Seguramente lo más interesante de la suspensión de la cuenta de Twitter del ya expresidente Trump después del asalto al Capitolio no sea el debate tan manido sobre los límites de la libertad de expresión, sino el hecho mucho más significativo de que hoy es Twitter quien decide sobre el estado de excepción. Para desentrañar esta particular relación entre técnica y estado de excepción tan característica de nuestro predicamento contemporáneo, hay que leer a Giorgio Agamben. En este sentido, el libro (...) de Juan Evaristo Valls Boix, Política sin obra, ofrece una introducción tan divulgativa como profunda al trabajo del filósofo político italiano. Este ejemplar se enmarca dentro de la colección Pensamiento político posfundacional de la Editorial Gedisa, que lleva desempeñando, en los últimos años, una labor pedagógica admirable a la hora de dar a conocer al público, en lengua castellana y catalana, los principales filósofos y filósofas de lo político que han problematizado cualquier tipo de fundacionalismo –Lyotard, Foucault, Arendt, Derrida, Lefort, Laclau, Mouffe, Badiou, Rancière, Butler, Nancy, Abensour y Anzaldúa, entre otros y otras–. Cuando llega el turno de introducir a Agamben, la directora de la colección, Laura Llevadot, ya avisa que se trata de una auténtica “introducción a la vida no fascista”, haciendo un guiño al prólogo de Foucault sobre el Anti-Edipo de Deleuze y Guattari. (shrink)

Ian Rumfitt (2000) developed a bilateralist account of logic in which the meaning of the connectives is given by conditions on asserted and rejected sentences. An additional set of inference rules, the coordination principles, determines the interaction of assertion and rejection. Fernando Ferreira (2008) found this account defective, as Rumfitt must state the coordination principles for arbitrary complex sentences. Rumfitt (2008) has a reply, but we argue that the problem runs deeper than he acknowledges and is in fact related to (...) the challenge of establishing proof-theoretic harmony. We motivate a distinctively bilateral criterion for harmony and show how the bilateralist can meet it. This also resolves Ferreira's complaint. (shrink)

Scientifically speaking, quantum mechanics (QM) is the most successful theory ever made. Philosophically speaking, however, it is the most controversial theory. Its basic principles seem to contravene our deepest intuitions about reality, which are reflected in the metaphysical commitments of classical mechanics (CM). The aim of this paper is twofold. First, I argue that QM implies an ontological challenge, and not merely an “ontic” one, as it has been traditionally interpreted in the analytic tradition. Second, I suggest that positions known (...) as “ontological pluralism” exhibit an internal weakness due to its unwarranted compromise to a representational view of scientific theories. (shrink)

The article considers the possibility of saying the same truth in different expressions. It is relevant the Fregean distinction between sense and reference. The author shows the deep difference between the objective Fregean notion of truth and Aquinas' version, according to which the truth of the proposition is related, in many cases, to the situation of the speaker.

This book addresses key conceptual issues relating to the modern scientific and engineering use of computer simulations. It analyses a broad set of questions, from the nature of computer simulations to their epistemological power, including the many scientific, social and ethics implications of using computer simulations. The book is written in an easily accessible narrative, one that weaves together philosophical questions and scientific technicalities. It will thus appeal equally to all academic scientists, engineers, and researchers in industry interested in questions (...) related to the general practice of computer simulations. (shrink)

Does self-control require willpower? The question cuts to the heart of a debate about whether self-control is identical with some psychological process internal to the agents or not. Noticeably absent from these debates is systematic evidence about the folk-psychological category of self-control. Here, we present the results of two behavioral studies (N = 296) that indicate the structure of everyday use of the concept. In Study 1, participants rated the degree to which different strategies to respond to motivational conflict exemplify (...) self-control. Participants distinguished between intra-psychic and externally-scaffolded strategies and judged that the former exemplified self-control more than the latter. In Study 2, participants provided various solutions to manage motivational conflict and rated their proposals on effectiveness. Participants produced substantially more intra-psychic strategies, rated them as more effective, and advised them at a higher rate than externally-scaffolded strategies. Taken together, these results suggest that while people recognize a plurality of strategies as genuine instances of self-control, purely internal exercises of self-control are considered more prototypical than their externally-scaffolded counterparts. This implies a hierarchical structure for the folk psychological category of self-control. The concept encompasses a variety of regulatory strategies and organizes these strategies along a hierarchical continuum, with purely intra-psychic strategies at the center and scaffolded strategies in the periphery. (shrink)

