Investigations into inter-level relations in computer science, biology and psychology call for an *empirical* turn in the philosophy of mind. Rather than concentrate on *a priori* discussions of inter-level relations between 'completed' sciences, a case is made for the actual study of the way inter-level relations grow out of the developing sciences. Thus, philosophical inquiries will be made more relevant to the sciences, and, more importantly, philosophical accounts of inter-level relations will be testable by confronting them with what really happens (...) in science. Hence, close observation of the ever-changing reduction relations in the developing sciences, and revision of philosophical positions based on these empirical observations, may, in the long run, be more conducive to an adequate understanding of inter-level relations than a traditional *a priori* approach. (shrink)

Proceedings of Philosophical Festival Drift 2014. Theme: Under Influence. Includes lectures by Katrien Schaubroeck, Philippe Descola, Markus Gabriel, Ray Brassier, Francesco Berto, Henk Oosterling, and Tomáš Sedlácek (among others). Lectures are in Dutch or English.

Review of Johan de Jong, The Movement of Showing: Indirect Method, Critique, and Responsibility in Derrida, Hegel, and Heidegger (New York: SUNY, 2020).

This article explains Kant’s claim that sciences must take, at least as their ideal, the form of a ‘system’. I argue that Kant’s notion of systematicity can be understood against the background of de Jong & Betti’s Classical Model of Science (2010) and the writings of Georg Friedrich Meier and Johann Heinrich Lambert. According to my interpretation, Meier, Lambert, and Kant accepted an axiomatic idea of science, articulated by the Classical Model, which elucidates their conceptions of systematicity. I show that (...) Kant’s critique of the mathematical method is compatible with his adherence to this axiomatic conception of science. I further show that systematicity furthers traditionally accepted logical ideals of scientific knowledge, which explains why Meier and Kant think that sciences must be ‘systematic’. (shrink)

In dit artikel onderzoek ik of de standaardbenaderingen van burgerschapsonderwijs in de Lage Landen geschikt zijn om jonge mensen voor te bereiden om de huidige politieke realiteiten tegemoet te treden, laat staan om onrecht te bestrijden. Ik laat zien waarom een nadruk op ‘democratische principes’ of de rechtsstaat de status quo waarschijnlijk niet zal veranderen zolang opvoeders er niet in slagen de aandacht voor de waarheid te cultiveren die nodig is om te kunnen oordelen over rivaliserende normatieve claims. Met (...) name op tolerantie gebaseerde interpretaties van burgerschap zullen weinig bereiken in afwezigheid van burgerlijke deugden – vooral moreel oordelen en morele moed – die nodig zijn voor dissent. Dissent omvat minimaal een bereidheid om de waarheid te spreken tegen de macht. Maar het ernstigste probleem betreffende burgerschapsonderwijs op school betreft de legitimiteit ervan, gegeven dat dat onderwijs gebaseerd is op een door de overheid opgelegd curriculum met als doel een gewenste respons op de boodschap ervan op te leggen en te conditioneren. Daardoor staat het per definitie vijandig tegenover dissent. (shrink)

Childhood looms large in our understanding of human life as it is a phase through which all adults have passed. Childhood is foundational to the development of selfhood, the formation of interests, values and skills and to the lifespan as a whole. Understanding what it is like to be a child, and what differences childhood makes, are essential for any broader understanding of the human condition. The Routledge Handbook of the Philosophy of Childhood and Children is an outstanding reference source (...) to the key topics, problems and debates in this exciting subject and is the first collection of its kind. Comprising over thirty chapters by a team of international contributors the Handbook is divided into five parts: ¿ Being a child ¿ Childhood and moral status ¿ Parents and children ¿ Children in society ¿ Children and the state. Questions covered include: What is a child? Is childhood a uniquely valuable state, and if so why? Can we generalize about the goods of childhood? What rights do children have, and are they different from adults¿ rights? What gives people a right to parent? What role, if any, ought biology to play in determining who has the right to parent a particular child? What kind of rights can parents legitimately exercise over their children? What roles do relationships with siblings and friends play in the shaping of childhoods? How should we think about sexuality and disabilility in childhood, and about racialised children? How should society manage the education of children, and what values should inform such practices? What is a good school? How are children¿s lives affected by being taken into social care? The Routledge Handbook of the Philosophy of Childhood and Children is essential reading for students and researchers in philosophy of childhood, political philosophy and ethics as well as those in related disciplines such as education, psychology, sociology, social policy, law, social work, youth work, neuroscience and anthropology. (shrink)

