A growing body of research has examined how people judge the persistence of identity over time—that is, how they decide that a particular individual is the same entity from one time to the next. While a great deal of progress has been made in understanding the types of features that people typically consider when making such judgments, to date, existing work has not explored how these judgments may be shaped by normative considerations. The present studies demonstrate that normative beliefs do (...) appear to play an important role in people's beliefs about persistence. Specifically, people are more likely to judge that the identity of a given entity remains the same when its features improve than when its features deteriorate. Study 1 provides a basic demonstration of this effect. Study 2 shows that this effect is moderated by individual differences in normative beliefs. Study 3 examines the underlying mechanism, which is the belief that, in general, various entities are essentially good. Study 4 directly manipulates beliefs about essence to show that the positivity bias regarding essences is causally responsible for the effect. (shrink)

There has been a call for a potentially revolutionary change to our existing understanding of the psychological concept of personal identity. Apparently, people can psychologically represent people, including themselves, as multiple individuals at the same time. Here we ask whether the intransitive judgments found in these studies truly reflect the operation of an intransitive concept of personal identity. We manipulate several factors that arbitrate between transitivity and intransitivity and find most support for transitivity: in contrast to prior work, most participants (...) do not make intransitive judgments when there is any reason to favor one individual over another. People change which single individual they personally identify with, depending on which individual competes more strongly or weakly for identity, rather than identifying with both individuals. Even when two individuals are identical and therefore both entitled to be the same person, we find that people make more transitive judgments once they understand the practical commitments of their responses (Experiment 4), and report not being able to actually imagine two perspectives simultaneously when reasoning about the scenario (Experiment 5). In short, we suggest that while people may make intransitive judgments, these do not reflect that they psychologically represent identity in an intransitive manner. (shrink)

People sometimes explain behavior by appealing to an essentialist concept of the self, often referred to as the true self. Existing studies suggest that people tend to believe that the true self is morally virtuous; that is deep inside, every person is motivated to behave in morally good ways. Is this belief particular to individuals with optimistic beliefs or people from Western cultures, or does it reflect a widely held cognitive bias in how people understand the self? To address this (...) question, we tested the good true self theory against two potential boundary conditions that are known to elicit different beliefs about the self as a whole. Study 1 tested whether individual differences in misanthropy—the tendency to view humans negatively—predict beliefs about the good true self in an American sample. The results indicate a consistent belief in a good true self, even among individuals who have an explicitly pessimistic view of others. Study 2 compared true self-attributions across cultural groups, by comparing samples from an independent country and a diverse set of interdependent countries. Results indicated that the direction and magnitude of the effect are comparable across all groups we tested. The belief in a good true self appears robust across groups varying in cultural orientation or misanthropy, suggesting a consistent psychological tendency to view the true self as morally good. (shrink)

Em contraste com a tradicional autoconsciência reflexiva na qual o sujeito se refere consciente e deliberadamente a si mesmo, a tradição fenomenológica, de Husserl a Heidegger e Sartre, postula uma forma de autoconsciência intransitiva pré-reflexiva primitiva. Infelizmente, essa autoconsciência intransitiva pré-reflexiva é sempre caracterizada negativamente: não reflexiva, não cognitiva, não transitiva, não objetiva, etc. Schear (2009, p. 14) observa que, como resultado, quando buscamos uma descrição ou caracterização positiva do suposto fenômeno, ficamos com frases ambíguas e pouco claras, como "presença (...) sutil de fundo" (ZAHAVI, 2005, p. 124). (shrink)

This essay aims to expose the metaphysical underpinnings of enactivism. While enactivism relies heavily on rejecting the traditional mind-body problem by excluding the familiar thought experiments that favor phenomenal dualism, the crucial point that is overlooked is instead the brain-body problem, specifically the crucial interaction between the brain and the bodily limbs in their embodied activities of perception and cognition. If enactivism is correct, differences in sensory experience necessarily entail differences in embodied activity—this is the metaphysical core of enactivism, which (...) we think is entirely wrong. We will argue that a physical or biological body ("Körper") is configured or shaped into a perceptually living body ("Leib") by brain patterns and not by embodied activity or by the so-called sensorimotor contingencies. Undoubtedly, embodied actions influence sensory perception. However, since variations in embodied actions do not necessarily lead to variations in sensory experience, they are not metaphysically constitutive of these experiences (supervenience claim). (shrink)

Past research has identified a number of asymmetries based on moral judgments. Beliefs about what a person values, whether a person is happy, whether a person has shown weakness of will, and whether a person deserves praise or blame seem to depend critically on whether participants themselves find the agent's behavior to be morally good or bad. To date, however, the origins of these asymmetries remain unknown. The present studies examine whether beliefs about an agent's “true self” explain these observed (...) asymmetries based on moral judgment. Using the identical materials from previous studies in this area, a series of five experiments indicate that people show a general tendency to conclude that deep inside every individual there is a “true self” calling him or her to behave in ways that are morally virtuous. In turn, this belief causes people to hold different intuitions about what the agent values, whether the agent is happy, whether he or she has shown weakness of will, and whether he or she deserves praise or blame. These results not only help to answer important questions about how people attribute various mental states to others; they also contribute to important theoretical debates regarding how moral values may shape our beliefs about phenomena that, on the surface, appear to be decidedly non-moral in nature. (shrink)

Recent scientific research has settled on a purely descriptive definition of happiness that is focused solely on agents’ psychological states (high positive affect, low negative affect, high life satisfaction). In contrast to this understanding, recent research has suggested that the ordinary concept of happiness is also sensitive to the moral value of agents’ lives. Five studies systematically investigate and explain the impact of morality on ordinary assessments of happiness. Study 1 demonstrates that moral judgments influence assessments of happiness not only (...) for untrained participants, but also for academic researchers and even in those who study happiness specifically. Studies 2 and 3 then respectively ask whether this effect may be explained by general motivational biases or beliefs in a just world. In both cases, we find evidence against these explanations. Study 4 shows that the impact of moral judgments cannot be explained by changes in the perception of descriptive psychological states. Finally, Study 5 compares the impact of moral and non-moral value, and provides evidence that unlike non-moral value, moral value is part of the criteria that govern the ordinary concept of happiness. Taken together, these studies provide a specific explanation of how and why the ordinary concept of happiness deviates from the definition used by researchers studying happiness. (shrink)