Este artículo examina el papel del grupo de artistas abstractos Forma 1 en relación con la política cultural del Partido Comunista Italiano durante la posguerra, como ejemplo de los intentos de superar la dicotomía establecida en Italia entre arte abstracto y realismo socialista y producir una alternativa a la confrontación entre ambos discursos estéticos. Mientras los artistas realistas socialistas subrayaban la necesidad de expresar contenidos políticos explícitos con un estilo que asegurase su máxima legibilidad para una audiencia de masas, los (...) artistas de Forma 1 argumentaban que la abstracción significaba una crítica de la representación pictórica que podía contribuir a la crítica de la ideología burguesa, armonizando de este modo el marxismo con los desarrollos artísticos más avanzados. El PCI, por su parte, basaba su política artística en amplias alianzas de artistas e intelectuales antifascistas, que cada vez eran más difíciles de mantener en el clima de creciente confrontación política y cultural que siguió a la II Guerra Mundial. (shrink)

From our everyday commuting to the gold medalist’s world-class performance, skillful actions are characterized by fine-grained, online agentive control. What is the proper explanation of such control? There are two traditional candidates: intellectualism explains skillful agentive control by reference to the agent’s propositional mental states; anti-intellectualism holds that propositional mental states or reflective processes are unnecessary since skillful action is fully accounted for by automatic coping processes. I examine the evidence for three psychological phenomena recently held to support anti-intellectualism and (...) argue that it supports neither traditional candidate, but an intermediate attention-control account, according to which the top-down, intention-directed control of attention is a necessary component of skillful action. Only this account recognizes both the role of automatic control in skilled action and the need for higher-order cognition to thread automatic processes together into a unified, skillful performance. This applies to bodily skillful action in general, from the world-class performance of experts to mundane, habitual action. The attention-control account stresses that, for intentions to play their role as top-down modulators of attention, agents must sustain the intention’s activation; hence, the need for reflecting throughout performance. (shrink)

Researchers often claim that self-control is a skill. It is also often stated that self-control exertions are intentional actions. However, no account has yet been proposed of the skillful agency that makes self-control exertion possible, so our understanding of self-control remains incomplete. Here I propose the skill model of self-control, which accounts for skillful agency by tackling the guidance problem: how can agents transform their abstract and coarse-grained intentions into the highly context-sensitive, fine-grained control processes required to select, revise and (...) correct strategies during self-control exertion? The skill model borrows conceptual tools from ‘hierarchical models’ recently developed in the context of motor skills, and asserts that self-control crucially involves the ability to manage the implementation and monitoring of regulatory strategies as the self-control exercise unfolds. Skilled agents are able do this by means of flexible practical reasoning: a fast, context-sensitive type of deliberation that incorporates non-propositional representations into the formation and revision of the mixed-format intentions that structure self-control exertion. The literatures on implementation intentions and motivation framing offer corroborating evidence for the theory. As a surprising result, the skill of self-control that allows agents to overcome the contrary motivations they experience is self-effacing: instead of continuously honing this skill, expert agents replace it with a different one, which minimizes or prevents contrary motivations from arising in the first place. Thus, the more expert you are at self-control, the less likely you are to use it. (shrink)

By “epistemic pragmatism” in general I will understand the claim that whether propositions instantiate certain key epistemic properties (such as being known or being justifiably believed) depends not just on factors traditionally recognized as epistemic, but also on pragmatic factors, such as how costly it would be to the subject if the proposition were false. In what follows I consider two varieties of epistemic pragmatism. According to what I shall call moderate epistemic pragmatism, how much evidence we need in favor (...) of a proposition in order to know that the proposition is true depends on our preferences. According to what I shall call extreme epistemic pragmatism, on the other hand, our preferences influence our epistemic position at a more basic level, because they help determine how much justification we actually have in favor of the proposition in question. Simplifying brutally, moderate epistemic pragmatism has it that the more worried we are about a proposition’s being false, the more justification we need in order to know it, whereas extreme epistemic pragmatism has it that the more worried we are about a proposition’s being false, the less justification we have for it. Recently, Fantl and McGrath have presented an interesting argument for moderate epistemic pragmatism, an argument which relies on the principle that (roughly) knowledge is sufficient for action (KA). In this paper I argue that KA, together with a plausible principle about second-order evidence, entails extreme epistemic pragmatism. (shrink)

