sketch of the notion of abduction in the mature Peirce; 4) an exposition of the logic of surprise; and finally, by way of conclusion, 5) a discussion of this peculiar ability of guessing understood as a rational instinct. -/- . (shrink)

In a world of ever growing specialization, the issue of complexity attracts a good amount of attention from cross-disciplinary points of view as this Congress provides evidence. Charles S. Peirce's thought may help us not only to shoulder once again philosophical responsibility which has been largely abdicated by much of 20th century philosophy, but also to tackle some of the most stubborn contemporary problems. The founder of pragmatism identified one century ago most of these problems, and he also mapped out (...) some paths that we could follow to overcome the poverty of contemporary scientistic reductionism. One of these paths is related with the issue of complexity, that lies at the heart of all his conception. -/- Along this line, the aim of my paper is to describe what Peirce can teach about complexity to semioticians coming from very different scientific backgrounds. The lecture will be divided in three sections: 1) a presentation of Peirce, stressing his personal authority as a scientist philosopher, providing also some biographical details; 2) the theory of categories as the heart of complexity according to Peirce and, finally, 3) some consequences of Peirce's notion of complexity in relation with abduction and creativity, semiosis, cross-disciplinarity and communication. -/- . (shrink)

In this paper the relations between the almost unknown Spanish mathematician Ventura Reyes Prósper (1863-1922) with Charles S. Peirce and Christine Ladd-Franklin are described. Two brief papers from Reyes Prósper published in El Progreso Matemático 12 (20 December 1891), pp. 297-300, and 18 (15 June 1892) pp. 170-173 on Ladd-Franklin, and on Peirce and Mitchell, respectively, are translated for first time into English and included at the end of the paper.

Prediction-based decisions, which are often made by utilizing the tools of machine learning, influence nearly all facets of modern life. Ethical concerns about this widespread practice have given rise to the field of fair machine learning and a number of fairness measures, mathematically precise definitions of fairness that purport to determine whether a given prediction-based decision system is fair. Following Reuben Binns (2017), we take ‘fairness’ in this context to be a placeholder for a variety of normative egalitarian considerations. We (...) explore a few fairness measures to suss out their egalitarian roots and evaluate them, both as formalizations of egalitarian ideas and as assertions of what fairness demands of predictive systems. We pay special attention to a recent and popular fairness measure, counterfactual fairness, which holds that a prediction about an individual is fair if it is the same in the actual world and any counterfactual world where the individual belongs to a different demographic group (cf. Kusner et al. (2018)). (shrink)

The aim of my paper is to highlight that for Peirce the reality of God makes sense of the whole scientific enterprise. The belief in God is a natural product of abduction, of the "rational instinct" or educated guess of the scientist or the layman, and also the abduction of God may be understood as a "proof" of pragmatism. Moreover, I want to suggest that for Peirce scientific activity is a genuine religious enterprise, perhaps even the religious activity par excellence, (...) and that to divorce religion from science is antithetical to both the scientific spirit and the real Peirce. Understanding the real Peirce requires to deal with his religious concerns, which are increasingly recognized as being perhaps as philosophically important as his scientific concerns. Since a key notion in this project is the idea of "il lume naturale" that Peirce borrowed from Galileo, I want also to pay attention to that expression which during years I have been following through Peirce's papers and books. -/- In order to try to explain some of this, my paper is arranged into four brief sections after this already long introduction: 1) God and scientific inquiry; 2) The belief in God as a product of abduction; 3) Galileo and Peirce: Il lume naturale; and by way of conclusion 4) Some remarks on the religious framework of Peirce's approach. (shrink)

A number of findings in the field of machine learning have given rise to questions about what it means for automated scoring- or decisionmaking systems to be fair. One center of gravity in this discussion is whether such systems ought to satisfy classification parity (which requires parity in accuracy across groups, defined by protected attributes) or calibration (which requires similar predictions to have similar meanings across groups, defined by protected attributes). Central to this discussion are impossibility results, owed to Kleinberg (...) et al. (2016), Chouldechova (2017), and Corbett-Davies et al. (2017), which show that classification parity and calibration are often incompatible. This paper aims to argue that classification parity, calibration, and a newer, interesting measure called counterfactual fairness are unsatisfactory measures of fairness, offer a general diagnosis of the failure of these measures, and sketch an alternative approach to understanding fairness in machine learning. (shrink)