A partir de dados brasileiros e espanhóis, este artigo aborda aspectos relevantes da doação e transplantes de órgãos, como a relação entre oferta e demanda, legislação vigente, custos e possíveis estratégias para aumentar taxas de doação e melhorar de forma geral o processo de transplantes. O objetivo deste artigo é apresentar dados empíricos atuais que incrementem o conhecimento relevante para a avaliação bioética. Os dois países se destacam: o Brasil por ter o maior sistema público de transplantes de órgãos do (...) mundo, e a Espanha por manter há décadas o maior índice de doadores efetivos por milhão de pessoas. Análise inicial dos dados sugere a necessidade de lidar mais abertamente com os interesses dos afetados e a opinião pública, criando articulação sistêmica entre legislação, políticas públicas baseadas em evidências e pesquisa. (shrink)

In this paper, I intend to show that it’s a serious mistake to construe the role of sensible representation in Kant’s work as a nonconceptual content (in the contemporary and technical sense of “content”), which, like a mental indexical would refer to what appears in space and time in the so-called de re form. The interpretation I advance and further support is this: without possessing a representational content, sensible representation must be understood as the basic epistemic relation between the subject (...) and the physical entities in space and time she is acquainted with. Immediate reference of sensible intuition to their respective objects is to be understood as a form of knowledge by acquaintance. I call my own interpretation relationalism. (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)

This paper is both systematic and historical in nature. From a historical viewpoint, I aim to show that to establish Wittgenstein’s claim that “an ‘inner process’ stands in need of outward criteria” (PI §580) there is an enthymeme in Wittgenstein’s private language argument (henceforth PLA) overlooked in the literature, namely Wittgenstein’s suggestion that both perceptual and bodily experiences are transparent in the relevant sense that one cannot point to a mental state and wonder “What is that?” From a systematic viewpoint, (...) I aim to show that Wittgenstein’s PLA teaches us that the prevailing picture of the nature of phenomenal concepts (henceforth PCs) is upside down: we can only introspectively know what is going on inside our heads after we learn of what is going on outside (PI §580). In this regard, I aim to defend two associate claims against the prevailing view of PCs on the basis of PLA. First, by means of transparency, I aim to show that there is no de re awareness of our private sensation that could determine the meaning of sensation words; for example, I am never aware of the phenomenal blueness of my experience of something blue. The second associated claim is that introspective self-knowledge of our private sensations is always de dicto. We can only know introspectively that phenomenal blueness is the phenomenal character of the experience we are undergoing after we have learned that (de dicto knowledge) blue is the color that usually causes us that kind of experience. Likewise, we can only introspectively know that pain is the phenomenal character of the experience we are undergoing after we have learned that pain is what usually causes some typical pain behavior. (shrink)

Kant was never satisfied with the version of his “Refu- tation” published in 1787 (KrV, B 275-279). His dissatisfaction is already evident in the footnote added to the preface of the second edition of the Critique in 1787. As a matter of fact, Kant continued to rework his argument for at least six years after 1787. The main exegetical problem is to figure out who is the target of the “Refutation”: a non-skeptic idealist, a global skeptic of Cartesian provenance or (...) both. In this last case, the related problem is to know whether either of them is the Cartesian skeptic of the first Meditation, the idealist skeptic of the second Meditation and first part of the third Meditation, or some other non-skeptic idealist. I present and defend a new reconstruction of Kant’s “Refu- tation” as a successful argument against Mendelssohnian idealism of Cartesian provenance. This defense is based on a simple logical sketch of the proof provided by Dicker but essentially modified in light of Dyck’s insight about Kant’s opponent. How shall I support my reading? First, by appealing to overwhelming textual evidence according to which the proof is of the existence of mind-independent things, showing that Kant’s main opponent is Mendelssohn’s idealism of Cartesian provenance. Finally, I support my reading by showing that Kant’s “Refutation” is doomed to fail against all forms of global skepticism but is quite successful against Mendelssohn’s idealism. (shrink)

Este artículo pretende ofrecer una visión alternativa tanto de la lectura conceptualista tradicional de Kant como de la nueva lectura no conceptualista. En contra de las lecturas conceptualistas tradicionales sostengo que confunden las condiciones para la representación sensible de los objetos (tesis de la intencionalidad) con las condiciones para el reconocimiento (Erkenntnis) de que representamos objetos mediante intuiciones sensibles (tesis del reconocimiento). En contra de las lecturas no conceptualistas sostengo que no distinguen el no conceptualismo -propio de la filosofía contemporánea (...) de la mente- de las tesis antiintelectualistas de Kant. Tales lecturas fracasan porque se equivocan al atribuir un contenido representacional a las intuiciones sensibles de Kant. Las intuiciones sensibles, según Kant, no presentan el mundo según ciertas condiciones de satisfacción que podrían o no ser satisfechas por el mundo. Por lo tanto, no son ni verídicas ni non verídicas. Se limitan a presentar el mundo de una manera directa, independiente de los conceptos, lo que llamaré aquí la presentación de re de los objetos. En mi lectura, la oposición entre intuiciones y conceptos es la oposición entre la presentación de re de um objeto y el reconocimento proposicional de dicto de que representamos algo como um objeto. (shrink)

I argue that my non-dual epistemic-phenomenalist view is the one that best harmonises my interpretation of the Fourth Paralogism with the widely shared reading of the Refutation of Idealism that I sketched and defended above. The bottom line of my view is a clear distinction between the metaphysical and epistemological sides of Kantian idealism. Again, according to my non-dual-epistemic-phenomenalism, the mundus sensibilis and mundus intelligibilis are epistemologically distinct ways of considering the metaphysically identical outside world. Appearances are nothing but the (...) way the things in themselves appear or exist inside our sensible minds as mere representations. In this sense, I reject both the two-world view, the two-aspect view, and Allais’s deflationary anti- phenomenalist reading. (shrink)

