Nosotres, biólogues, ecologistas y otres profesionales dedicados a proteger la vida, les escribimos con una solicitud urgente. Les pedimos muy comedidamente que su organización o institución emita un comunicado oficial condenando la crisis en curso y abordando los impactos ambientales y humanitarios en Palestina.

Corcoran’s 27 entries in the 1999 second edition of Robert Audi’s Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy [Cambridge: Cambridge UP]. -/- ancestral, axiomatic method, borderline case, categoricity, Church (Alonzo), conditional, convention T, converse (outer and inner), corresponding conditional, degenerate case, domain, De Morgan, ellipsis, laws of thought, limiting case, logical form, logical subject, material adequacy, mathematical analysis, omega, proof by recursion, recursive function theory, scheme, scope, Tarski (Alfred), tautology, universe of discourse. -/- The entire work is available online free at more than (...) one website. Paste the whole URL. http://archive.org/stream/RobertiAudi_The.Cambridge.Dictionary.of.Philosophy/Robert.Audi_The.Cambrid ge.Dictionary.of.Philosophy -/- The 2015 third edition will be available soon. Before you think of buying it read some reviews on Amazon and read reviews of its competition: For example, my review of the 2008 Oxford Companion to Philosophy, History and Philosophy of Logic,29:3,291-292. URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/01445340701300429 -/- Some of the entries have already been found to be flawed. For example, Tarski’s expression ‘materially adequate’ was misinterpreted in at least one article and it was misused in another where ‘materially correct’ should have been used. The discussion provides an opportunity to bring more flaws to light. -/- Acknowledgements: Each of these entries was presented at meetings of The Buffalo Logic Dictionary Project sponsored by The Buffalo Logic Colloquium. The members of the colloquium read drafts before the meetings and were generous with corrections, objections, and suggestions. Usually one 90-minute meeting was devoted to one entry although in some cases, for example, “axiomatic method”, took more than one meeting. Moreover, about half of the entries are rewrites of similarly named entries in the 1995 first edition. Besides the help received from people in Buffalo, help from elsewhere was received by email. We gratefully acknowledge the following: José Miguel Sagüillo, John Zeis, Stewart Shapiro, Davis Plache, Joseph Ernst, Richard Hull, Concha Martinez, Laura Arcila, James Gasser, Barry Smith, Randall Dipert, Stanley Ziewacz, Gerald Rising, Leonard Jacuzzo, George Boger, William Demopolous, David Hitchcock, John Dawson, Daniel Halpern, William Lawvere, John Kearns, Ky Herreid, Nicolas Goodman, William Parry, Charles Lambros, Harvey Friedman, George Weaver, Hughes Leblanc, James Munz, Herbert Bohnert, Robert Tragesser, David Levin, Sriram Nambiar, and others. -/- . (shrink)

Linguistics of Saying is to be analyzed in the speech act conceived as an act of knowing. The speaking, saying and knowing subject, based on contexts and the principles of congruency and trust in the speech of other speakers, will create meanings and interpret the sense of utterances supplying the deficiencies of language by means of the intellective operations mentally executed in the act of speech. In the intellective operations you can see three steps or processes: first the starting point, (...) intuition or aísthesis; second, the process of abstraction; and third, the inverse: the process of determination or fixing the construct created. (shrink)

In this article, I develop a new account of the liberal view that principles of justice are meant to justify state coercion, and consider its implications for the question of global socioeconomic justice. Although contemporary proponents of this view deny that principles of socioeconomic justice apply globally, on my newly developed account this conclusion is mistaken. I distinguish between two types of coercion, systemic and interactional, and argue that a plausible theory of global justice should contain principles justifying both. The (...) justification of interactional coercion requires principles regulating interstate interference; that of systemic coercion requires principles of global socioeconomic justice. I argue that the proposed view not only helps us make progress in the debate on global justice, but also offers an independently compelling and systematic account of the function and conditions of applicability of justice. -/-. (shrink)