Holm (2022) argues that a class of algorithmic fairness measures, that he refers to as the ‘performance parity criteria’, can be understood as applications of John Broome’s Fairness Principle. We argue that the performance parity criteria cannot be read this way. This is because in the relevant context, the Fairness Principle requires the equalization of actual individuals’ individual-level chances of obtaining some good (such as an accurate prediction from a predictive system), but the performance parity criteria do not guarantee any (...) such thing: the measures merely ensure that certain population-level ratios hold. (shrink)

Thirty years ago Richard Rorty detected the similarities between Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations (1953) and the philosophical framework of Charles S. Peirce (1839-1914), the founder of pragmatism. Rorty tried to show that Peirce envisaged and repudiated in advance logical positivism and developed insights and a philosophical mood very close to the analytical philosophers influenced by the later Wittgenstein (Rorty 1961). In spite of that, the majority of scholars have considered both thinkers as totally alien. Some scholars have attributed the pragmatist flavor (...) of the Philosophical Investigations to the influence of Frank P. Ramsey, who awoke Wittgenstein from the dogmatic slumber of the Tractatus. Nevertheless, the real scope of the influence of American pragmatist philosophy in Wittgenstein's later thought is not clearly known. The purpose of my paper is not to describe the common themes between Wittgenstein and Peirce, but the way in which recent scholarship has established some links between both philosophers. -/- . (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to offer a version of the so-called conversational hypothesis of the ontogenetic connection between language and mindreading (Harris 1996, 2005; Van Cleave and Gauker 2010; Hughes et al. 2006). After arguing against a particular way of understanding the hypothesis (the communicative view), I will start from the justificatory view in philosophy of social cognition (Andrews 2012; Hutto 2004; Zawidzki 2013) to make the case for the idea that the primary function of belief and desire (...) attributions is to justify and normalize deviant patterns of behaviour. Following this framework, I elaborate upon the idea that development of folk psychological skills requires the subjects to engage in conversationally mediated joint and cooperative activities in order to acquire the conceptual capacity of ascribing propositional attitudes. After presenting the general version of the hypothesis, I present several testable sub-hypotheses and some psychological studies that give empirical plausibility to the hypothesis. (shrink)

New media (highly interactive digital technology for creating, sharing, and consuming information) affords users a great deal of control over their informational diets. As a result, many users of new media unwittingly encapsulate themselves in epistemic bubbles (epistemic structures, such as highly personalized news feeds, that leave relevant sources of information out (Nguyen forthcoming)). Epistemically paternalistic alterations to new media technologies could be made to pop at least some epistemic bubbles. We examine one such alteration that Facebook has made in (...) an effort to fight fake news and conclude that it is morally permissible. We further argue that many epistemically paternalistic policies can (and should) be a perennial part of the internet information environment. (shrink)

The relationship between William James and Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889-1951) has recently been the subject of intense scholarly research. We know for instance that the later Wittgenstein's reflections on the philosophy of psychology found in James a major source of inspiration. Not surprisingly therefore, the pragmatist nature of the philosophy of the later Wittgenstein is increasingly acknowledged, in spite of Wittgenstein’s adamant refusal of being labeled a “pragmatist”. In this brief paper I merely want to piece together some of the available (...) evidence of Wittgenstein’s high regard for William James, not only for his thoughts, but even more so for his character. (shrink)

A widespread view in philosophy claims that inner speech is closely tied to human metacognitive capacities. This so-called format view of inner speech considers that talking to oneself allows humans to gain access to their own mental states by forming metarepresentation states through the rehearsal of inner utterances (section 2). The aim of this paper is to present two problems to this view (section 3) and offer an alternative view to the connection between inner speech and metacognition (section 4). According (...) to this alternative, inner speech (meta)cognitive functions derivate from the set of commitments we mobilize in our communicative exchanges. After presenting this commitment-based approach, I address two possible objections (section 5). (shrink)