How does one know the phenomenal character of one’s own experience? I aim to present and defend a new view of the epistemology of qualia that addresses this issue. My view results from a reworking of Dretske’s displaced perception model. The guiding line is the key Wittgensteinian insight of his Private Language Argument, namely the claim that no inner perception of qualia can justify our corresponding qualia beliefs. My reworking of the original model starts with the rejection of Dretske’s representationalism, (...) as well as any other metaphysical views about the ultimate nature of qualia. The reworking of the displaced perception model I am proposing is supposed to be compatible with any available metaphysical view on qualia. The second step consists of rejecting the epistemological misgivings of the original model, namely the view that knowing qualia requires “connecting beliefs” along with “meta-representations.” Yet, Dretske’s crucial mistake has been to force knowledge of qualia into the “belief-box.” As a matter of fact, there is only one belief involved in introspecting qualia, namely the qualia-belief itself. The third final step is this. Assuming the key Wittgensteinian insight, I argue that introspection of qualia is a process that is both epis- temically reliable and automatic. It is reliable because it dispenses with justification of any beliefs whatsoever. Moreover, it is automatic because it also dispenses with reflexive connecting beliefs. For example, it takes nonconceptual awareness of the color blue as an input and automatically yields the belief that phenomenal blue is the conscious character of my experience of the sky as an output just by employing the concept BLUE. (shrink)

Este artigo tem como objetivo fornecer uma visão ampla acerca da complexidade do xenotransplante, técnica que consiste no uso de animais não-humanos como fornecedores de órgãos para seres humanos. Nesse sentido, pretende-se auxiliar na análise ética dos potenciais benefícios da técnica, à luz dos questionamentos inerentes à sua pesquisa e possível implementação. Por um lado, o xenotransplante apresenta o potencial de solucionar a escassez crônica de órgãos humanos para transplantes, reduzindo as mortes decorrentes da falta de órgãos e as filas (...) de espera. Por outro lado, levanta várias questões que devem ser amplamente analisadas e democraticamente debatidas pela sociedade, tais como: o risco de xenozoonoses, o uso de animais não-humanos, a limitação da privacidade dos receptores de órgãos de origem animal, os protocolos de captação do consentimento livre e informado e o uso de pacientes com morte cerebral em experimentos. Desse modo, conclui-se que, mesmo que no futuro sejam superados os obstáculos clínicos e seja possível realizar xenotransplantes de órgãos com sucesso, é imprescindível avaliar cuidadosamente os prós e contras antes de decidirmos sobre sua continuidade. (shrink)

From the second half of the last century, there has been a widespread view in the Anglophone world that Kant’s transcendental deduction (aka TD) aims to vindicate our common-sense view of the world as composed of public and objective particulars against some unqualified forms of skepticism. This widespread assumption has raised serious doubt not only about the success of TD but also about the very nature of its argument in both editions of the Critique. Yet, if there is a connection (...) between TD and global skepticism, the intriguing question is: Who is this skeptic? According to Strawson, “the skeptic” is a hypothesis of a purely sense-datum experience. In contrast, the fact that TD turns on the key notion of self-consciousness has induced several other scholars to assume that the skeptic is no none but a Cartesian external-world skeptic. None of those readings find textual support or are compatible with the very structure of the first Critique. The question is: Does this mean that TD aims only to undermine empiricism, as Guyer suggests? I do not believe so. I am pretty convinced that TD addresses a peculiar form of global skepticism, namely “Hume’s challenge to reason.” Assuming that we cognize (erkennen) and experience (erfahren) appearances as objects as a requirement of Newtonian physics, TD aims to provide a justification of the principle that nature is uniform that is superior to Hume’s justification. (shrink)

This brief paper is devoted to criticizing the widespread reading of Kant’s first Critique, according to which reference to subject-independent objects is “constituted” by higher-order cognitive abilities (concepts). Let us call this the “constitutional view.” In this paper, I argue that the constitutional reading confuses the un-Kantian problem of how we come to represent objects (which I call the intentionality thesis), with the quite different problem of how we cognize (erkennen) (which I call the “cognition thesis”) that we do represent (...) objects, that is, things that exist independently of the subject. (shrink)

This paper presents a new cognitivist account for the old puzzle of self-consciousness or knowing self-reference. Knowing self-reference does not rely on reflection on some putative pre-existent pre-reflexive self-consciousness, nor is it the result of a process of identification of oneself as the employer of the relevant token of “I” according to the token-reflexive rule of the first-person pronoun. Rather, it relies on the architecture of the cognitive system. By exploiting the acquaintance relation that every brain has to one’s own (...) body, a “mental file” is opened in a subliminal way to house information about oneself gained through the appropriate proprioceptors. Knowing self-reference based on self-files dispenses with self-identification because the opening of the file in the same brain/body is not a deed of the cognitive system but rather something that takes place sub-personally. (shrink)

The claim that ―concepts serve as rules for the synthesis of representations‖ is understood by the mainstream of Kant‘s scholarship as if categories and concepts, in general, are conditions for the constitution of objects out of the manifold of sensations devoid of reference. That is the claim that I wish to question here. The claim comes in different flavors and formulations. Still, none of them are relevant here. I aim to provide an alternative account for the claim that ―the representation (...) makes the object possible.‖ I argue that the traditional view represents a solution to what I call the pseudo-problem of intentionality, namely to account for how a representation of something emerges out of a manifold of sensations devoid of reference. Yet, the intentionality problem is a misunderstanding of what I call the recognition thesis: the role of concepts is to provide the rules for the (mind-dependent) recognition (Erkenntnis) of the mind-independent existence of transcendental objects (noumena). ―The representation makes the object possible in the relevant sense that only by means of concepts can we recognize that what is sense-dependently represented actually exists mind-independently as transcendental objects or noumena in the negative sense. My view is embedded in the framework of what today is called ―Kantian Nonceptualism‖. Still, my view is neither a simple re-statement of Kantian Nonconceptualism nor depends on it. It is independently grounded on what Kant calls ―Erkenntnis‖. (shrink)