The volume gathers theoretical contributions on human rights and global justice in the context of international migration. It addresses the need to reconsider human rights and the theories of justice in connection with the transformation of the social frames of reference that international migrations foster. The main goal of this collective volume is to analyze and propose principles of justice that serve to address two main challenges connected to international migrations that are analytically differentiable although inextricably linked in normative terms: (...) to better distribute the finite resources of the planet among all its inhabitants; and to ensure the recognition of human rights in current migration policies. Due to the very nature of the debate on global justice and the implementation of human rights and migration policies, this interdisciplinary volume aims at transcending the academic sphere and appeals to a large public through argumentative reflections. Challenging the Borders of Justice in the Age of Migrations represents a fresh and timely contribution. -/- IN A TIME when national interests are structurally overvalued and borders increasingly strengthened, it’s a breath of fresh air to read a book in which migration flows are not changed into a threat. We simply cannot understand the world around us through the lens of the ‘migration crisis’-a message the authors of this book have perfectly understood. Aimed at a strong link between theories of global justice and policies of border control, this timely book combines the normative and empirical to deeply question the way our territorial boundaries are justified. Professor Ronald Tinnevelt, Radboud University Nijmegen, The Netherlands.- -/- THIS BOOK IS essential reading for those frustrated by the limitations of the dominant ways of thinking about global justice especially in relation to migration. By bringing together discussions of global justice, cosmopolitan political theory and migration, this collection of essays has the potential to transform the way in which we think and debate the critical issues of membership and movement. Together they present a critical interdisciplinary approach to international migration, human rights and global justice, challenging disciplinary borders as well as political ones. Professor Phil Cole, University of the West of England, UK.-. (shrink)

This article aims to develop a new account of scientific explanation for computer simulations. To this end, two questions are answered: what is the explanatory relation for computer simulations? And what kind of epistemic gain should be expected? For several reasons tailored to the benefits and needs of computer simulations, these questions are better answered within the unificationist model of scientific explanation. Unlike previous efforts in the literature, I submit that the explanatory relation is between the simulation model and the (...) results of the simulation. I also argue that our epistemic gain goes beyond the unificationist account, encompassing a practical dimension as well. (shrink)

Esta historia de la relación entre arte y comunismo a través de los escritos de sus principales exponentes abarca el periodo comprendido entre la Revolución de Octubre y el fin del estalinismo e incluye una amplia selección de escritos teóricos, directivas políticas, manifiestos, etc., muchos de ellos inéditos hasta ahora en castellano. El volumen comienza con ejemplos de la relación entre las vanguardias artísticas y el Partido Comunista; continúa con las diferentes formulaciones de la cultura socialista ante la estabilización del (...) Estado Soviético, la extensión internacional del movimiento comunista y la consolidación comercial e institucional del arte moderno. Termina con escritos elaborados en el contexto de la muerte de Stalin que aún pretenden mantener fidelidad a los postulados anteriores, pero tan deliberadamente vagos, que indican importantes revisiones a la cultura socialista precedente. (shrink)

This study aims to examine counseling services as determinants of senior secondary 2 students’ anti-social behaviour in Calabar Education Zone of Cross River State, Nigeria. The main independent variable of the study was counseling services which includes informative counseling services, rehabilitation while the dependent variable is anti-social behaviours. Two hypotheses were formulated to direct the study. Ex-post facto research design was adopted for the study. The population of the study consisted of 2686 senior secondary 2 students in 90 public secondary (...) schools in Calabar Education Zone of which a sample of 700 senior secondary 2 students were selected using stratified and proportionate random sampling procedures. A questionnaire titled Counseling services and antisocial behaviour was used for data collection. The instrument was face-validated by two experts in measurement and evaluation from the University of Calabar. The reliability estimate of the questionnaire was established through the Cronbach alpha which ranges from give .82 to .87. Simple Linear Regression was the statistical technique adopted to test the two hypotheses at .05 level of significance. The results of the analysis revealed that informative counseling services, rehabilitation counseling service are significantly determinant of senior secondary 2 students’ anti- Social behaviour in public secondary schools in Calabar Education zone. Based on these findings, it was recommended that regular counseling services should be given to students in order to inform them about the acceptable behaviours in the society and to curb anti-social behaviours among them. (shrink)

For Plato mimesis is the appearance of the external image of things. In his view, the reality was not to be found in the world of objects but in the realm of ideas. Therefore, Plato sees the arts as an occupation that is inferior to science and philosophy, but that is also a potential source of corruption. His concept of imitation, although it evolved over time, led him to take an increasingly dogmatic and intolerant position regarding artistic creation. His notion (...) that poetry is morally dangerous establishes the foundations for a didactic critique, which tends to flourish in societies undergoing political crises. Plato wrote his works during an age of instability and decline; an age when the role of Athens as the leading power in the Mediterranean was beginning to be questioned. Through an analysis of Ion and Books II, III, and X of The Republic, this essay explores the epistemological and moral —rather than aesthetic— nature of Plato’s judgment on the value of Poetry and the Arts. (shrink)