El artículo da noticia del marco de la discusión contemporánea acerca del lenguaje en el ámbito angloamericano, con el objetivo de lograr una mejor comprensión del trabajo en torno al lenguaje que viene desarrollándose en los últimos años. Se ofrece un breve panorama histórico de la filosofía del lenguaje de la primera mitad del siglo XX que se centró particularmente en la lógica y de describe la transformación pragmatista de la filosofía del lenguaje acaecida en las últimas décadas, para finalmente (...) desvelar algunas de las claves que —a juicio del autor— resultan decisivas para una cabal comprensión del lenguaje jurídico. (shrink)

La propuesta metodológica de la «Analytical Jurisprudence» o escuela analítica del Derecho encabezada por H. L. A. Hart (1907-1992) abrió un nuevo espacio de reflexión en el ámbito jurídico anglosajón al emplear el análisis del significado de las palabras como medio para dilucidar la estructura del pensamiento jurídico. Hart, miembro del grupo de Oxford, aplicó una nueva sensibilidad por las distinciones lógicas y lingüísticas a la filosofía del derecho (PANNAM, 2008) y aportó a la discusión de los teóricos del derecho (...) de la segunda mitad del siglo XX una de las convicciones centrales que guiaron su trabajo: la de que las interrogantes más complejas de la teoría del derecho podían dilucidarse esclareciendo el modo en que los términos jurídicos se utilizan en la práctica (ETCHEVERRY, 2009). -/- El objetivo de este artículo es exponer cómo esta propuesta metodológica ha marcado la discusión en las actuales teorías analíticas anglosajonas de la interpretación jurídica, más específicamente, entre las denominadas teorías convencionalistas y teorías realistas del significado. Aspiramos a mostrar cómo una teoría realista del lenguaje jurídico —que incluya una teoría sobre el significado de los términos y enunciados jurídicos— sigue siendo una tarea pendiente que podría ser decisivamente enriquecida mediante la recuperación del pensamiento analógico desarrollado por Mauricio Beuchot. (shrink)

It is technically possible to clone a human being. The result of the procedure would be a human being in its own right. Given the current level of cloning technology concerning other animals there is every reason to believe that early human clones will have shorter-than-average life-spans, and will be unusually prone to disease. In addition, they would be unusually at risk of genetic defects, though they would still, probably, have lives worth living. But with experimentation and experience, seriously unequal (...) prospects between cloned and noncloned people should erode. We shall ignore arguments about cloning that focus on the potential for harm to the fetus or resultant human being, where harm is understood solely in terms of physical and mental health. Unless the resultant people would generally have lives worth living there is no positive case for cloning, or any other form of reproduction, for that matter. If the resultant beings will generally have lives worth living there is a prima facie case for allowing cloning. We imagine the case in which the resultant beings will have lives well worth living. (shrink)

This entry is a presentation of C. S. Peirce and of his connections with A. N. Whitehead. Also Whitehead's connections with Peirce are explored.

In this open access book, Timothy Aylsworth and Clinton Castro draw on the deep well of Kantian ethics to argue that we have moral duties, both to ourselves and to others, to protect our autonomy from the threat posed by the problematic use of technology. The problematic use of technologies like smartphones threatens our autonomy in a variety of ways, and critics have only begun to appreciate the vast scope of this problem. In the last decade, we have seen (...) a flurry of books making “self-help” arguments about how we could live happier, more fulfilling lives if we were less addicted to our phones. But none of these authors see this issue as one involving a moral duty to protect our autonomy. (shrink)

In this short paper I try to present William James’s connection with the Argentinian writer Macedonio Fernández (1874-1952), who was in some sense a mentor of Borges and might be considered the missing link between Borges and James.

Es realmente un honor y un gusto para mí poder acompañar a Fernando Zalamea y a sus numerosos discípulos en la celebración de sus 60 años. En mi breve texto, deseo dar noticia de su colaboración con nuestro Grupo de Estudios Peirceanos y del importantísimo catálogo que constituye la Bibliografía Peirceana Hispánica (1883- 2000) por él preparada y que publicamos en un volumen conjunto en el año 2006 [Nubiola & Zalamea 2006].