This work proposes that pain meets the requirements of being characterized as a secondary quality, as it covers, like a color, a determined extension. The argument seeks to establish a literal pain-color analogy through an inquiry into the intensity and location of the pain. From the classic intensity/location relationship reported by patients with acute appendicitis, three degrees of pain are distinguished: mild, moderate, and severe. The objective is only achieved by examining the Body’s extensional determinations (primary quality) insofar as each (...) of these degrees of pain covers three particular measures. Once these three measures have been explored according to the perforation process (tissue damage), the work ends by identifying pain as a transcendent moment. (shrink)

Philosophical discussions on cognition (ranging from computational and representational approaches to the 4E fra-mework), on the one hand, and those on sound and auditory per-ception, on the other, have hitherto remained apart. In this paper, the author addresses the concept of “auditory cognition”. While committing to the conceptual analysis of the latter, the author in-troduces the discussion of modality-specif ic approaches. Since the contributions made so far in the domain of the philosophy of sound and auditory perception are prone to (...) favor computational-repre-sentational approaches —e.g., the perceptual coherence model (Méndez-Martínez, 2022)—, the exploration of 4E possibilities will lay down a series of questions aimed to encourage future developers from that viewpoint. In that sense, the author explores conceptual entailments and connections between the genealogy of theories within the philosophy of sound and auditory perception, and the hypothesis of the extended cognition (EX). (shrink)

La lengua española nació cuando los hablantes del latín de la península Ibérica cambiaron de modo de pensar. Desde el pensar absoluto latino, asimilaron el pensar substantivo de los griegos a través del pensar cristiano. Haciendo una síntesis de estos tres pensares absolutos, crearon el pensar individual, el pensar abstracto y el pensar real. De este modo crearon lo que se puede designar como una ontología lingüística, la manifestación directa del pensar español. Los modos de pensar tienen que ver con (...) los modos de concebir lo que nos rodea. Ambos a dos preceden y determinan el pensamiento y la manifestación de las actividades libres del hombre, tanto si este es considerado individualmente, como si es considerado socialmente dentro del conjunto de hablantes que participan y contribuyen dentro de una comunidad lingüística. (shrink)

Linguistics of saying studies language in its birth. Language is the mental activity executed by speaking subjects. Linguistics of saying consists in analyzing speech acts as the result of an act of knowing. Speaking subjects, speak because they have something to say; they say something because they define themselves before the circumstance they are in; and this is possible because they are able to know. Speaking, then, is speaking, saying and knowing. In this sense there is a progressive determination. Knowing (...) makes possible saying, and saying determines speaking. The problem thus is to determine the linguistic intention of the individual speaker to say something in every speech act. (shrink)

This article provides a conceptual map of the debate on ideal and non‐ideal theory. It argues that this debate encompasses a number of different questions, which have not been kept sufficiently separate in the literature. In particular, the article distinguishes between the following three interpretations of the ‘ideal vs. non‐ideal theory’ contrast: (i) full compliance vs. partial compliance theory; (ii) utopian vs. realistic theory; (iii) end‐state vs. transitional theory. The article advances critical reflections on each of these sub‐debates, and highlights (...) areas for future research in the field. (shrink)

This paper addresses the relationship between logic and phenomenology at a historical moment that precedes the big divide between analytic philosophy and phenomenology. In analysing alternative derivations of phenomenological logic, the discussion focuses on the case of two notorious neo-Kantian Mexican philosophers from the first half of the XXth century: Adalberto García de Mendoza and Francisco Larroyo. It is argued that both García de Mendoza and Larroyo made an original contribution to the discussion on the relationship between phenomenology and logic. (...) Further, this paper attempts to present a charitable portrait of both García de Mendoza and Larroyo in contrast to underrating approaches to both Mexican philosophers. In so doing, this paper adopts a historical—though not strictly biographical— perspective. While it is true that neither García de Mendoza nor Larroyo could be considered “phenomenologists” or “Husserl scholars” according to contemporary standards it is worth noticing that they engage in the discussion of phenomenological logic. Both authors had the project of developing a grounding logic for science and, as the article argues, both attempts could be even linked. Their project, however, was unfinished. The plan of this paper is as follows. The first section addresses the problem of the relationship between logic and phenomenology. The second one focuses on García de Mendoza’s contributions. The third one elaborates on Larroyo’s Logic of Sciences. And, finally, the fourth section elaborates on these Mexican philosophers’ contributions to education, making as well further observations concerning the similarities and differences between both authors. (shrink)