In the last decades there has been a great controversy about the scientific status of emotion categories. This controversy stems from the idea that emotions are heterogeneous phenomena, which precludes classifying them under a common kind. In this article, I analyze this claim—which I call the Variability Thesis—and argue that as it stands, it is problematically underdefined. To show this, I examine a recent formulation of the thesis as offered by Scarantino (2015). On one hand, I raise some issues regarding (...) the logical structure of the claim. On the other hand, and most importantly, I show that the Variability Thesis requires a consensus about what counts as a relevant pattern of response in different domains, a consensus that is lacking in the current literature. This makes it difficult to assess what counts as evidence for or against this thesis. As a result, arguments based on the Variability Thesis are unwarranted. This raises serious concerns about some current empirical theories of emotions, but also sheds light on the issue of the scientific status of emotion categories. (shrink)

This chapter explores the possibility of integrating the enactive and the Free Energy Principle’s (FEP) approaches to life and mind. Both frameworks have been linked to the life-mind continuity thesis, but recent debates challenge their potential integration. Critics argue that the enactive approach, rooted in autopoiesis theory, has an internalist view of life and a contentful view of cognition, making it challenging to account for adaptive behavior and minimal cognition. Similarly, some find the FEP’s stationary view of life biologically implausible. (...) Here, I address recent challenges in integrating the FEP and enactivism, thereby focusing on the life-mind continuity thesis. I suggest that the FEP, without explicitly defining life and mind, can be used to model the autopoietic dynamics of organisms. Additionally, I argue that the enactive conception of cognition as sense-making overcomes issues associated with contentful views of cognition. Furthermore, I refute the misinterpretation of the FEP’s assertion of stationary organisms, allowing for the modeling of enactive adaptive behavior through free energy minimization. Ultimately, I offer a constructive and interactionist approach to life and mind, transcending internalist and externalist perspectives. (shrink)

According to intellectualists, the will is a rational inclination towards apprehended goodness. This conception of the will makes its acts intelligible: they are explained by (i) the nature of the will as a rational inclination, and (ii) the judgement of the intellect that moves the will. From this it follows that it is impossible for an agent to will evil as such or for its own sake. In explaining wrongdoing intellectualists cite cognitive error or the disruptive influences of the passions; (...) these considerations, however, seem involuntary and at least partly exculpatory. The intellectualist needs an account that renders wrongful actions intelligible without undermining their status as responsible. I argue that Leibniz has the theoretical tools to provide at least part of an answer to this problem. In sum, an agent is directly responsible for her wrongdoing if the cognitive error or the disruptive influence of the passions that help explain this wrongdoing do not completely undermine her acting freely; an agent is indirectly responsible for her wrongdoing if she is directly responsible for previous actions which partly resulted in her wrongdoing, even if the presence of cognitive error or disruptive influence of the passions completely undermines her acting freely. (shrink)

Carlos Vaz Ferreira argues that the problem of freedom is conceptually distinct from the problem of causal determinism. The problem of freedom is ultimately a problem regarding the ontologically independent agency of a being, and the problem of determinism is a problem regarding explanations of events or acts in terms of the totality of their antecedent causal conditions. As Vaz Ferreira sees it, failing to keep these problems apart gives rise to merely apparent but unreal puzzles pertaining to the nature (...) of freedom and its relation to determinism. In this article, I present my interpretation of Vaz Ferreira’s distinctive ideas regarding the nature of freedom and its relation to casual determinism. (shrink)

Effort and the feeling of effort play important roles in many theoretical discussions, from perception to self-control and free will, from the nature of ownership to the nature of desert and achievement. A crucial, overlooked distinction within the philosophical and scientific literatures is the distinction between theories that seek to explain effort and theories that seek to explain the feeling of effort. Lacking a clear distinction between these two phenomena makes the literature hard to navigate. To advance in the unification (...) and development of this area, this article provides an overview of the main theories of the nature of effort and the nature of the feeling of effort, and then discusses how efforts and their feelings are related. Two key takeaways emerge. First, there is widespread agreement that efforts are goal-directed actions. Second, one of the main philosophical issues to be decided is whether feelings of effort should be defined by reference to efforts (effort-first approach), or whether efforts are defined by reference to the feeling of effort (feeling-first approach). (shrink)

Colombian literature of the nineteenth century captures the emerging process of the new nation and shows the ethical changes needed for the formation of a new country. By using the Colombian novel and poetry produced in the nineteenth-century, this paper will show how these are unfolded in practical effects of the works, drawing on the authors’ desire to influence with their work the ethical and political progress of the country, their society and the life of citizens, and to contribute to (...) the foundation of the modern state in Colombia through a citizen ethics proposed in the texts. Additionally, this paper stresses the literary effort of reappraising the national moral and political situation, of confronting this with the past and, accordingly, of assessing the current situation. -/- La literatura colombiana del siglo XIX captura el proceso de la emergente nación e indica los cambios éticos necesarios para la conformación de un nuevo país. Recurriendo a la novela y la poesía colombiana del siglo XIX, se evidenciará cómo se despliega en estas efectos prácticos de las obras, bajo el anhelo del autor de incidir con sus letras en el progreso ético y político del país, la sociedad y la vida de los ciudadanos, con la fundación del Estado Moderno en Colombia a través de una ética ciudadana propuesta en los textos. Igualmente, se resalta el empeño literario de revaluar la situación moral y política nacional, confrontarla respecto al pasado y evaluar la actualidad conforme a ella. (shrink)