In this paper we provide a defence of cosmopolitanism from a liberal perspective, examining its moral underpinnings, including moral obligations predicated on a belief in common humanity and the fundamental dignity of human people, cultural capacities that include an embrace of pluralism and a fallibilist disposition, and pragmatist resolve in finding humanitarian solutions to real problems that people face. We also scrutinise the ideal of cosmopolitanism by considering the ‘deeply religious’ as the sort of people about whom it may be (...) said that irreconcilable tensions exist between certain types of commitment and/or belonging and what the demands of cosmopolitanism involve. (shrink)

In this paper, I try to articulate and clarify the role of the epistemic authority of experts in Kuhn’s explanation for the transition process between rival paradigms in the scientific revolutionary period. If science progresses, that process should contribute to the attainment of the cognitive aim of science, namely, the articulation of paradigms increasingly successful at the resolution of problems. It is hard to see that process as rational and as attaining the cognitive aim of science without the consideration of (...) epistemic authority.The mistake of Kuhn was to emphasize and clarify insufficiently the role of the epistemic authority of experts; his critics failed for ignoring it altogether. (shrink)

The first aim of this note is to describe an algebraic structure, more primitive than lattices and quantales, which corresponds to the intuitionistic flavour of Linear Logic we prefer. This part of the note is a total trivialisation of ideas from category theory and we play with a toy-structure a not distant cousin of a toy-language. The second goal of the note is to show a generic categorical construction, which builds models for Linear Logic, similar to categorical models GC of (...) [deP1990], but more general. The ultimate aim is to relate different categorical models of linear logic. (shrink)

This paper is divided in four parts. In the first part we introduce the method of internal critique of philosophical theories by examination of their external consistency with scientific theories. In the second part two metaphysical and one epistemological postulate of Wittgenstein's Tractatus are made explicit and formally expressed. In the third part we examine whether Tractarian metaphysical and epistemological postulates (the independence of simple states of affairs, the unique mode of their composition, possibility of complete empirical knowledge) are externally (...) consistent with the theory of quantum mechanics. The result of the inquiry is negative: Tractarian postulates ought to be be revised. Relying on the result we approach the question of the empirical character of logic in the fourth part. The description of theoretical transformations of the notion of disjunction, in its ontological, epistemological, and logical sense, is a common element of in all parts of the text. The conjecture on the existence of different types of disjunctive connectives in the language of quantum mechanics concludes the paper. (shrink)

We examine the proof-theoretic verificationist justification procedure proposed by Dummett. After some scrutiny, two distinct interpretations with respect to bases are advanced: the independent and the dependent interpretation. We argue that both are unacceptable as a semantics for propositional intuitionistic logic.

Recent experimental research has revealed surprising patterns in people's intuitions about free will and moral responsibility. One limitation of this research, however, is that it has been conducted exclusively on people from Western cultures. The present paper extends previous research by presenting a cross-cultural study examining intuitions about free will and moral responsibility in subjects from the United States, Hong Kong, India and Colombia. The results revealed a striking degree of cross-cultural convergence. In all four cultural groups, the majority of (...) participants said that (a) our universe is indeterministic and (b) moral responsibility is not compatible with determinism. (shrink)

People generally accept that there is causation by omission—that the omission of some events cause some related events. But this acceptance elicits the selection problem, or the difficulty of explaining the selection of a particular omissive cause or class of causes from the causal conditions. Some theorists contend that dependence theories of causation cannot resolve this problem. In this paper, we argue that the appeal to norms adequately resolves the selection problem for dependence theories, and we provide novel experimental evidence (...) for it. (shrink)