This paper is a new defense of type-B materialism against Jackson’s knowledge argument (1982) inspired by the Kantian main opposition between concepts and sensible intuitions. Like all materialists of type B, I argue that on her release from her black-and-white room, Mary makes cognitive progress. However, contrary to the so-called phenomenal concept strategy (henceforth PCS), I do not think that such progress can be accounted for in terms of the acquisition of new concepts. I also reject Tye’s recent account of (...) Mary’s cognitive progress as the acquisition of a “thing-knowledge.” What is crucial is not the Russellian opposition between knowing things and knowing truths but rather the Kantian opposition between conceptual and nonconceptual representations of the same thing (property). Mary’s phenomenal knowledge is here accounted for as the result of the cooperation of her newly acquired nonconceptual representation of the same phenomenal redness (the same thing) she had a conceptual representation before. As that new nonconceptual representation carries information about the same physical property she already represented but is now coded in analog rather than in digital form (Dretske, 1981), that nonconceptual representation can be accounted for in physical terms as Chalmers’s Master argument requires. Nevertheless, that representation can account for Mary’s cognitive progress since it carries information coded in analog form, something that the imprisoned she could never possess. (shrink)

My account of the causal role of consciousness in a physical world is modeled on Dretske’s celebrated explanation of the causal role of beliefs (something that Dretske himself never offered). First, behavior must be understood as a (broadly individuated) process that begins with some external stimulus causing some neurological event C, and ends with causing a bodily movement M (e.g., the Kennedy assassination is a process that begins with Oswald pulling the trigger at 12:30pm CST on November 23 in 1963 (...) in Dallas, Texas, but only ends half an hour later when Kennedy is pronounced dead at 1 pm CST). The internal neurological event C causes bodily movement M, but only by virtue of being recruited by natural selection to represent the instantiation of some external property F when properly stimulated under normal circumstances. But the reason why C causes M lies in the fact that C represents the instantiation of the external property F. I withdraw my hand from a hot surface because the activation of nociceptive specific neurons in my parietal lobe (together with the activation of neuronal patterns in my motor cortices) was recruited by natural selection to represent the tissue damage in my hand. The activation of nociceptive specific neurons causes my hand to withdraw but for the reason that it represents tissue data at the time that I felt pain in my hand. (shrink)

The aim of this paper has been to present a new reconstruction of Kant’s Refutation of Idealism. I have considered several different targets of the Refutation, five of them mentioned by Kant himself. I believe that I have shown that the Refutation of Idealism is best considered only as a sound argument against Mendelssohnian subjectivist idealism, against Mendelssohnian immaterialism, and against Mendelssohnian realist idealism. First, Kant’s Refutation is a sound argument in favor of the claim that the outer things represented (...) in our minds are real rather than ideal; that is, they exist mind-independently as noumena. And second, Kant’s refutation is a sound argument for a fundamental ontology of noumena: the ultimate nature of reality and of our minds is neither material nor mental but made up of things in themselves. (shrink)

This article presents a dual purpose: to carefully consider objections against the existentialist conception of the content of visual experience and to develop and defend a version of it that avoids such objections, specifically addressing the so-called "problem of particularity." The main thesis is that the existential content of visual experience should be understood as relativized, being incomplete content (rather than classical, complete propositions), modeled as a function of the sextuple of the object, agent, time, place, causal relation, and world (...) to absolute values. (shrink)

I argue for a new reading of Pyrrhonian beliefs inspired by representationalism (the content view) in recent philosophy of mind. I shall argue that there are two senses of acceptance or “acquiescence in something” (eudokein tini pragmati) rather than two senses of belief (doxa). For this reason, we can maintain along with Sextus that the Pyrrhonian skeptic behaves intentionally and can live his life in society adoxastôs without any proper beliefs whatsoever. However, the skeptical sense of acceptance is not the (...) mere avowal of a feeling or a mere report or register of the way things appear to me. I want to suggest the following reading. Acceptance without belief is an anti-predicative passive and involuntary acceptance of content by means of an indicator function (pathos or phainomenon) in virtue of the past regular connection between the representational content and the indicator function. The pathos (as a present state of mind) or the phainomenon “means” (that is, indicates) passively and involuntarily a content in virtue of its regular connection with this content through time. For example, the Pyrrhonian’s acceptance of the content of the sentence “there is fire” is based on the fact that he here and now perceives smoke and that pathos passively and involuntarily means (represents) the content that there is fire. There is no judgment involved at all: even when the skeptic suspends his judgment (epochê) about whether there is fire, his pathos makes him involuntarily accept that there is fire. That is what Sextus, following the Stoic tradition, calls “commemorative signs” (hupomnêstikon) in opposition to the so-called “indicative signs” (endeiktikon), namely the “internal assertion” of the content as a belief (as a propositional attitude). As I do not believe that any reasonable reading of the skeptical acceptance may be defended only by means of philological analysis and by the research of the huge doxography, my arguments deliberately mix historical evidence with reasons of a systematic nature. In this way, the defense of my alternative reading is abductive, namely as the inference to the best explanation. (shrink)

We set forth what one may call a “constitutional reading” in opposition to the traditional widespread “constructivist reading” of the object of cognition. In the light of the so-called one-object view reading of Transcendental idealism, the object of cognition is nothing but the object that exists in itself insofar as it appears to our cognitive apparatus. The object exists mind-independently, while our cognition of the same object must be mind-independent. The constructivist reading mistakes the epistemological problem of how we come (...) to cognize mind-dependently that what we represent (“the constitutional view”) are mind-independent objects with the Berkelian ontological problem of how we construct objects out of an undifferentiated, unstructured manifold (the constructivist view) My diagnosis is as follows. The first reason is the traditional “two-worlds view” reading of Kant’s idealism. If we take what exists in itself and the object of cognition as distinct things, then we must conclude that the object of cognition is a mind-dependent construction. Constructivist readers mistake the mind-dependent nature of our human cognition of objects for the putative mind-dependent nature of the known object. The second reason is overintellectualization. Constructivist readers mistake the objectifying syntheses of the imagination, below the threshold of self-consciousness, for cognitive conceptual operations by means of which we cognize (erkennen) the objects of cognition, or so I shall argue. (shrink)