El objetivo tradicional de la unidad de cuidados intensivos (UCI) es disminuir la mortalidad y morbilidad de los pacientes en estado crítico. A pesar de los avances médicos y tecnológicos, la UCI continúa siendo un lugar común en donde la muerte ocurre, por lo que en la actualidad el equipo de salud de la UCI debe estar familiarizado con los cuidados paliativos y su legislación en México. Preservar la dignidad del paciente, evitar el daño y mantener una comunicación adecuada entre (...) los miembros del equipo de salud y los familiares es fundamental. No existe una técnica única y universal aceptada para la atención de los pacientes en estado terminal en las UCI, por lo que se debe individualizar cada caso y definir objetivos de atención junto con el paciente o sus familiares dentro del marco legal vigente en México. (shrink)

A new proof style adequate for modal logics is defined from the polynomial ring calculus. The new semantics not only expresses truth conditions of modal formulas by means of polynomials, but also permits to perform deductions through polynomial handling. This paper also investigates relationships among the PRC here defined, the algebraic semantics for modal logics, equational logics, the Dijkstra???Scholten equational-proof style, and rewriting systems. The method proposed is throughly exemplified for S 5, and can be easily extended to other modal (...) logics. (shrink)

Jorge Portilla argues that authentic philosophical inquiry plays a liberating function. This function is that of bringing more fully to consciousness aspects of identities or ways of being‐in‐the world that have been, up until then, tacit or opaque to the agent herself to facilitate her endorsement, rejection, or modification of these identities. For Portilla, this function facilitates greater self‐mastery by increasing the range of free variations of subjectivity available to the agent, and this increase in self‐mastery itself constitutes a kind (...) of liberation. The main goal of this article is to provide a substantive interpretation of the nature of liberation Portilla thinks is embedded in this central function of authentic philosophical inquiry. I argue that this type of liberation should be understood ultimately in terms of increases in human agency, so I label it “agential liberation.” For Portilla, agential liberation involves two central elements: (i) a type of agential flourishing central to human flourishing, and (ii) an increase in the reach of intentional action that I describe as an expansion in the arena of human agency. (shrink)

Gibson defined affordances as action possibilities directly offered to an animal by the environment. Ambitiously, affordances are meant to show the inadequacy of the subjective-objective dichotomy in the study of cognition. Armed with similar concerns, some neo-Gibsonians recently thought of affordances as latent dispositions existing independently of individual organisms or whole species. It is no coincidence that critics had, on several occasions, objected that this theoretical stance dramatically neglects the role of the perceiver in the emergence of affordances. In this (...) paper, we provide a phenomenological characterization of the perceiver’s role in affordance perception. Specifically, we borrow from Husserlian phenomenology to characterize two features of affordance perception that can enrich our understanding of the individual’s engagement with the environment, namely, its affective and temporal aspects. Taking an everyday activity such as rock climbing as a case example, we show that phenomenological investigations, if not misinterpreted as mere introspection, can represent an ally for ecological psychologists. (shrink)

In this paper I argue that many scholars involved in the contemporary free will debates have underappreciated the philosophical appeal of agent causation because the resources of contemporary emergentism have not been adequately introduced into the discussion. Whereas I agree that agent causation’s main problem has to do with its intelligibility, particularly with respect to the issue of how substances can be causally relevant, I argue that the notion of substance causation can be clearly articulated from an emergentist framework. According (...) to my proposal, a free agent is _a causally powerful substance that emerges in an anomic way from her constitutive mental events_, downwardly constraining, selecting and, in this way, having control on them. As we shall see, this particular concept of agent causation not only makes sense of the deep insight behind agent libertarianism, but it also provides us with the resources to solve some of the main objections that have been raised against it. It is true that here I cannot develop a complete defense of the evidential credentials of emergentism. Still, even if the considerations that follow do not serve to convince detractors of agent causal libertarian accounts of free will, they do suggest that libertarian agent causation is more promising than is typically acknowledged. (shrink)

Medium-sized language communities face competition between local and global languages such as Spanish, Russian, French and, above all, English. The various regions of Spain where Catalan is spoken, Denmark, the Czech Republic, and Lithuania show how their medium-sized languages (a term used to distinguish them as much from minority codes as from more widely-spoken codes) coexist alongside or struggle with their big brothers in multilingual families. This comparative analysis offers unique insight into language contact in present-day Europe.