This is the first record of nesting in the soil by the ant Camponotus sericeiventris (Guérin-Méneville, 1838), which has arboreal habit. The study was conducted in southeastern Brazil, in an ant colony located in a subterranean site. This study describes, for the first time, the ability of this arboreal species to vary its nesting site by the occupation of an unusual place in an urban environment; and this study demonstrates that this species is an interesting model for studies in urban (...) environments. (shrink)

We propose to understand social affordances in the broader context of responsiveness to a field of relevant affordances in general. This perspective clarifies our everyday ability to unreflectively switch between social and other affordances. Moreover, based on our experience with Deep Brain Stimulation for treating obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) patients, we suggest that psychiatric disorders may affect skilled intentionality, including responsiveness to social affordances.

The distinction between the body schema and the body image has become the stock in trade of much recent work in cognitive neuroscience and philosophy. Yet little is known about the interactions between these two types of body representations. We need to account not only for their dissociations in rare cases, but also for their convergence most of the time. Indeed in our everyday life the body we perceive does not conflict with the body we act with. Are the body (...) image and the body schema then somehow reshaping each other or are they relatively independent and do they only happen to be congruent? On the basis of the study of bodily hallucinations, we consider which model can best account for the body schema/body image interactions. (shrink)

In a situation of peer disagreement, peers are usually assumed to share the same evidence. However they might not share the same evidence for the epistemic system used to process the evidence. This synchronic complication of the peer disagreement debate suggested by Goldman (In Feldman R, Warfield T (eds) (2010) Disagreement. Oxford University Press, Oxford, pp 187–215) is elaborated diachronically by use of a simulation. The Hegselmann–Krause model is extended to multiple epistemic systems and used to investigate the role of (...) consensus and difference splitting in peer disagreement. I find that the very possibility of multiple epistemic systems downgrades the epistemic value of consensus and makes difference splitting a suboptimal strategy. (shrink)

Following the speech act theory, we take hypotheses and assertions as linguistic acts with different illocutionary forces. We assume that a hypothesis is justified if there is at least a scintilla of evidence for the truth of its propositional content, while an assertion is justified when there is conclusive evidence that its propositional content is true. Here we extend the logical treatment for assertions given by Dalla Pozza and Garola by outlining a pragmatic logic for assertions and hypotheses. On the (...) basis of this extension we analyse the standard logical opposition relations for assertions and hypotheses. We formulate a pragmatic square of oppositions for assertions and a hexagon of oppositions for hypotheses. Finally, we give a mixed hexagon of oppositions to point out the opposition relations for assertions and hypotheses. (shrink)

People often reason about omissions. One line of research shows that people can distinguish between the semantics of omissive causes and omissive enabling conditions: for instance, not flunking out of college enabled you (but didn’t cause you) to graduate. Another line of work shows that people rely on the normative status of omissive events in inferring their causal role: if the outcome came about because the omission violated some norm, reasoners are more likely to select that omission as a cause. (...) We designed a novel paradigm that tests how norms interact with the semantics of omissive enabling conditions. The paradigm concerns the circuitry of a mechanical device that plays music. Two experiments used the paradigm to stipulate norms and present a distinct set of possibilities to participants. Participants chose which causal verb best described the operations of the machine. The studies revealed that participants’ responses are best predicted by their tendency to consider the semantics of omissive relations. In contrast, norms had little to no effect in participants’ responses. We conclude by marshaling the evidence and considering what role norms may play in people’s understanding of omissions. (shrink)

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

This debate or “Critical Exchange” section from Contemporary Political Theory includes the following four articles discussing the book, the Dawn of Everything by David Graeber and David Wengrow: “We make our own history, but in circumstances of other people’s choosing: intercultural materialism in The Dawn of Everything” by Enzo Rossi, “Questions about The Dawn of Everything” by Karl Widerquist and Grant McCall, “Freedom and the bureaucratic state” by Annelien de Dijn, and “On historical materialism and The Dawn of Everything” by (...) David Wengrow. (shrink)