The aim of this paper is to describe the situation of mutual ignorance between American and Hispanic philosophical traditions, paying special attention to the figure and thought of the founder of pragmatism, Charles S. Peirce (1839-1914). In order to do this, first of all I will justify the usage of the expression "Hispanic Philosophy", highlighting its heuristic and practical value. Secondly, I will discuss some of Peirce's comments in relation with the Hispanic world. And finally, by way of conclusion, I (...) will mention some of the connections that lie nearly hidden under the cloak of ignorance which divides the two traditions. (shrink)

What I argue in this article is neither new nor very original, but important, in my opinion, for the organization of the political space and for the intellectual work of each person. I try to defend epistemological pluralism, that is, that problems and things have facets, different faces, and that there are different ways to think about them. At the same time I want to reject relativist skepticism and vulgar pragmatism, with which this view is frequently associated. The rejection of (...) scientific foundationalism or of ethical fundamentalism does not necessarily lead to relativist skepticism. With the help of the best pragmatist tradition, it is possible to try a compromise that supports fallibilism without resorting to skepticism and cooperative pluralism. A pluralist pragmatism holds —with Hilary Putnam— that there is nothing such as a privileged vision of man and the world offered by the Science. Sciences, on the contrary, are cooperative and communicative human activities through which we humans really progress, not without having doubts or making mistakes, in our understanding of the world and ourselves. It is argued that non-relativist pluralism is not only one of the best results of contemporary scientific research but also is an indispensable requirement to achieve a truly democratic social organization. -/- My paper is divided in three sections. Firstly, pragmatism is briefly discussed; secondly, the connection between relativism, "vulgar pragmatism" and the so-called "neopragmatism" is described; and finally, I will offer an explanation of why the pluralism, which is the legacy of the best pragmatism, is not relativist. (shrink)

In a world of ever growing specialization, the idea of a unity of science is commonly discarded, but cooperative work involving cross-disciplinary points of view is encouraged. The aim of this paper is to show with some textual support that Charles S. Peirce not only identified this paradoxical situation a century ago, but he also mapped out some paths for reaching a successful solution. A particular attention is paid to Peirce's classification of the sciences and to his conception of science (...) as a collective and cooperative activity of all those whose lives are animated by the desire to discover the truth. -/- . (shrink)

George M. Searle (1839-1918) and Charles S. Peirce worked together in the Coast Survey and the Harvard Observatory during the decade of 1860: both scientists were assistants of Joseph Winlock, the director of the Observatory. When in 1868 George, a convert to Catholicism, left to enter the Paulist Fathers, he was replaced by his brother Arthur Searle. George was ordained as a priest in 1871, was a lecturer of Mathematics and Astronomy at the Catholic University of America, and became the (...) fourth superior general of his congregation from 1904 to 1909. Among the books he wrote for non-Catholic audiences was Plain Facts for Fair Minds (1895). On the 8th of August of 1895, Peirce found that book in a bookstore and the following day wrote a letter to George Searle developing his strong reservations about the question of the infallibility of the Pope. This letter (L 397) is almost unknown amongst Peirce's scholars. -/- After describing these historical circumstances as a framework, the aim of my paper is to describe Peirce's arguments against papal infallibility presented by George Searle in his book, and the contrast between the genuine scientific attitude and the putative metaphysical notion of absolute truth that is —according to Peirce— behind Searle's defense of infallibility. In this sense, Peirce's fallibilism will be explained with some detail, giving an account also of his practical infallibilism: "The assertion that every assertion but this is fallible, is the only one that is absolutely infallible. But though nothing else is absolutely infallible, many propositions are practically infallible; such as the dicta of conscience" (Minute Logic, CP 2.75, c. 1902). -/- Finally, having in mind the present interest in Peirce's religious ideas it will be suggested that some of Peirce's ideas on infallibility are nearer to contemporary understanding of that issue than Searle's defense. "I would with all my heart join the ancient church of Rome if I could. But your book," —Peirce writes to Searle— "is an awful warning against doing so." -/- . (shrink)