We explore the contribution made by oscillatory, synchronous neural activity to representation in the brain. We closely examine six prominent examples of brain function in which neural oscillations play a central role, and identify two levels of involvement that these oscillations take in the emergence of representations: enabling (when oscillations help to establish a communication channel between sender and receiver, or are causally involved in triggering a representation) and properly representational (when oscillations are a constitutive part of the representation). We (...) show that even an idealized informational sender–receiver account of representation makes the representational status of oscillations a non-trivial matter, which depends on rather minute empirical details. (shrink)

The most comprehensive manifestation of language can be seen in the activity of speaking. In it the activity of speaking cannot be understood unless it is referred to the concepts of language and a language. Anything in language can be found in the activity of speaking. Because of this you can find what language is if you abstract from the innumerable manifestations of the activity of speaking.

Ronald de Sousa is one of the few analytic philosophers to have explored the ineffability of emotion. Ineffability arises, for de Sousa, from attempts to translate experience, which involves non-conceptual content, into language, which involves conceptual content. As de Sousa himself rightly notes, such a characterization construes all perceptual experience as ineffable and does not explain what might set emotional ineffability apart. I build on de Sousa’s insights regarding what makes emotional ineffability distinctive by highlighting that in the case of (...) emotion the content in question is, crucially, evaluative. Evaluative content has normativity that makes the ineffability of emotion both particularly salient as well as particularly relevant, as the way in which an object is valuable is felt to be merited despite the experience’s ineffability. After proposing an improved working definition of emotional ineffability, I move to the question of how language and emotional experience interact, and whether these interactions can be evaluated in any systematic way. While de Sousa is pessimistic regarding the prospects of such an evaluation, I argue that if we move beyond an individual level of analysis it is possible to characterize cases where the ineffability of emotion leaves members of particular social groups vulnerable to a range of epistemic and affective injustices. I argue that we can similarly characterize cases where the ineffability of emotion holds radical potential to challenge and transform unjust social arrangements. I end by proposing that the representational content of emotion involves what I call ‘modal complexity’ and that this makes emotions particularly well-suited to play such radical roles. (shrink)

There has been much discussion of so-called teleosemantic approaches to the naturalization of content. Such discussion, though, has been largely confined to simple, innate mental states with contents such as ?There is a fly here.? Even assuming we can solve the issues that crop up at this stage, an account of the content of human mental states will not get too far without an account of productivity: the ability to entertain indefinitely many thoughts. The best-known teleosemantic theory, Millikan's biosemantics, offers (...) an account of productivity in thought. This paper raises a basic worry about this account: that the use of mapping functions in the theory is unacceptable from a naturalistic point of view. (shrink)

Intentionalism is the view that perceptual phenomenology depends on perceptual content. The aim of this paper is to make explicit an ambiguity in usual formulations of intentionalism, and to argue in favor of one way to disambiguate it. It concerns whether perceptual phenomenology depends on the content of one and only one representation (often construed as being identical to a certain perceptual experience), or instead depends on a collection of many different representations throughout the perceptual system. We argue in favor (...) of the latter option. Intentionalism so conceived can make better sense of contemporary neuroscience of perception, and is better equipped to confront several influential objections to traditional intentionalism. (shrink)

While various definitions of moral distress have been proposed, some agreement exists that it results from illegitimate constraints in clinical practice affecting healthcare professionals’ moral agency. If we are to reduce moral distress, instruments measuring it should provide relevant information about such illegitimate constraints. Unfortunately, existing instruments fail to do so. We discuss here several shortcomings of major instruments in use: their inability to determine whether reports of moral distress involve an accurate assessment of the requisite clinical and logistical facts (...) in play, whether the distress in question is aptly characterized as moral, and whether the moral distress reported is an appropriate target of elimination. Such failures seriously limit the ability of empirical work on moral distress to foster appropriate change. (shrink)

James Hughes, a pro-choice advocate, argues that the ability to select the sex of a child is an essential reproductive right for women.