The extended mind thesis claims that at least some cognitive processes extend beyond the organism’s brain in that they are constituted by the organism’s actions on its surrounding environment. A more radical move would be to claim that social actions performed by the organism could at least constitute some of its mental processes. This can be called the socially extended mind thesis. Based on the notion of affordance as developed in the ecological psychology tradition, I defend the position that perception (...) extends to the environment. Then I will expand the notion of affordance to encompass social affordances. Thus, perception can in some situations also be socially extended. (shrink)

In this paper, we discuss an abductive argument for the existence of God from the experience of awe at natural beauty. If God's creative work is a viable explanation for why we experience awe at natural beauty, and there is no satisfactory naturalistic explanation for the origins of such experiences, then we have defeasible evidence that God exists. To evaluate the argument's tenability, we assess the merits of the two main theocentric frameworks that can be marshaled to answer the question (...) of why human beings experience awe at natural beauty: (1) taking the experience of natural beauty as resulting from God's design intentions and (2) conceiving experiences of natural beauty as religious experiences in themselves. We argue that the presence of phenomenological content the fine-grainedness of which exceeds our descriptive and conceptual capacities is better accounted for by the latter hypothesis: experiencing natural beauty amounts to experiencing divine attributes. We conclude that the argument's theological premise is tenable and, having previously argued for the empirical premise (Porcher & De Luca-Noronha, 2021), we conclude that awe at natural beauty is best explained by the existence of God. (shrink)

Abordagens pós-cognitivistas mais recentes têm lançado duras críticas à noção de representação mental, procurando ao invés disso pensar a mente e a cognição em termos de ações corporificadas do organismo em seu meio. Embora concordemos com essa concepção, não está claro que ela implique necessariamente a rejeição de qualquer tipo de vocabulário representacional. O objetivo deste artigo é argumentar que representações podem nos comprar uma dimensão explicativa adicional não disponível por outros meios e sugerir que, ao menos em alguns casos, (...) elas podem participar da explicação de performances ou capacidades cognitivas. A noção de representação apresentada, como deixaremos claro ao longo do artigo, não viola os preceitos metodológicos mais caros à cognição 4E em geral e ao enativismo em particular, podendo, portanto, ser utilizada como uma ferramenta teórica útil em investigações sobre a natureza corporificada e situada da mente. (shrink)

O objetivo deste trabalho é desafiar as correntes tradicionais da bioética, que fundamentam ideais abstratos de imparcialidade, cidadania universal e autonomia absoluta; confrontá-los a partir do conhecimento situado e do reconhecimento da matriz de dominação interseccional vigente na América Latina. Procura investigar como transformar múltiplas desigualdades, repolitizando a justiça interseccional, a agência política em momentos críticos de progresso e colonização dos nossos bens comuns. Nossa proposta final é uma bioética crítica interseccional, representativa e participativa, que inclua de forma não subordinada (...) as vozes e os conhecimentos dos outros, focada em nossas necessidades regionais, promovendo nossa autonomia relacional e o cuidado com a vida, em e para nossos territórios, comunidades e as gerações futuras. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is twofold: First, we present and develop a system of logic for pragmatics including the act of denial. Second, we analyse in our framework the so-called paradox of assertability. We show that it is possible to yield sentences that are not assertable. Moreover, under certain conditions, a symmetric result can be obtained: There is a specular paradox of deniability. However, this paradox is based on the problematic principle of classical denial equivalence.

The purpose of this article is to examine the relationship between the formation of the self and the worldly horizon within which this self achieves its meaning. Our inquiry takes place from two perspectives: the first derived from the Nietzschean analysis of how one becomes what one is; the other from current developments in complexity theory. This two-angled approach opens up different, yet related dimensions of a non-essentialist understanding of the self that is none the less neither arbitrary nor deterministic. (...) Indeed, at the meeting point of these two perspectives on the self lies a conception of a dynamic, worldly self, whose identity is bound up with its appearance in a world shared with others. After examining this argument from the respective view points offered by Nietzsche and complexity theory, the article concludes with a consideration of some of the political and ethical implications of representing our situatedness within a shared human domain as a condition for self-formation. (shrink)