The two main theories of perceptual reasons in contemporary epistemology can be called Phenomenalism and Factualism. According to Phenomenalism, perceptual reasons are facts about experiences conceived of as phenomenal states, i.e., states individuated by phenomenal character, by what it’s like to be in them. According to Factualism, perceptual reasons are instead facts about the external objects perceived. The main problem with Factualism is that it struggles with bad cases: cases where perceived objects are not what they appear or where there (...) is no perceived object at all. The main problem with Phenomenalism is that it struggles with good cases: cases where everything is perfectly normal and the external object is correctly perceived, so that one’s perceptual beliefs are knowledge. In this paper we show that there is a theory of perceptual reasons that avoids the problems for Factualism and Phenomenalism. We call this view Propositionalism. We use ‘proposition’ broadly to mean the entities that are contents of beliefs and other doxastic attitudes. The key to finding a middle ground between Phenomenalism and Factualism, we claim, is to allow our reasons to be false in bad cases. Despite being false, they are about the external world, not our phenomenal states. (shrink)

Self-control, the capacity to resist temptations and pursue longer-term goals over immediate gratifications, is crucial in determining the overall shape of our lives, and thereby in our ability to shape our identities. As it turns out, this capacity is intimately linked with our ability to control the direction of our attention. This raises the worry that perhaps social media are making us more easily distracted people, and therefore less able to exercise self-control. Is this so? And is it necessarily a (...) bad thing? This paper analyzes the nature of attention, its vices and virtues, and what currently available evidence has to say about the effects of social media on attention and self-control. The pattern that seems to be emerging is that, although there is an association between higher use of social media and lower attentional control, we do not yet know whether it is social media use that makes people more distracted, or whether those who use social media the most do so because they are more easily distracted. Either way, the rise of the ‘Web 2.0’ does raise questions about whether the virtues of attention will change in the future, and whether this will bring with it a transformation in the way we shape our selves. (shrink)

Self-control is the ability to inhibit temptations and persist in one’s decisions about what to do. In this article, we review recent evidence that suggests implicit beliefs about the process of self-control influence how the process operates. While earlier work focused on the moderating influence of willpower beliefs on depletion effects, we survey new directions in the field that emphasize how beliefs about the nature of self-control, self-control strategies, and their effectiveness have effects on downstream regulation and judgment. These new (...) directions highlight the need to better understand the role of self-control beliefs in naturalistic decision-making. (shrink)

A general mathematical framework, based on countable partitions of Natural Numbers [1], is presented, that allows to provide a Semantics to propositional languages. It has the particularity of allowing both the valuations and the interpretation Sets for the connectives to discriminate complexity of the formulas. This allows different adequacy criteria to be used to assess formulas associated with the same connective, but that differ in their complexity. The presented method can be adapted potentially infinite number of connectives and truth values, (...) therefore, it can be considered a general framework to provide semantics to several of the known logic systems (eg, LC, L3 LP, FDE). The presented semantics allow to converge to different standard semantics if the separation complexity procedure is annulled. Therefore, it can be understood as a framework that allows greater precision (in complexity terms) with respect to formula satisfaction. Naturally, because of how it is built, it can be incorporated into non-deterministic semantics. The presented procedure also allows generating valuations that grant a different truth value to each formula of propositional language. As a positive side effect, our method allows a constructive proof of the equipotence between N and N^n for all Natural n. (shrink)

In this paper, we introduce a quasi-set theory without atoms. The quasi-sets (qsets) can have as elements completely indiscernible things which do not turn out to be the very same thing as it would be implied if its underlying logic was classical logic. A quasi-set can have a cardinal, called its quasi-cardinal, but this is made so that, at least for the finite case, the quasi-cardinal is not an ordinal, and hence the indistinguishable elements of a quasi-set cannot be ordered. (...) In the last sections, we show how the theory can be used to ground a quantum metaphysics of properties, which sees the quantum entities as bundles of properties, and we also introduce a new approach for the use of quantifiers in quantum physics. (shrink)

Conocido sociólogo, escritor extraordinariamente prolífico en el ámbito de la teoría y el análisis político, la polemología, la historia, epistemología y metodología de las ciencias sociales, Julien Freund fue, sin embargo, como dedicación fundamental, filósofo. No obstante, su filosofía apenas ha recibido atención por parte de los especialistas. Pretendemos mostrar en este artículo la relevancia de esta aproximación filosófica como clave de lectura del conjunto de la obra del autor francés, y de qué manera él mismo concibió su atención a (...) los problemas específicos de las ciencias sociales como una mediación a un marco más amplio de comprensión de problemas siempre presentes en la existencia humana, esto es, como una mediación metafísica. (shrink)