El objetivo de esta colaboración es, en primer lugar, dar noticia de algunas coordenadas básicas de la discusión contemporánea acerca del lenguaje y la diferencia de los sexos, prestando especial atención a la acusación de esencialismo con la que se descalifican los contendientes entre sí. En segundo lugar, quiero llamar la atención acerca de la insuficiencia de las razones esgrimidas por el discurso feminista de la diferencia y por el discurso de la complementariedad cultural, que en última instancia vienen a (...) favorecer —en total oposición, sin duda, a los deseos de sus valedores— una perpetuación de la discriminación de las mujeres1. En tercer lugar, esbozo unas pautas para la eliminación de algunos elementos sexistas que todavía subsisten en la lengua española. -/- El trabajo se articula en cuatro secciones: 1) El debate contemporáneo sobre el esencialismo; 2) El discurso biológico sobre la diferencia sexual; 3) La construcción cultural de la diferencia sexual; y finalmente, 4) La búsqueda de un nuevo lenguaje. El propósito unificador que otorga sentido al conjunto radica en el empeño por ganar en comprensión de lo que es el ser humano mediante la reflexión filosófica sobre la diferenciación sexual que se detecta, se expresa o se crea, a través o en el lenguaje. La perspectiva que adopto —desde una óptica preferentemente hispánica, pero prestando especial atención a la cultura angloamericana— es decididamente filosófica, y aspira a integrar armónicamente aportaciones multidisciplinares, datos y planteamientos teóricos procedentes de las ciencias biomédicas y de las humanidades. Esta actitud supone una concepción de la filosofía que, lejos de un eclecticismo acrítico, busca encontrar las razones de la verdad en la confrontación de opiniones opuestas, sabedora con la mejor tradición que todos los pareceres formulados seriamente, en cierto sentido, dicen algo verdadero. Una segunda consecuencia de la adopción de esta perspectiva filosófica es que he evitado convertir el trabajo en una investigación lexicográfica de la lengua española, limitando ésta exclusivamente al final de la última sección. (shrink)

Este ensaio estabelece uma comparação estética e fenomenológica entre os pensamentos de Yves-Klein e Merleau-Ponty. Se o pintor materializou as suas reflexões e concepções em obra pictórica, o fenomenólogo francês dissertou na escrita filosófica o resultado da sua reflexão. Da análise conjunta entre um e outro resulta esta fenomenologia e estética comparativa que apresenta alguns conceitos fundamentais que alimentaram essas reflexões, tais como a visibilidade, o corpo, o mundo. Assim, para além dessa comparação, este ensaio viabiliza o diálogo entre ambos. (...) Palavras-chave: Corpo. Mundo. Visibilidade. Merleau-Ponty. Yves Klein -/- Abstract:This essay establishes an aesthetic and phenomenological comparison between the thoughts of Yves-Klein and Merleau-Ponty. If the painter materialized his reflections and concepts in pictorial work, the French phenomenologist disserted in the philosophical writing the result of his reflection. From the joint analysis between one and the other, this phenomenology and comparative aesthetics results, which presents some fundamental concepts that fed these reflections such as visibility, the body, the world. Thus, in addition to this comparison, this essay enables the dialogue between both. Keywords: Body. World. Visibility. Merleau-Ponty. Yves Klein. (shrink)

The year of the centennial of the Argentinean writer Jorge Luis Borges is probably the right time to exhume one of the links that this universal writer had with William James. In 1945, Emece, a publisher from Buenos Aires, printed a Spanish translation of William James’s book Pragmatism, with a foreword by Jorge Luis Borges.

Our aim in this article, after providing the general framework of the reception of William James in Spain, is to trace the reception of The Varieties of Religious Experience through Unamuno’s reading of this book.

This paper has two separate aims, with obvious links between them. First, to present Charles S. Peirce and the pragmatist movement in a historical framework which stresses the close connections of pragmatism with the mainstream of philosophy; second, to deal with a particular controversial issue, that of the supposed logicistic orientation of Peirce's work.