This paper is a defense of the so-called phenomenal-concept strategy, based on a new view of phenomenal concepts as special de re modes of presentation of the phenomenal character of experience. Phenomenal concepts can be explained in physical terms as mental particulars (as phenomenal files) created in the individual’s mind to pick out the phenomenal character of experience by representing certain physical properties as those represented by the experiences themselves (metarepresentation). They are individuated by two fundamental relations: the perceptual (acquaintance) (...) relation the creature bears to the physical properties represented by its own experience and the relation the creature bears to itself (self-acquaintance) as the subject undergoing those experiences. Mary’s newly acquired phenomenal file presents the phenomenal character of her new experience of red by means of the new relation she bears to herself as the creature standing in the experiential relation to the color red. (shrink)

The argument from illusion/hallucination have been proposed many times as supporting the strong conclusion that we are always perceiving directly sense-data. In Sense & Sensibilia, Austin argues that this argument is based on a “mass of seductive (mainly verbal) fallacies”. In this paper, I argue that Austin's argumentative moves to deconstruct the argument from illusion is better understood if they are seen as due to his implicit commitment to some disjunctivist conception of perception. His considerations should be taken as a (...) depth discussion about how to conceive perception. If we conceive the perceptual capacity disjunctively, even the weaker conclusion that we sometimes perceive sense-data does not hold. In response to Austin, Ayer claimed that the strong conclusion of the argument from illusion could be sustained by the method of the possibility of error. I argue that this method alone does not sustain that conclusion and the controversy turns back to the conflict between different conceptions of perception. The argument from illusion is philosophically interesting by putting in evidence the problem of how the perceptual capacity should be articulated and conceived. Although matters of fact are relevant to this question, they alone do not decide it. (shrink)

This presentation discusses a notion encountered across disciplines, and in different facets of human activity: autonomous activity. We engage it in an interdisciplinary way. We start by considering the reactions and behaviors of biological entities to biotechnological intervention. An attempt is made to characterize the degree of freedom of embryos & clones, which show openness to different outcomes when the epigenetic developmental landscape is factored in. We then consider the claim made in programming and artificial intelligence that automata could show (...) self-directed behavior as to the determination of their step-wise decisions on courses of action. This question remains largely open and calls for some important qualifications. We try to make sense of the presence of claims of freedom in agency, first in common sense, then by ascribing developmental plasticity in biology and biotechnology, and in the mapping of programmed systems in the presence of environmental cues and self-referenced circuits as well as environmental coupling. This is the occasion to recall attempts at working out a logical and methodological approach to the openness of concepts that are still to be found, and assess whether they can operate the structuring intelligibility of a yet undeveloped or underdeveloped field of study, where a “bisociation" and a unification of knowledge might be possible. (shrink)

The paper introduces Vailati’s life and works, investigating Vailati’s education, the relation to Peano and his school, and the interest for pragmatism and modernism. A detailed analysis of Vailati’s scientific and didactic activities, shows that he held, like Peano, a a strong interest for the history of science and a pluralist, anti-dogmatic and anti-foundationalist conception of definitions in mathematics, logic and philosophy of language. Vailati’s understanding of mathematical logic as a form of pragmatism is not a faithful interpretation of Peano’s (...) conception, but it is essential to understand the relations of Peano’s logic with other philosophical traditions and some epistemological aspects of Peano’s perspective, such as the search for a universal language. (shrink)

Schaffer (2010) argues that the internal relatedness of all things, no matter how it is conceived, entails priority monism. He claims that a sufficiently pervasive internal relation among objects implies the priority of the whole, understood as a concrete object. This paper shows that at least in the case of an internal relatedness of all things conceived in terms of physical intentionality - one way to understand dispositions - priority monism not only doesn't follow but also is precluded. We conclude (...) that the internal relatedness of all things is compatible with several different ontologies (including varieties of pluralism) but entails nothing concerning dependence between concrete objects. (shrink)

In this paper art history and visual studies, the disciplines that study visual culture, are presented as a field whose conjectural paradigm can be used to understand the epistemic problems associated with abduction. In order to do so, significant statements, concepts and arguments from the work of several specialists in this field have been highlighted. Their analysis shows the fruitfulness and potential for understanding the study of visual culture as a field that is interwoven with the assumptions of abductive cognition.