Abstract: Introspection reveals that one is frequently conscious of some form of inner speech, which may appear either in a condensed or expanded form. It has been claimed that this speech reflects the way in which language is involved in conscious thought, fulfilling a number of cognitive functions. We criticize three theories that address this issue: Bermúdez’s view of language as a generator of second-order thoughts, Prinz’s development of Jackendoff’s intermediate-level theory of consciousness, and Carruthers’s theory of inner speech as (...) a rehearsal of action-schemata. We contend they have problems to account for those cases in which inner speech is fragmentary, and for the difference with those instances in which it appears as more sentence-like. In addition, we present verbal overshadowing as a phenomenon that neither of them can easily explain. Finally, we propose an account in which inner speech is fundamentally silent outer speech and argue that it is more explanatory than the alternatives. (shrink)

Recent work on signaling has mostly focused on communication between organisms. The Lewis–Skyrms framework should be equally applicable to intra-organismic signaling. We present a Lewis–Skyrms signaling-game model of painful signaling, and use it to argue that the content of pain is predominantly imperative. We address several objections to the account, concluding that our model gives a productive framework within which to consider internal signaling.

El decir es anterior y va más allá del hablar, se vale del hablar y constituye la determinación del hablar. No hay un hablar sin un decir y sí puede haber un decir sin un hablar. El acto lingüístico es la manifestación del lenguaje, la lengua, el pensamiento y el conocimiento. Es fruto de un hablar, está determinado por un decir, presupone un conocer y revela la actitud del hablante, un sujeto libre e histórico, que es, a la vez, sujeto (...) hablante, dicente y cognoscente, ante la realidad y el mundo. De la misma manera que no se da un hablar sin un decir, tampoco se da un decir sin un conocer. En su génesis más profunda el conocer determina al decir y éste al hablar. Así, pues, el «ser hablante» (Coseriu) es, a la vez, el sujeto «dicente» (Ortega y Gasset) y el sujeto cognoscente (Coseriu, Ortega y Gasset, Heidegger, Aristóteles), porque se realiza a sí mismo en el acto del hablar y éste está determinado por el acto del decir y en última instancia por el acto del conocer. El decir define al hablante ante la realidad y el mundo y da soporte a lo que es la realidad y el mundo, que no es más que aquello a lo que el sujeto hablante, dicente y cognoscente le atribuye el ser o realidad. El ser humano, «coexistencia actuante de mí o yo con la circunstancia o mundo» (Ortega y Gasset), se libera de la necesidad vital en la que está inmerso, de la circunstancia a la que está inexorablemente ligado, mediante el conocer. Por el conocer el ser humano atribuye a eso que le rodea y afecta «el ser», haciendo de ello «cosas» y «mundo» constituido por «cosas». Todo esto se manifiesta en el acto lingüístico, que es un acto creador en un triple sentido: crea las cosas y el mundo (contenidos de conciencia, significados), crea la realidad de las cosas y el mundo, y crea la expresión de lo que es las cosas y el mundo (el lenguaje y la lengua) mediante lo dicho (lektón) determinado esto por el pensamiento (lógos). El acto lingüístico es creación (poiesis) y es manifestación (apóphansis), acto de crear un mundo y acto de desvelar el mundo interior del sujeto hablante, dicente y cognoscente, acto de desvelar lo que está oculto y que ahora es no-oculto o verdadero (a-lethés). El hablar, el decir y el conocer son acciones vitales del ser humano. El hablar es una acción vital del sujeto creador que le viene de fuera, de la comunidad; el decir es la acción vital que le viene de dentro y que proyecta él mismo hacia fuera, hacia la comunidad; y el conocer es el acto mismo de creación de un sujeto, que es, opuestamente, libre e histórico, absoluto y limitado, creador de formas y participante de formas comunes creadas en la comunidad. El hablar en sí mismo, al igual que la lengua, es a-circunstancial y tiene que ver con la creación en términos absolutos e históricos. El decir como manifestación del interior del sujeto hablante, dicente y cognoscente tiene que ver con la verdad o aquello que se manifiesta desvelándose (a-létheia). De esta manera, podemos ver dos clases de pensamiento o logos: el logos a-circunstancial o intersubjetivo o histórico, lógos semantikós, y el logos que manifiesta una realidad interior y crea una realidad exterior desde el interior del sujeto creador o lógos apophantikós. La lingüística del decir que ahora se presenta recoge una propuesta en el mismo sentido hecha por Ortega y Gasset y es la continuación de la lingüística del hablar de Coseriu. Hace un replanteamiento de la realidad radical, el ser hablante de Coseriu, que es concebido ahora como el sujeto hablante, dicente y cognoscente. Estudia el acto lingüístico, acto del hablar, decir y conocer, como la manifestación primera de la intención significativa de cada sujeto. Se basa en los principios de la lingüística del hablar de Coseriu, especialmente en los que describen el plano universal e individual del hablar, es decir, los principios de la confianza en el hablar del otro y de la congruencia y coherencia en el hablar. Mira, por consiguiente, al acto lingüístico como «producción», como aquello que se crea en el acto único del hablar, decir y conocer. La finalidad de la lingüística del decir es llegar la génesis misma del lenguaje, que no es más que la génesis del acto lingüístico. Analiza el acto lingüístico como la manifestación del acto del conocer, el cual partiendo de la aísthesis o intuición sensible (Ortega y Gasset, Heidegger, Aristóteles) o intuición inédita del hablante (Coseriu), se descompone en una serie de operaciones intelectivas, cada una de las cuales contribuye a configurar de una manera dada la «aprehensión del ser» inicial e inédita. Estas operaciones intelectivas son: la selección, el establecimiento de una designación, la creación de una clase o esencia, la relación, la nominación y la determinación. Tras la presentación y justificación de lo que es cada uno de los conceptos indicados arriba (los cuatro primeros capítulos), el libro dedica un capítulo a cada una de estas operaciones intelectivas, analizada e ilustrada con ejemplos. Como ilustración de lo que puede ser el análisis aquí propugnado, se dedica un capítulo al análisis del adjetivo 'brisk’, adjetivo de conducta de la lengua inglesa. (shrink)