In this critical review of Robert Hanna's ingenious book (2006), I aim to support Hanna‟s main insightful reading of Kant, namely what he calls “a priori truth with a human face," without appealing to Kant's divide between a priori and a posteriori and analytic and synthetic truths. My suggestion is that transcendental propositions are necessary neither in the usual epistemological sense that analytic propositions are, let alone in the metaphysical sense that some empirical propositions are. Instead, they are necessary in (...) the theoretical domain in the weak alternative sense that they make possible the empirical recognition of appearances as an object as an indispensable condition of our self-consciousness experience, and they are a priori in the practical domain in the sense that their truth is vital for our self-comprehension as human beings. (shrink)

This paper aims to present a novel reading of Kantian idealism. In want of a better name, I call my interpretation “one-object-plus-epistemic phenomenalism.” I partially endorse Allison’s celebrated position, namely his rejection of metaphysical world-dualism. Yet, I reject Allison’s deflationary two-aspect view. I argue that Kantian idealism is also metaphysically committed to an ontological noumenalism (one-object), namely the claim that the ultimate nature of reality is made up of unknown things in themselves (substantia noumena). Natural sciences can only reveal the (...) relational/structural properties of things as they appear rather than the intrinsic properties of substantia noumena in the negative sense. My anti-deflationary reading is similar to Allais’s, and my agnostic monism to Hanna’s. However, against both, I hold that appearances are not the accusative objects of our sensible representations but rather, as Kant repeatedly states: “mere representations.” The accusative objects of our senses are substantia noumena in the negative sense. Moreover, my view is also similar to Langton’s. Again, against Langton, I hold that appearances are not merely relational properties of substantia noumena but the way that such substantia noumena exist inside our mind as “mere representations.” In this regard, I also partially endorse Guyer’s and Van Cleve’s phenomenalist reading because these substantia noumena in the negative sense can only be cognized mind-dependently, namely as appearances. However, against Guyer and Van Cleve, I hold that the phenomenalist side of Kantian idealism is purely epistemological rather than ontological: what Kant calls the necessary unity of representations according to categories is not a logical construction of objects out of representations, that is, an ontological reduction of noumena to appearances, but rather the way we sense-independently cognize mind-independent noumena. (shrink)

Content nonconceptualism and State conceptualism are motivated by different readings of what I want to call here Bermúdez’s conditions on content-attribution (2007). In one read- ing, what is required is a neo-Fregean content to solve problems of cognitive significance at the nonconceptual level (Toribio, 2008; Duhau, 2011). In the other reading, what is required is a neo-Russellian or possible-world content to account for how conspecifics join attention and cooperate, contemplating the same things from different perspectives in the same perceptual field. (...) The solution to this apparent contradiction is the rejection of the real content view and the adherence to what I call here Content-pragmatism: there is no such thing as the content of experience. According to content pragmatism, “proposition” is not as real as a mental state, but rather, it is a term of art that semanticists use, as a matter of theoretical convenience, to classify mental states. What follows from Content-pragmatism is Content- pluralism: there are so many contents that are required to meet Bermúdez’s condition on content attribution. Because both criticism and the defense of State conceptualism overlook the real scope of Bermúdez’s condition on content attribution, they are ineffective. In this paper, I will argue that the opposition between State and Content nonconceptualism is a real one, but only a relative one, that is, relative to the opposite constraints to be met. If we want to solve the problems of cognitive significance, the best we can do is to let the content of experience be modeled as neo-Fregean content, namely, a compound of nonconceptual modes of presentation of objects and properties. In this case, Content-nonconceptualism prevails. In contrast, if we want to account for how conspecifics join attention to the same entities in the same perceptual field from different perspectives, the best we can do is let the content of experience be modeled either as a structured Russellian proposition or as a function from possible worlds to truth-values. In this case, State-nonconceptualism prevails. (shrink)

I aim to develop an alternative theoretical model for the direct cognition of the elementary states of others called the theory of interaction (henceforth TI), also known as the “second person” approach. The model I propose emerges from a critical reformulation of the displaced perception model proposed by FRED DRETSKE (1995) for the introspective knowledge of our own mental states. Moreover, against Dretske, I argue that no meta-representation (second-order representation of a first-order representation as a representation) is involved in the (...) process, but only concepts, rudimentary enough, of others’ emotions: contentment and discontentment. Strictly speaking, all the empirical data and findings in developmental psychology only support the hypothesis that children in the pre-linguistic phase understand perceptual facial expressions of contentment and discontentment. My proposal consists of the following thesis: The direct perception of others' elementary mental states is not a perception in the usual sense of the word according to which we just perceive things, but rather a “perception of facts.” But how to understand that? It is nothing more than an epistemological process that is automatic and reliable at the same time. It is reliable in the epistemological-externalist sense of not involving any inference, reflection, theorizing or epistemic justification: a baby’s perception of her mom’s facial expression of discontentment (in the usual sense of “per- ception”) does not constitute a reason supporting the belief that mommy is discontent. The very word “belief” should not be understood in the usual sense but rather in the sense of a natural inclination for truth. But at the same time, it is automatic because the belief is a result or output of a process entirely subliminal and computational in nature. Thus, for instance, a child perceives that her mom is discontent (fact-awareness) by perceiving consciously (“perception” in the usual sense) a facial expression of discontentment (sensorial input) but recognizes that her mother is discontent as a result (output) of an entirely subliminal process. (shrink)