Rachlin's thought-provoking analysis could be strengthened by greater openness to evolutionary interpretation and the use of the directed attention concept as a component of self-control. His contribution to the understanding of prosocial behavior would also benefit from abandoning the traditional (and excessively restrictive) definition of altruism.

Mechanisms for QoS provisioning in communication networks range from flow-based resource reservation schemes, providing QoS guarantees, through QoS differentiation based on reservation aggregation techniques to adaptation of applications, compensating for incomplete reservations. Scalable, aggregation-based reservations can also be combined with adaptations for a more flexible and robust overall QoS provisioning. Adaptation is particularly important in wireless networks, where reservations schemes are more difficult to realize. It is widely accepted that usability of Cellular or Mobile IP can be largely improved if (...) adaptation is incorporated. Adaptation, in turn, depends on coding techniques involved and on user requirements. Those impose certain preferences and ordering relations on QoS hierarchies or degradation paths to be followed along when adaptation is performed. With the advent of MPEG4 coding techniques, more sophisticated adaptation schemes are more likely to be supported in the future. (shrink)

Is ruling out the possibility that one is dreaming a requirement for a knowledge claim? In “Philosophical Scepticism and Everyday Life” (1984), Barry Stroud defends that it is. In “Others Minds” (1970), John Austin says it is not. In his defense, Stroud appeals to a conception of objectivity deeply rooted in us and with which our concept of knowledge is intertwined. Austin appeals to a detailed account of our scientific and everyday practices of knowledge attribution. Stroud responds that what Austin (...) says about those practices is correct in relation to the appropriateness of making knowledge claims, but that the skeptic is interested in the truth of those claims. In this paper, we argue that Stroud’s defense of the alleged requirement smuggles in a commitment to a kind of internalism, which asserts that the perceptual justification available to us can be characterized independently of the circumstances in which we find ourselves. In our reading of Austin, especially of Sense & Sensibilia, he rejects that kind of internalism by an implicit commitment to what is called today a “disjunctive” view of perception. Austin says that objectivity is an aspect of knowledge, and his disjunctivism is part of an explanation of why the alleged requirement is not necessary for a knowledge claim. Since both Stroud and Austin are committed to the objectivity of knowledge, Stroud may ask which view of perceptual knowledge is correct, whether the internalist or the disjunctive. We argue that by paying closer attention to what Austin says about our practices of knowledge attribution, one can see more clearly that it is grounded not only on a conception of objectivity, but also on a conception of ourselves as information agents, a conception that is as deeply rooted as that of the objectivity of knowledge. This gives us moral and practical reasons to favor the disjunctive view of perception. (shrink)

The aim of this essay is to provide an overview of New Realism in its opposition and reaction to Postmodernism. An analysis of the implications of both philosophical approaches in diverse fields will be offered, from epistemology, to politics, to ethics. Ethical new realism is presented as particularly promising and important to the future of philosophy.

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

One way to detect, monitor and prevent adverse events with the help of Information Technology is by using ontologies capable of representing three levels of reality: what is the case, what is believed about reality, and what is represented. We report on how Basic Formal Ontology and Referent Tracking exhibit this capability and how they are used to develop an adverse event ontology and related data annotation scheme for the European ReMINE project.