We present a dynamic model of the evolution of communication in a Lewis signaling game while systematically varying the degree of common interest between sender and receiver. We show that the level of common interest between sender and receiver is strongly predictive of the amount of information transferred between them. We also discuss a set of rare but interesting cases in which common interest is almost entirely absent, yet substantial information transfer persists in a *cheap talk* regime, and offer a (...) diagnosis of how this may arise. -/- . (shrink)

Categorization behavior can be fruitfully analyzed in terms of the trade‐off between as high as possible faithfulness in the transmission of information about samples of the classes to be categorized, and as low as possible transmission costs for that same information. The kinds of categorization behaviors we associate with conceptual atoms, prototypes, and exemplars emerge naturally as a result of this trade‐off, in the presence of certain natural constraints on the probabilistic distribution of samples, and the ways in which we (...) measure faithfulness. Beyond the general structure of categorization in these circumstances, the same information‐centered perspective can shed light on other, more concrete properties of human categorization performance, such as the results of certain prominent experiments on supervised categorization. (shrink)

Godfrey-Smith advocates for linking deception in sender-receiver games to the existence of undermining signals. I present games in which deceptive signals can be arbitrarily frequent, without this undermining information transfer between sender and receiver.

Outlaw emotions are emotions that stand in tension with one’s wider belief system, often allowing epistemic insight one may have otherwise lacked. Outlaw emotions are thought to play crucial epistemic roles under conditions of oppression. Although the crucial epistemic value of these emotions is widely acknowledged, specific accounts of their epistemic role(s) remain largely programmatic. There are two dominant accounts of the epistemic role of emotions: The Motivational View and the Justificatory View. Philosophers of emotion assume that these dominant ways (...) of accounting for the epistemic role(s) of emotions in general are equipped to account for the epistemic role(s) of outlaw emotions. I argue that this is not the case. I consider and dismiss two responses that could be made on behalf of the most promising account, the Justificatory View, in light of my argument, before sketching an alternative account that should be favoured. (shrink)