This paper is a new non-descriptivist defense of non- conceptualism, based on a new interpretation of Kant’s metaphysics of concepts. We advance the following claim: What distinguishes non-conceptual from conceptual singular representations is the way partial representations of the object’s features are integrated into the whole representation of the object: while at the non-conceptual level this integration takes the form of images of the object’s features that are stored and projected, at the conceptual level this integration takes the form of (...) the recognition that those features are properties of a same object, what Kant calls “synthetic unity of Aperception”. (shrink)

In this paper, I argue against the phenomenal concept strategy (henceforth PCS) and in favor of what Chalmers has called type-A materialism ([2006], [2010] p. 111). On her release, Mary makes no cognitive discovery at all, not even a thin, non-possibility-eliminating discovery, as Tye has recently claimed [2012]. When she is imprisoned, Mary already knows everything that is to be known about the phenomenal character of her experiences. What Mary acquires is a new non-cognitive and nonconceptual representation.

Este trabalho pretende defender a necessidade de se trabalhar conteúdos relacionados a ética animal nos ambientes escolares, visando descontruir a visão antropocêntrica predominante nas sociedades ocidentais. Assim como evoluímos no combate ao racismo e ao sexismo, é necessário avançarmos para a superação do especismo. Por isso, considerando o papel da escola na formação de práticas e costumes em nossa sociedade, temos a responsabilidade de conduzir nossas crianças e jovens a uma compreensão mais justa e inclusiva de sociedade. Se faz necessário, (...) assim, uma reestruturação das práticas curriculares vigentes, elevando o ensino a um novo paradigma de educação integral, justa, inclusiva e igualitária, possível apenas por meio de uma educação não-especista. Começamos apresentando alguns conceitos importantes sobre ética animal, seguidos de uma argumentação a favor da superação do especismo. Por fim, discutimos as possibilidades de um conteúdo programático crítico, que propague a ética animal de modo transversal e interdisciplinar. (shrink)

Entrevista concedida a partir da presença da filósofa em encontro realizado no dia 12 de dezembro de 2020 a convite do Grupo de Pesquisa, Ensino e Extensão em Ética Animal da Universidade Federal de Uberlândia para apresentação e discussão de sua obra “Galactolaria: mau deleite” (2012). Em nome da Revista Primordium, os discentes do curso de graduação e pós-graduação em Filosofia da UFU, Laís Oliveira Rios e Gustavo Henrique de Freitas Coelho, prepararam e conduziram a entrevista.

A partir da obra Teogonia, poema atribuído a Hesíodo, analisaremos neste artigo como os processos de geração e reprodução dos deuses, assim como os casos de incesto e parricídio entre eles, influenciaram a disputa pelo poder que instaurou três gerações divinas. Para tanto, após breve consideração a respeito da constituição da poesia mítica em Hesíodo, acompanharemos a narrativa principal do mito a partir da união amorosa entre as divindades Terra e Céu, e a subsequente sucessão no poder cósmico: Céu, Crono, (...) Zeus. (shrink)

This paper addresses Fichte’s puzzle of self-consciousness. I propose a new reading of “Fichte’s original insight,” inspired by Pareyson’s general reading, which I call here the “Fichtean metaphysical turn in transcendental philosophy.” Against the mainstream view in Fichte’s scholarship, I argue that Fichte’s and Kant’s views do not concur regard- ing the primary reference of the “I”, namely spontaneous agency in thinking, which Fichte calls “Tathandlung”. Yet, their views do, in fact, concur when Fichte claims that this spontaneous agency in (...) thinking is the “essence” or the underlying nature of the self, which Kant denies. Regarding this, I take the side of Fichte. But how is Fichte’s original insight supposed to solve the puzzle of self-consciousness? At that transcendental level, the puzzle does not arise because there is no need for self-identification in the first place. Transcendental self-knowledge results from the sui generis intellectual Selbstanschauung that everyone has of oneself as sheer spontaneous agency in thinking. But at the empirical level, the puzzle does not arise either and for the same reason. Reference to the embodied self dispenses with any self-identification because it is based on the fundamental metaphysical relation everybody has to their own body, namely identity. (shrink)

In this essay we will argue for the following theses: 1- know-how is not a form of practical knowledge devoid of propositional sense; 2- the relationship between each perception and the body itself is metaphysically contingent (organisms and bodies can vary, as can even the spaces they occupy in the same experience vary), 3- it is up to the brain to configure or to shape a physical body (Körper) into a living body (Leib) and not the other way around; 4- (...) phenomenal externalism of enactivist nature, even in its mild form, is empirically implausible: the correlation between the conscious character of sensory experience with spatiotemporal neuronal patterns is much more systematic and regular than with anything outside the brain. But in its radical form is entirely implausible and contra-intuitive: phenomenal duplicates are not necessarily duplicates of agency; in short, 5-we are our own brain that has a body, avatars, and artifacts, properly configured, and molded by the brain, and not a body that has a brain among other essential organs. (shrink)