Abstract This chapter is interested in the epistemology of algorithms. As I intend to approach the topic, this is an issue about epistemic justification. Current approaches to justification emphasize the transparency of algorithms, which entails elucidating their internal mechanisms –such as functions and variables– and demonstrating how (or that) these produce outputs. Thus, the mode of justification through transparency is contingent on what can be shown about the algorithm and, in this sense, is internal to the algorithm. In contrast, I (...) advocate for an externalist epistemology of algorithms that I term computational reliabilism (CR). While I have previously introduced and examined CR in the field of computer simulations ([42, 53, 4]), this chapter extends this reliabilist epistemology to encompass a broader spectrum of algorithms utilized in various scientific disciplines, with a particular emphasis on machine learning applications. At its core, CR posits that an algorithm’s output is justified if it is produced by a reliable algorithm. A reliable algorithm is one that has been specified, coded, used, and maintained utilizing reliability indicators. These reliability indicators stem from formal methods, algorithmic metrics, expert competencies, cultures of research, and other scientific endeavors. The primary aim of this chapter is to delineate the foundations of CR, explicate its operational mechanisms, and outline its potential as an externalist epistemology of algorithms. (shrink)

La migración internacional nos enfrenta con problemas irresolubles desde la figura moderna del Estado nacional, su concepto de ciudadanía y su noción de justicia. Juan Carlos Velasco critica las limitaciones y la orientación de las políticas contemporáneas que nos hacen percibir a la migración como una “invasión”, y propone un modo radicalmente diferente de entender e intervenir el fenómeno desde lo trasnacional. Nacer de uno u otro lado de una línea divisoria es un evento azaroso, no obstante delimitar la (...) frontera es una construcción histórico-política: la desigualdad en las oportunidades que ofrecen las naciones es una situación estructural de injusticia que se perpetúa con las políticas de exclusión de los migrantes y la deslegitimación de su derecho a buscar una vida mejor. Esa circunstancia genera fracturas sociales, injustificables pero normalizadas, que imposibilitan alcanzar la justicia global. Velasco presenta un análisis completo que abarca las dimensiones política, jurídica y moral del tema, en el que lleva a la filosofía política a un terreno práctico del que se desprenden las claves para entender y actuar en esta nueva era en la que, debido a los conflictos sociales y políticos, la migración vuelve a ser argumento de discusión relevante. (Texto de la CONTRAPORTADA del libro). (shrink)

Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, EarlyView.

The enactive approach to cognition and the phenomenological tradition have in common a wide conception of ‘intentionality’. Within these frameworks, intentionality is understood as a general openness to the world. For classical phenomenologists, the most basic subjective structure that allows for such openness is time-consciousness. Some enactivists, while inspired by the phenomenological tradition, have nevertheless argued that affectivity is more basic, being that which gives rise to the temporal flow of consciousness. In this paper, I assess the relationship between temporality (...) and affectivity from both a phenomenological and an enactive perspective. I argue that, as opposed to the classical phenomenological view (which favours temporality), and to the enactive view (which favours affectivity), we must take affectivity and temporality as co-emergent. Jointly, affectivity and temporality constitute the basic structures of intentionality. Additionally, using examples from phenomenological psychopathology, I conclude that all intentionality is defined by an anticipatory and affective structure that gives rise to general feelings related to our bodily possibilities in the world. (shrink)

Self-control is deemed crucial for reasons-responsive agency and a key contributor to long-term wellbeing. But recent studies suggest that effortfully resisting one’s temptations does not contribute to long-term goal attainment, and can even be harmful. So how does self-control improve our lives? Finding an answer requires revising the role that overcoming temptation plays in self-control. This paper distinguishes two forms of self-control problems: temptation (the presence of a strong wayward motivation) and apathy (the lack of commitment-advancing motivation). This distinction makes (...) it possible to separate negative self-control (aimed at overcoming temptation) from positive self-control (aimed at overcoming lack of motivation). The paper argues that temptation should not play a central role in our conception of self-control, since overcoming temptation is neither necessary nor sufficient for successful self-control. (shrink)

The work then develops attempts to present the most relevant aspects of the philosophical thought of John Stuart Mill in relation to religion. The work consists of two parts: the first part, w e develop below, theological reflection on the most important aspects about religión, the debate on the arguments that justify the existente of God; the attributes of God; the occurrence of evil in the World; and, finally, the M ill's assesment about Christ. The second part, will focus on (...) aspects about utilitarian morality and the Christian religion; the proposal about new religión, M ankind's Religion; the happiness in your relationship with utilitarianism, happiness relates to Christianity and the common ground between Christian doctrine and utilitarian doctrine. (shrink)