El presente artículo explora la relación entre las ideas estéticas y las ideas políticas en la obra de Edmund Burke. De dicho análisis, surge, en primer lugar, la relevancia de sus reflexiones sobre las nociones de lo bello y de lo sublime para la teoría política, usualmente desestimadas por los comentadores. En segundo lugar, la afirmación de que la idea de lo sublime es una característica imprescindible de todo gobierno político, y el trazado, en tercer lugar, de una distinción entre (...) los gobiernos moderados y despóticos a partir de las diferencias estéticas observables en la monarquía constitucional inglesa y la asamblea nacional revolucionaria de 1789. Se concluye la dependencia recíproca de ambas disciplinas para comprender con mayor exactitud el pensamiento del autor irlandés. (shrink)

In Spain, Peirce's thought has generally remained almost unknown throughout the syllabi of the various Licentiate programs offered. The only exceptions are the degrees of Linguistic, Communication Studies, and Philosophy, in which Peirce's semiotics is normally only alluded to or cursorily presented. Much the same could be said of Latin America. There is evidence, however, that this situation is beginning to change: translations into Spanish are now appearing, particularly in the web, which make a notable amount of Peirce’s vast production (...) accessible to the Spanish-speaking readership. Interest in Peirce's work is clearly growing in the Hispanic world, probably due to the general resurgence of pragmatism, and to the gradual approximation of Hispanic philosophers to American academic philosophy. (shrink)

Deontic logic is devoted to the study of logical properties of normative predicates such as permission, obligation and prohibition. Since it is usual to apply these predicates to actions, many deontic logicians have proposed formalisms where actions and action combinators are present. Some standard action combinators are action conjunction, choice between actions and not doing a given action. These combinators resemble boolean operators, and therefore the theory of boolean algebra offers a well-known athematical framework to study the properties of the (...) classic deontic operators when applied to actions. In his seminal work, Segerberg uses constructions coming from boolean algebras to formalize the usual deontic notions. Segerberg’s work provided the initial step to understand logical properties of deontic operators when they are applied to actions. In the last years, other authors have proposed related logics. In this chapter we introduce Segerberg’s work, study related formalisms and investigate further challenges in this area. (shrink)

One usually makes assertions by means of uttering indicative sentences like “It is raining”. However, not every utterance of an indicative sentence is an assertion. For example, in uttering “I will be back tomorrow”, one might be making a promise. What is to make an assertion? C.S. Peirce held the view that “to assert a proposition is to make oneself responsible for its truth” (CP 5.543). In this thesis, I interpret Peirce’s view of assertion and I evaluate Peirce’s reasons for (...) holding it. I begin by reconstructing and assessing Peirce’s case for such view as it appears in (EP 2.140, 1903), (EP 2.312-313, 1904), and (CP 5.546, 1908). Then, I continue by elaborating on three aspects of Peirce’s view of assertion, namely, assertion as an act involving a certain kind of responsibility, the proposition as what is asserted, and responsibility for truth as a responsibility to give reasons. With respect to these three aspects, I argue for the following claims: (1) Peirce construed the responsibility involved in asserting as a moral responsibility; (2) Peirce held that propositions are types; and (3) Peirce was committed to a dialogical interpretation of “responsibility to give reasons”. Finally, I end by presenting two objections to Peirce’s view of assertion and its corresponding replies. I conclude that Peirce’s account of assertion is a valuable contribution to the philosophical debate on assertion. (shrink)

The role of imagination in Descartes. The critic of Sartre to the concept of image in Descartes.

The main purpose of this article is to show how the language is conceived in the encyclical Fides et ratio, especially taking into account its relationship with truth. It is also attempted to present an analitical study of the text concerning language: the different references to it and the consideration of the modern sciences of language; how truth is linked to language and signification, and how human language though linguistic communication can surely renew and enhance the rational expressin of Christian (...) faith. (shrink)

State of the art paper on the problem of induction: how to justify the conclusion that ‘all Fs are Gs’ from the premise that ‘all observed Fs are Gs’. The most prominent theories of contemporary philosophical literature are discussed and analysed, such as: inductivism, reliabilism, perspective of laws of nature, rationalism, falsificationism, the material theory of induction and probabilistic approaches, according to Carnap, Reichenbach and Bayesianism. In the end, we discuss the new problem of induction of Goodman, raised by the (...) grue predicate. (shrink)