Entre as alternativas investigadas para suprir o déficit de órgãos disponíveis para transplante está o uso de animais não-humanos como fornecedores de órgãos, técnica conhecida como xenotransplante. Embora os primeiros experimentos desse tipo remontem a mais de um século, e as pesquisas tenham progredido nas últimas décadas impulsionadas pelos avanços em manipulação genética, o procedimento ainda permanece desconhecido para grande parte da população, com escassa discussão acerca de seus desafios e implicações éticas. Desta forma, este estudo tem uma dupla finalidade: (...) (a) consolidar dados relevantes que evidenciam a complexidade que transcende a execução clínica do procedimento, proporcionando elementos para uma análise ética da xenotransplantação, e (b) fomentar a reflexão crítica e encorajar outras pessoas a se engajarem em uma discussão rigorosa e detalhada sobre o assunto. Refletindo esta preocupação, o trabalho foi estruturado em duas seções. A primeira seção, de caráter descritivo, reúne informações técnico-científicas. O Capítulo 1 debruça-se sobre as complexidades, desafios e limitações do sistema tradicional de transplantes. Já no Capítulo 2 é traçado um panorama histórico da xenotransplantação, priorizando o xenotransplante de órgãos. A segunda seção apresenta os dilemas éticos advindos da xenotransplantação. No Capítulo 3 abordo o equilíbrio entre os (possíveis) direitos individuais dos pacientes a receberem órgãos de origem animal e os riscos coletivos associados às xenozoonoses; preocupações relativas ao monitoramento e potencial invasão de privacidade dos pacientes xenotransplantados e seus entes próximos; desafios e limitações no processo de consentimento livre e informado dos pacientes; a postura do sistema de saúde face aos pacientes que declinarem de órgãos de origem animal ou que optarem pelo xenotransplante; os recentes casos de uso de pacientes com morte encefálica em experimentos de xenotransplantação de órgãos e suas possíveis repercussões; e, por fim, nos dedicamos à reflexão sobre a utilização de animais não-humanos, com foco nas justificativas que buscam legitimar este uso. Os capítulos foram estruturados de modo que, juntos, estabeleçam uma narrativa contínua, em que a análise de conceitos, argumentos e preocupações em um capítulo conduzem ao tema subsequente. Ao término, espero que delineiem um panorama abrangente das questões envolvidas, e forneçam uma argumentação fundamentada e coerente que respalde a conclusão de que a prática de xenotransplantação de órgãos deve ser abandonada e avaliada como moralmente errada. (shrink)

The central question of this paper is: what has Kant’s Refutation of Idealism argument proven, if anything? What is the real scandal of philosophy and universal human reason? I argue that Kant’s Refutation argument can only be considered sound if we assume that his target is what I call ‘metaphysical external-world skepticism.’ What is in question is not the ‘existence’ of outside things but their very ‘nature,’ that is, the claim that the thing outside us, which appears to us as (...) a persistent body in space, exists in itself _as a substantia noumenon_. Assuming the indirect-realist view that we only immediately know ideas and that their putative objects are known by inference, the metaphysical external-world skeptic doubts that the nature of things outside oneself is mind-independent. (shrink)

This is the report on the XVI BRAZILIAN LOGIC CONFERENCE (EBL 2011) held in Petrópolis, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil between May 9–13, 2011 published in The Bulletin of Symbolic Logic Volume 18, Number 1, March 2012. -/- The 16th Brazilian Logic Conference (EBL 2011) was held in Petro ́polis, from May 9th to 13th, 2011, at the Laboratório Nacional de Computação o Científica (LNCC). It was the sixteenth in a series of conferences that started in 1977 with the aim of (...) congregating logicians from Brazil and abroad, furthering interest in logic and its applications, stimulating cooperation, and contributing to the development of this branch of science. EBL 2011 included more than one-hundred and fifty participants, all of them belonging to prominent research institutes from Brazil and abroad, especially Latin America. The conference was sponsored by the Academia Brasileira de Ciências (ABC), the As- sociation for Symbolic Logic (ASL), Universidade Estadual de Campinas (UNICAMP), Centre for Logic, Epistemology and the History of Sciences (CLE), Laboratório Nacional de Computação o Científica (LNCC), Pontif ́ıcia Universidade Cato ́lica do Rio de Janeiro (PUC- Rio), Sociedade Brasileira de Lógica (SBL), and Universidade Federal Fluminense (UFF). Funding was provided by Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Cient ́ıfico e Tecnolo ́ gico (CNPq), Fundac ̧a ̃o de Amparo `a Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP), Fundação Euclides da Cunha (FEC), and Universidade Federal Fluminense (UFF). The members of the Scientific Committee were: Mário Folhadela Benevides (COPPE- UFRJ), Fa ́bio Bertato (CLE-IFCH-UNICAMP), Jean-Yves Béziau (UFRJ), Ricardo Bianconi (USP), Juliana Bueno-Soler (UFABC), Xavier Caicedo (Universidad de Los An- des), Walter Carnielli (CLE-IFCH-UNICAMP), Oswaldo Chateaubriand Filho (PUC-Rio), Marcelo Esteban Coniglio (CLE-IFCH-UNICAMP), Newton da Costa (UFSC, President), Antonio Carlos da Rocha Costa (UFRG), Alexandre Costa-Leite (UnB), I ́tala M. Loffredo D’Ottaviano (CLE-IFCH-UNICAMP), Marcelo Finger (USP), Edward Hermann Haeusler (PUC-Rio), Décio Krause (UFSC), João Marcos (UFRN), Ana Teresa de Castro Martins (UFC), Maria da Paz Nunes de Medeiros (UFRN), Francisco Miraglia (USP), Luiz Car- los Pereira (PUC-Rio and UFRJ), Elaine Pimentel (UFMG), and Samuel Gomes da Silva (UFBA). The members of the Organizing Committee were: Anderson de Araujo (UNICAMP), Walter Carnielli (CLE-IFCH-UNICAMP), Oswaldo Chateaubriand Filho (PUC-Rio, Co- chair), Marcelo Correa (UFF), Renata de Freitas (UFF), Edward Hermann Haeusler (PUC- RJ), Hugo Nobrega (COPPE-UFRJ), Luiz Carlos Pereira (PUC-Rio e IFCS/UFRJ), Leandro Suguitani (UNICAMP), Rafael Testa (UNICAMP), Leonardo Bruno Vana (UFF), and Petrucio Viana (UFF, Co-chair). (shrink)

My aim is to defend a peculiar epistemic version of the particularity thesis, which results from a sui generis combination of what I call the ‘singular relational view’ and what I call the ‘relativistic content view.’ Particulars are not represented as part of putative singular content. Instead, we are perceptually acquainted with them in the relevant sense that experience puts us in direct perceptual contact with them. And the content of experience is best modeled as a propositional function, that is, (...) the content of a complex predicate that is true or false only relative to some circumstances of evaluation. (shrink)