We aim to map out the points of confluence between phronesis and emotion, as well as the nature of this confluence. We do so based on philosophical and psychological explanations of emotions and phronesis. Making sound decisions, which requires phronesis, is an important matter, but its relationship with emotions has only just begun to be studied. We propose that the interplay between phronesis and emotion is possible (rather than inevitable) because both have a cognitive-behavioural structure and because emotions are hierarchical. (...) In the case of emotion, there are no gaps between the cognitive and behavioural dimensions, while phronetic acts can only manifest if cognitive and behavioural aspects are activated simultaneously. The confluence we identify is bidirectional and involves mutual enrichment in this dual dimension. On the one hand, phronesis enriches emotion because it involves extra subjective knowledge and allows emotion to be directed towards higher goals. On the other hand, emotions enrich phronesis because phronesis makes decisions based on sensitive preferences and because emotions confirm correctness in the context of moral decision making. Methodologically, this study is theoretical and interdisciplinary, as our approach is both philosophical and psychological. Philosophy helps us to improve the conceptual foundation of the construct, while psychology provides an analysis of the emotional process, allowing philosophy to understand how emotional evaluation-assessment and motivation lead to decision making. (shrink)

The orthodox view of anger takes desires for revenge or retribution to be central to the emotion. In this paper, I develop an empirically informed challenge to the retributive view of anger. In so doing, I argue that a distinct desire is central to anger: a desire for recognition. Desires for recognition aim at the targets of anger acknowledging the wrong they have committed, as opposed to aiming for their suffering. In light of the centrality of this desire for recognition, (...) I argue that the retributive view of anger should be abandoned. I consider and dismiss two types of moves that can be made on the part of a proponent of the orthodox view in response to my argument. I propose that a pluralist view, which allows for both retribution and recognition in anger, is to be preferred. (shrink)

I explore some of the connections between Grahek's model of asymbolic pain, as developed in Feeling Pain and Being in Pain, and the contemporary intentionalist discussion over evaluativist and imperativist models of pain. I will sketch a Grahekian version of imperativism that is both true to his main insights and better at confronting some of the challenges that his theory has faced since its publication.

In this article I argue that characterizations of anger as a hostile emotion may be mistaken. My project is empirically informed and is partly descriptive, partly diagnostic. It is descriptive in that I am concerned with what anger is, and how it tends to manifest, rather than with what anger should be or how moral anger is manifested. The orthodox view on anger takes it to be, descriptively, an emotion that aims for retribution. This view fits well with anger being (...) a hostile emotion, as retribution is punitive. I will argue that a different view of anger deserves our attention. On this alternative view, anger aims for recognition of harms done, rather than for the punishment of those who have committed them. I argue that we have reason to favour a strong view that excludes retribution from anger’s main aims. In addition, I offer a diagnosis of the reasons that led the retributive view of anger to become, and remain, orthodoxy. This diagnosis provides indirect reason to give my descriptive proposal serious consideration, for it highlights that the orthodox view has dominated folk and philosophical conceptions of anger for reasons that do not speak in favour of the view’s veracity. The view that anger is a hostile emotion will therefore emerge as in need of serious scrutiny. (shrink)

In this paper, we introduce an enactive account of loving as participatory sense-making inspired by the “I love to you” of the feminist philosopher Luce Irigaray. Emancipating from the fusionist concept of romantic love, which understands love as unity, we conceptualise loving as an existential engagement in a dialectic of encounter, in continuous processes of becoming-in-relation. In these processes, desire acquires a certain prominence as the need to know (the other, the relation, oneself) more. We build on Irigaray’s account of (...) love to present a phenomenology of loving interactions and then our enactive account. Finally, we draw some implications for ethics. These concern language, difference, vulnerability, desire, and self-transformation. (shrink)

I present and defend a novel version of the homeostatic property cluster account of natural kinds. The core of the proposal is a development of the notion of co-occurrence, central to the HPC account, along information-theoretic lines. The resulting theory retains all the appealing features of the original formulation, while increasing its explanatory power, and formal perspicuity. I showcase the theory by applying it to the problem of reconciling the thesis that biological species are natural kinds with the fact that (...) many such species are polymorphic. (shrink)