This text highlights not only how highly Charles S. Peirce esteems philosophical study, but also the close connection between philosophy and science, something he always emphasized. For Peirce, as for medieval scholars, philosophy —even metaphysics— should be pursued with a scientific attitude. I believe following his counsel here is essential to thinking about how philosophy should be taught today. -/- My exposition is divided into four sections: 1) A brief presentation of Peirce, focusing on his work as a professional scientist (...) and a scientific philosopher; 2) Peirce considered as an educational philosopher; 3) Some practical suggestions I have drawn from Peirce's ideas and from my experience teaching philosophy today; and finally, 4) A brief conclusion. (shrink)

Esta tesis estudia el pensamiento del conservador español Juan Donoso Cortés (1809- 1853). Más precisamente, se ocupa de responder cómo resuelve el problema de la decadencia de la autoridad monárquica en Europa a partir de las revoluciones de 1848. Para abordar este objetivo general elaboramos dos objetivos específicos. El primero busca señalar las continuidades y discontinuidades de la obra donosiana, escindida generalmente en dos períodos: el juvenil, con un Donoso Cortés liberal, y el maduro, que luego de una “conversión religiosa” (...) se vuelca hacia el catolicismo reaccionario. El segundo objetivo hace foco en el concepto de dictadura, bajo la sospecha de que en esta noción reside la clave de su proyecto conservador. Con esto en mente construimos dos hipótesis. La primera afirma que nuestro autor es consciente de la imposibilidad de restituir el proyecto monárquico. La segunda, sugiere la presencia de una fórmula parcialmente decisionista como alternativa a dicho proyecto. Luego de un trabajo de lectura de primera mano de los textos donosianos, las conclusiones confirman las hipótesis y observan que existe una continuidad estructural en las ideas del español, pero también que hay discontinuidades, de las cuales la más importante es su particular noción de dictadura, que denominamos dictadura catolizante. (shrink)

State of the art paper on the topic realism/anti-realism. The first part of the paper elucidates the notions of existence and independence of the metaphysical characterization of the realism/anti-realism dispute. The second part of the paper presents a critical taxonomy of the most important positions and doctrines in the contemporary literature on the domains of science and mathematics: scientific realism, scientific anti-realism, constructive empiricism, structural realism, mathematical Platonism, mathematical indispensability, mathematical empiricism, intuitionism, mathematical fictionalism and second philosophy.

The American novelist Walker Percy (1916-90) considered himself a "thief of Peirce", because he found in the views of C.S. Peirce, the founder of pragmatism, an alternative approach to prevailing reductionist theories in order to understand what we human beings are and what the peculiar nature of our linguistic activity is. -/- This paper describes, quoting widely from Percy, how abduction is the spontaneous activity of our reason by which we couple meanings and experience in our linguistic expressions. This coupling (...) of personal creativity and cultural tradition makes it possible to bridge the gaps between persons and cultures. (shrink)

State of art paper on the topic causation, around the problem of the nature of causation. Central theories of contemporary philosophical literature are discussed and analysed, namely, regularity theories of Hume and Mackie, counterfactual theories of Lewis, probabilistic theories of Reichenbach, Lewis and Menzies and causal processes theories of Salmon and Dowe.

In a recent opinion paper, it was argued that individuals with multiple retractions or a record of academic misconduct should not serve as editors, including as editors-in-chief, on the editorial boards of scholarly or academic journals. As a first step towards appreciating how such a policy could be applied in practice, the presence of 30 individuals listed on the Retraction Watch Leaderboard on editorial boards was screened. Six cases are highlighted to gain an appreciation of the potential reputational risks that (...) journals and publishers might incur by including individuals with a tainted academic record on editorial boards. Given the reputational, legal and other risks associated with this type of assessment and decision, more formal positioning and guidance are needed by global ethics policy-related bodies such as COPE, the ICMJE, and the CSE, even more so in journals that claim to follow these organizations’ ethical guidelines. (shrink)