_ Source: _Page Count 20 This paper proposes a new deflationary reading of the metaphor of the “primitive sense of selfhood” in perception and proprioception, usually understood as an “experiential self-reference” that takes place before reflection and any use of concepts. As such, the paper is also a new defense of the old orthodox view that self-consciousness is a highly complex mental phenomenon that requires equally complex concepts. The author’s defense is a clear case of inference to the best explanation. (...) He argues that postulating an “experiential _self-reference_” to explain the “primitive sense of selfhood” is as explanatory overkill as attributing perceptions to bacteria to explain the remarkably sophisticated ways in which they adapt, attune, and respond to their environments. This is what the author calls trivialization of self-consciousness. The metaphor of the “primitive sense of selfhood” in perception and proprioception is far less extravagantly explained by what, based on Recanati, the author calls self-involvement without self-consciousness: there is no “experiential self-reference” because there is no _self-reference_ in the first place. Rather than being articulated as a constituent of the contents of her/his perceptions or proprioception, the self/subject is the key element of the circumstance of evaluation of these selfless contents. (shrink)

In this paper I take side on externalist incompatibilism. However, I intend to radicalize the position. First, based on my criticism of Burge's anaphoric proposal, I argue that there is no reasoning‐transparency: the reasoner is blind to the reasoning he is performing. Second, assuming a global form of content‐externalism, I argue that “in the head” are only logical and formal abilities. That is what I call “bite the bullet and swallow it too.”.

In this paper, I present a new interpretation of Kant’s notion of consciousness of oneself as a Subject on behalf of a polemic with a recent reading suggested by Longuenesse. My central aim is to provide a systematic interpretation of Kant’s metaphysics of consciousness in general. I present and defend new interpretations for four capital Kant’s notions. First, I present a reading of Kant’s sensible intuition as a de re form of mental representation without conceptual content and any structure. It (...) makes the subject aware only in the limited sense of demonstratively representing what appears to him. In the sequence, I present a reading of empirical consciousness as the result of a first-order representation. The important introduction of §16 of the first Critique is construed here as expressing what is known today as the access consciousness. Lastly, I propose a new reading for the transcendental Apperception as an intransitive form of consciousness. (shrink)

In this paper, I present a new reading of transcendental idealism. For a start, I endorse Allison’s rejection of the traditional so-called two-world view and, hence, of Guyer and Van Cleve’s ontological phenomenalism. But following Allais, I also reject Allison’s metaphysical deflacionism: transcendental idealism is metaphysically committed to the existence of things in themselves, noumena in the negative sense. Nevertheless, in opposition to Allais, I take Kant’s claim that appearances are “mere representations” inside our minds seriously. In the empirical sense, (...) appearances are the undetermined object of our sensible intuition. Yet, in the transcendental sense, appearances are nothing but the mind-dependent way that noumena manifest inside our minds and, hence, our mind-dependent way of knowing the mind-independent reality in itself (epistemological phenomenalism). (shrink)

Resumo: O projeto semântico de Davidson toma a forma de reducionismo que visa explicar as noções intencionais com base em noções puramente extensionais. O objetivo desse trabalho consiste na investigação do fracasso do projeto de Davidson como um argumento indireto contra sua suposição segundo a qual a chamada interpretação radical seria o fundamento do significado linguístico e do pensamento. Abstract: Davidson's semantic program is a form of semantic reductionism that aims to account for intensional notions on a purely extensional basis. (...) My aim in this paper is not to show that Davidsons fails in addressing the so-called extensionality problem. That is no novelty. Even Davidsonians recognize Davidson's failure. My main goal is to explore Davidson's failure as an indirect argument against his key assumption that the radical interpretation is the basis of sense and hence the possibility of thought. There is no priority of language over thought. This is a remnant of the so-called linguistic turn that Davidson inherited from the analytical tradition. The moral is the following: we must come back to Lockean common sense that to learn a natural language and to translate an alien tongue into our own is merely to learn a vehicle for communicating and expressing thoughts we have already had. (shrink)

Readings of Kant’s Critique as endorsing phenomenalism have occupied the spotlight in recent times: ontological phenomenalism, semantic phenomenalism, analytical phenomenalism, epistemological phenomenalism, and so on. Yet, they raise the same old coherence problem with the Critique : are they compatible with Kant’s Refutation of Idealism? Are they able to reconcile the Fourth Paralogism of the first edition with the Refutation of the second, since Kant repeatedly claimed that he never changed his mind in-between the two editions of his Critique? This (...) paper addresses the key question: was Kant a phenomenalist and, if he was, in which precise sense? I propose a metaphysical but not ontologically reductionist reading of Kant as a phenomenalist. I argue for the following claims. To be sure, for Kant appearance is mere representation. Yet, appearance is representation only insofar as we take “appearance” in the empirical sense, namely the way that the mind-independent existing noumenon appears in space and, crucially, when we take “representation” in the transcendental sense, namely the mind -dependent way that we can cognize the same mind-independent existing noumenon. How shall I argue in defense of my alternative reading? First, I argue that my reading is pretty much compatible with Kant’s Refutation. Second, I argue that my reading reconciles the causal with the intentional readings of the Refutation. Third, I argue that my reading makes the Fourth Paralogism of the first edition and the Refutation of Idealism of the second completely compatible. (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)

To manage conflicts between temptation and commitment, people use self-control. The process model of self-control outlines different strategies for managing the onset and experience of temptation. However, little is known about the decision-making factors underlying strategy selection. Across three experiments (N = 317), we tested whether the moral valence of a commitment predicts how people advise attentional self-control strategies. In Experiments 1 and 2, people rated attentional focus strategies as significantly more effective for people tempted to break moral relative to (...) immoral commitments, even when controlling for perceived temptation and trait self-control. Experiment 3 showed that as people perceived commitments to have more positive moral valence, they judged attentional focus strategies to be significantly more effective relative to attentional distraction strategies. Moreover, this effect was partly mediated by perceived differences in motivation. These results indicate that moralization informs decision-making processes related to self-control strategy selection. (shrink)