En el presente texto me propongo mostrar cómo puede entenderse el concepto de ‘metafísica’, no como el estudio de algo “sobrenatural” o “más allá de lo físico”, sino como un estudio de segundo orden que tendría por objeto de análisis los hipotéticos principios fundamentales y modelos de dependencia de la realidad. En este sentido, más que sostener juicios taxativos acerca de lo que las cosas son o qué tipo de entidades existen, las reflexiones de la metafísica podrían entenderse como análisis (...) acerca de las condiciones necesarias y suficientes para que una teoría de primer orden explique un aspecto de la realidad —o toda ella en su conjunto— de la mejor manera posible. (shrink)

Habitual action would still be a tremendously pervasive feature of our agency. And yet, references to habitual action have been marginal at best in contemporary philosophy of action. This neglect is due, at least, to the combination of two ideas. The first is a widespread view of habit as entirely automatic, inflexible, and irresponsive to reasons. The second is philosophy of action’s tendency (dominant at least since Anscombe and Davidson) to focus on explaining action by reference to reasons. Arguably, if (...) habitual behavior is reasons-irresponsive, and if action is explained by reference to reasons, the study of habit would have very little to teach about action. Recently, however, there has been a surge in philosophical interest on habit and habitual action. Novel approaches are challenging the two ideas mentioned above, arguing that (1) habitual behavior is not entirely automatic or inflexible, but instead has a particular kind of flexibility and intentionality; and that (2) acting out of habit can count as a form of acting for reasons, even in the absence of the traditional rationalizing mental states: belief, desire, and intention. -/- The essays contained in this issue move discussions forward in exciting new directions. In what follows we present each paper and situate it within its broader theoretical context, so that this introduction may serve also as an introduction to the topic of habitual action. A crucial lesson that emerges from these essays is a need to move past disputes between philosophical schools or traditions. Rather than combatting between different philosophical factions, an ecumenical approach capable of skillfully bringing together elements from different traditions seems better able to tackle problems that remain unsolved. These problems include (but are not limited to): developing an account of responsibility for habitual action; explaining our ability to perform joint habitual actions; and clarifying the link between habit and self-control. (shrink)

In “Willpower with and without effort”, G. Ainslie advances our understanding of selfcontrol by theoretically unifying multiple forms of willpower. But one crucial question remains unanswered: How do agents pick the right forms of willpower in each situation? I argue that willpower requires tactical skill, which detects willpower-demanding contexts, selects context-appropriate tactics, and monitors their implementation. Research on tactical skill will significantly advance our understanding of willpower.

Este artículo compara el supuesto 'neoparmenidismo' de la filosofía de Severino con Polo como filósofo 'antiparmenidiano'. Siguiendo la visión de Polo, puede dilucidarse el método fundamental seguido por Severino, que consiste en asumir la mismidad de Parménides y en proyectarla en la dialéctica de Hegel. Al usar el principio de no contradicción, Severino recurre preferentemente a la operación mental de negar.

El artículo trata de dar respuesta a tres cuestiones, que agrupan algunas de las objeciones que pueden plantearse a la democracia como sistema político: a) la incapacidad popular para el autogobierno, b) la corrupción y la formación de élites gobernantes yc) el peligro de tiranía de las mayorías. El desarrollo de estas objeciones es el hilo argumental alrededor del cual se desarrollan algunos de los retos pendientes y rasgos más propiamente distintivos de una democracia consolidada.

Quentin Meillassoux es un joven filósofo al que ya algunos consideran una estrella en el firmamento del pensamiento contemporáneo. Es el cabeza de fila de una nueva concepción filosófica, el “Realismo Especulativo”, que se pretende una revolución respecto de toda o prácticamente toda la filosofía habida desde Kant. Su obra principal, hasta ahora, es el libro Après la finitude, lo que podríamos traducir por “Después de la finitud”, y que lleva por subtítulo “Ensayo acerca de la necesidad de la contingencia”. (...) Ha escrito, también, varios artículos, un libro sobre Mallarmé, en el que sostiene haber hallado la codificación numérica de un poema del críptico poeta francés, y un libro aún no publicado, pero que circula por ahí, titulado L’inexistence divine. Se le augura una obra futura de gran relevancia. Meillassoux tiene un estilo bastante sobrio, contundente, “cartesiano”, pero con pasajes, también, de gran belleza concentrada. Se respira en sus escritos una calurosa frialdad, un apasionado antidramatismo, una muy racionalizada prédica de la falta de razón de todas las cosas, una profunda intuición de la superficie. (shrink)

The Thomistic account of freedom as election and freedom as love of the transcendental good, which in its perfect achievement is indefectible, introduces a new and unexpected approach in relation to contemporary debates concerning compatibilism and incompatibilism between freedom and determinism. This article develops both aspects of freedom and tries to bring new light to the problem of defining and evaluating the concepts of determination and indeterminacy.