Heidegger tries to explain our emotional life applying three schemes: causal explanation, mental internalisation of emotions and metaphorical expression. None of the three schemes explains emotion though. Either because the causal nexus does not always occur or because objects and people in the external world are carriers of emotional agents or because language is already on a metaphorical level. Moreover, how is it possible that there are presently emotions constituting our life without our being aware of their existence? From the (...) analysis of boredom in its three varieties (“bored by X”, “get oneself bored”, and “it is boring”) we will get to the depth where emotions lie, trying to rouse them and to keep them awake. Although it surfaces with the force and energy of the present, every emotion has its past and future constitution. How can we understand the future of a present emotion along with its past? (shrink)

This paper discusses the possibility of an absolute vacuum - a space without any substance. The motivation of this study is the contrast between most philosophers, up to Descartes, who stated that a vacuum was impossible, and the 17th century change of outlook, when the possibility and effective existence of the vacuum was accepted after the experiments of Torricelli and Pascal. This article attempts to show that, contrary to the received opinion, the acceptance of an ether is preferable to the (...) acceptance of a vacuum for several reasons. First: it is impossible to provide an empirical proof of the non-existence of the ether; second, an absolute vacuum is unthinkable; third, the ether concept is useful for the understanding of physical phaenomena; and fourth, the hypothesis of an ether in apparently void spaces is useful for the future development of science. The paper also endeavours to show that no recent advance of science changed those conclusions and that no future development can change them. (shrink)

This is an article about Legal Pragmatism, studied under the prism of the Philosophy of Law. The pragmatist philosophical current, born in the United States, was responsible for consolidating the line of legal reasoning aimed at obtaining the results that best meet social desires and human hopes. Legal Pragmatism is not presented as a Theory of Law, consubstantiating itself, in reality, in a method based on argumentation, capable of substantiating decision making. Finally, an attempt was made to ponder on Legal (...) Pragmatism in the Brazilian legal system, as a guide for new perspectives on the application of Law, with emphasis on the recent changes in the Law of Introduction to the Rules of Brazilian Law (Lei de Introdução às Normas do Direito Brasileiro). (shrink)

In this paper, I argue for a new solution to Mary’s puzzle in Jackson’s famous knowledge argument. We are told that imprisoned Mary knows all facts or truths about color and color vision. On her release, she learns something new according to B-type of materialism and according to property dualism. I argue that this cognitive improvement can only be accounted for in terms of what Schellenberg has recently called “capacitism,” namely the claim that that experience is constitutively a matter of (...) discriminating and singling out particulars by employing perceptual capacities. Of course, I am not claiming that knowing the phenomenal character is simply the possession of abilities, let alone that the phenomenal character is a sort of know-how. That is why my claim is not affiliated with Lewis and Nemirow's ability hypothesis position. I take for granted here a sort of property-representationalism, according to which the phenomenal character of experience supervenes on the cluster of properties that the respective experiences represent. On her release, Mary acquires those perceptual abilities on the basis of which she learns to discriminate all shades of color. And after applying her old physical concept RED to the shade of red, she comes to know what it is like to experience red (propositional knowledge). (shrink)

In the last two decades we have witnessed considerable efforts directed towards making electronic healthcare records comparable and interoperable through advances in record architectures and (bio)medical terminologies and coding systems. Deep semantic issues in general, and ontology in particular, have received some interest from the research communities. However, with the exception of work on so-called ‘controlled vocabularies’, ontology has thus far played little role in work on standardization. The prime focus has been rather the rapid population of terminologies at the (...) level of fine detail. In this paper, we argue that more efforts are needed on the side of both research and standardization to ensure that the coding systems used in electronic healthcare records enjoy a semantics that is coherent with the semantics of the record. We propose realist ontology as a method to bring about this coherence by means of a robust system of top-level ontological categories. (shrink)

We provide here irrefutable facts that prove the falsehood of the claims published in [1] by Dehmer and Mowshowitz (DM) against our paper published in [2]. We first prove that Dehmer’s definition of node probability [3] is flawed. In addition, we show that it was not Dehmer in [3] who proposed this definition for the first time. We continue by proving how the use of Dehmer’s definition does not reveal all the physico-mathematical richness of the walk entropy of graphs. Finally, (...) we show a few facts about the failure of DM themselves to cite properly the relevant literature in their field. We also show here how the Editors of Complexity have failed to manage the publication of [1] in an appropriate way according to the accepted guidelines given in the Code of Conduct and Best Practice Guidelines for Journal Editors, published by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE). (shrink)