Altruism and solidarity are concepts that are closely related to organ donation for transplantation. On the one hand, they are typically used for encouraging people to donate. On the other hand, they also underpin the regulations in force in each country to different extents. They are often used indistinctly and equivocally, despite the different ethical implications of each concept. This paper aims to clarify to what extent we can speak of altruism and solidarity in the predominant models of organ donation. (...) It also raises the ethical question of whether these categories are adequate as a basis for such models, bearing in mind that organs are a scarce resource and that a shortage of them may mean that fewer lives are saved or improved. (shrink)

Is democracy a requirement of justice or an instrument for realizing it? The correct answer to this question, I argue, depends on the background circumstances against which democracy is defended. In the presence of thin reasonable disagreement about justice, we should value democracy only instrumentally (if at all); in the presence of thick reasonable disagreement about justice, we should value it also intrinsically, as a necessary demand of justice. Since the latter type of disagreement is pervasive in real-world politics, I (...) conclude that theories of justice designed for our world should be centrally concerned with democracy. (shrink)

since the 20th century bodybuilding has been an object of study that interests and challenges researchers in the sociology of sport (see Conquet, 2014 - Tajrobehkar, 2016 - Wellman, 2020) and, recently, in the philosophy of sport (see Aranyosi, 2017 - Madej, 2021 - Worthen, 2016). However, many of its problems are little known in the orthodox philosophical literature. Therefore, the aim of this paper is to contribute from STS studies to the posing and discussion of the central ethical and (...) social problems of bodybuilding by contributing to the philosophy of sport or the philosophy of body techniques. Therefore, I will plant the following problems in relation to bodybuilding: gender and sexism; racism, ableism and eugenics; and lastly, fatphobia. Finally, I propose that many of these problems are generated from the indiscriminate use of anabolic androgenic steroids (AAS) within this sport subculture. In this sense, a precautionary framework (epistemic values, moral values, hormonal benefit principle and sports precautionary principle) is proposed from STS studies with the aim of regulating their use, avoiding adverse effects in individuals who are not professional bodybuilders. -/- . (shrink)

Anger is often an appropriate reaction to harms and injustices, but is it a politically beneficial one? Martha Nussbaum (Journal of the American Philosophical Association 1 (1), 41–56, 2015, Anger and Forgiveness. Oxford University Press, 2016) has argued that, although anger is useful in initially recruiting agents for action, anger is typically counterproductive to securing the political aims of those harmed. After the initial shockwave of outrage, Nussbaum argues that to be effective at enacting positive social change, groups and individuals (...) alike, must move quickly out of the state of anger. Feminist theorists (Frye, The Politics of Reality. Crossing Press, 1983; Lorde, 1997; Narayan, Hypatia 3 (2): 31–48, 1988) on the other hand have for long highlighted the efficacy of anger, as well as its moral and epistemic value, in fighting against the oppressive status quo. It might be thought therefore that for political action to be effective, a continued state of anger is preferable. Protestors must after all create and sustain a sense of moral obligation and justice. A main way of doing so is to promote successive moral shocks that trigger outrage (Jasper, Emotion Review 6 (3): 208–213, 2014). I present a novel, empirically informed defense of anger’s efficacy in political action. Nussbaum holds a traditional view on the nature of anger, inherited from Aristotle and the Stoics, which holds that anger constitutively involves a desire for retribution. The view that anger is counterproductive falls out of this and is dominant in academic work as well as in our personal and political lives. Based on work in social psychology, I argue that we need to reconsider this. In doing so, I highlight anger’s aim for recognition, rather than retribution, as key. Furthermore, I uncover conditions for anger’s political efficacy, as well as reasons for why the traditional view of anger has been so pervasive. (shrink)

In this article I present a disagreement between classical and constructive approaches to predicativity regarding the predicative status of so-called generalised inductive definitions. I begin by offering some motivation for an enquiry in the predicative foundations of constructive mathematics, by looking at contemporary work at the intersection between mathematics and computer science. I then review the background notions and spell out the above-mentioned disagreement between classical and constructive approaches to predicativity. Finally, I look at possible ways of defending the constructive (...) predicativity of inductive definitions. (shrink)