A presente investigação tem por objetivo responder à questão título considerando os argumentos apresentados, de um lado, pelos desenvolvimentistas e, de outro, pelos ambientalistas. Entendemos que os argumentos apresentados refletem um conflito de valores mais profundo que, se abordado por uma metodologia de solução de conflitos adequada, pode contribuir para elucidação da questão. A metodologia proposta é o personalismo ético de Scheler. A hierarquia de valores a ser aplicada na solução de conflitos traz (i) o valor pessoa como o mais (...) elevado, seguido dos (ii) valores espirituais, como a justiça, (iii) os vitais, como o bem estar e o útil, e (iv) os sensíveis. Através das ações de preferir e postergar, é possível encontrar pontos de equilíbrio numa permanente atitude crítica. O objetivo é contribuir para que as ações ocorram com a devida diligência para com os direitos humanos. A hipótese inicial é que, identificando os valores em conflito e aplicando a metodologia descrita, a solução de conflitos neste caso concreto permite pensar numa transição energética que concilie o desenvolvimento e o meio ambiente. Compreendemos que ambos têm como fim proteger o valor pessoa. Portanto, o que está em conflito de fato, sem com isso assumir uma postura ingênua, são os valores espirituais e vitais de cada uma das partes. Neste sentido, defendemos que, diante da inevitável demanda por energia da sociedade contemporânea e do alto custo da transição energética, é preciso conciliar o desenvolvimento com o meio ambiente a partir de uma programada transição energética financiada pela exploração do petróleo e gás, mas com metas definidas comprometidas com a neutralidade da emissão de GEE em 2050. Para tanto, é necessário regulamentação, monitoramento e fiscalização por parte do Estado e do governo federal com a finalidade de garantir a substituição dos combustíveis fósseis por fontes energéticas limpas. (shrink)

É possível trabalhar com textos clássicos da filosofia no atual contexto das escolas públicas brasileiras? Se sim, como fazer uso desses textos? Quais as possibilidades e os limites para nossas pretensões, enquanto professores de filosofia, quanto ao uso do texto filosófico? Importantes teóricos do ensino de filosofia no Brasil, tal como Lidia Maria Rodrigo, Renata Aspis e Silvio Gallo, defenderam que os textos filosóficos não apenas podem e devem ser trabalhados em sala de aula, mas ainda que tais textos devem (...) ocupar papel central no ensino da disciplina. Cabe refletir sobre essa proposta a partir da realidade na qual estamos hoje inseridos, pretensão do texto que se segue e cujo objetivo é discutir as possibilidades e os limites do uso do texto filosófico a partir do relato de minha experiência no estágio em filosofia, que foi realizado em uma turma do segundo ano do Ensino Médio em uma escola pública da cidade de Santa Maria, RS. (shrink)

A posição filosófica chamada de externismo semântico caracteriza-se pela tese segundo a qual a individuação do conteúdo de estados mentais deve recorrer a fatores que não podem ser localizados na região geralmente circunscrita pela noção mesma de mente. Tal tese implica, em todo caso, que a suposta interioridade da vida psicológica não se basta para tornar inteligível as condições de possibilidade que o pensamento conceitual requer. Assim, se fatores externos aos indivíduos são vistos como desempenhando uma contribuição decisiva na própria (...) determinação de seu conteúdo mental, isto é algo que torna necessário compreender em que sentido mente e mundo podem ser tomados como intrinsecamente relacionados. A aposta teórica do presente trabalho é a de que apenas uma concepção da individuação liberada dos grilhões substancialistas permite fornecer um solo ontológico fértil para uma teoria externista do conceito. Daí que a noção de triangulação, que Donald Davidson forjou para dar conta de alguns fatores cruciais na gênese da conceitualidade, seja lida a partir de filosofias que ressaltam o caráter decisivo da vida como referencialidade fundamental do conceito. Logo, é na ordem vital que se busca dissolver os impasses ligados à origem da normatividade e à dualidade entre interno e externo, oposição a partir da qual a subjetividade desde muito tempo tem sido pensada. (shrink)