In the realm of the philosophy of sounds and auditory experience there is an ongoing discussion concerned with the nature of sounds. One of the contestant views within this ontology of sound is that of the Property View, which holds that sounds are properties of the sounding objects. A way of developing this view is through the idea of dispositionalism, namely, by sustaining the theory according to which sounds are dispositional properties (Pasnau 1999; Kulvicki 2008; Roberts 2017). That portrayal, however, (...) is not sufficient, as it has not inquired the metaphysical debates about dispositions beyond the conditional analysis. In this paper, I try to advance this view by including recent developments (for instance Bird 2007; Vetter 2015) in the field of dispositionalism and I analyse whether this new version can sort out known and new objections to Property View. (shrink)

Although the view that sees proper names as referential singular terms is widely considered orthodoxy, there is a growing popularity to the view that proper names are predicates. This is partly because the orthodoxy faces two anomalies that Predicativism can solve: on the one hand, proper names can have multiple bearers. But multiple bearerhood is a problem to the idea that proper names have just one individual as referent. On the other hand, as Burge noted, proper names can have predicative (...) uses. But the view that proper names are singular terms arguably does not have the resources to deal with Burge’s cases. In this paper I argue that the Predicate View of proper names is mistaken. I first argue against the syntactic evidence used to support the view and against the predicativist’s methodology of inferring a semantic account for proper names based on incomplete syntactic data. I also show that Predicativism can neither explain the behaviour of proper names in full generality, nor claim the fundamentality of predicative names. In developing my own view, however, I accept the insight that proper names in some sense express generality. Hence I propose that proper names—albeit fundamentally singular referential terms—express generality in two senses. First, by being used as predicates, since then they are true of many individuals; and second, by being referentially related to many individuals. I respond to the problem of multiple bearerhood by proposing that proper names are polyreferential, and also explain the behaviour of proper names in light of the wider phenomenon I called category change, and show how Polyreferentialism can account for all uses of proper names. (shrink)

Why do we have social norms—of fairness, cooperation, trust, property, or gender? Modern-day Humeans, as I call them, believe these norms are best accounted for in cultural evolutionary terms, as adaptive solutions to recurrent problems of social interaction. In this paper, I discuss a challenge to this “Humean Program.” Social norms involve widespread behaviors, but also distinctive psychological attitudes and dispositions. According to the challenge, Humean accounts of norms leave their psychological side unexplained. They explain, say, why we share equally, (...) but not why we disapprove of those who don’t. I defend the Humean Program against this challenge. In particular, I suggest an idea for how to extend the Program to account for the psychological side of norms. Socially adaptive behaviors aren’t just likely to emerge in a group; They are also likely to be widely taught within it. The transmission of these behaviors through instruction explains why they are associated with distinctive normative attitudes and dispositions. These attitudes play a pedagogical role in helping transmit these behaviors to children and newcomers. (shrink)

This paper addresses the problem of sound individuation (SI) and its connection to sound ontology (SO). It is argued that the problems of SI, such as aspatiality, extreme individuation, indexical perplexity and duration puzzles are due to SO’s uncertainties. Besides, I describe the views in SO, including the wave view (WV), the property view (PV), and the event view (EV), as Casey O’Callaghan defends it. According to O’Callaghan, EV offers clear standards to individuate sounds. However, this claim is countered by (...) the consideration that any view could also defend the standards in SO, and thus, EV does not solve any of the problems mentioned above. As a way of showing the difficulties inherited by sound’s inner ontology, the problem of its linguistic representation is also addressed. The problem of SI can be developed within the frame of the philosophy of language and, specifically, regarding the discussion about mass vs count-­sortal terms. Is the term sound a mass or a count­-sortal? It is shown that, for reasons pertaining SO, the decision regarding the case of sound as a mass or count-­sortal term remains open. SI is, thus, covered from the SO to the philosophy of language. (shrink)

When and why do socially constructed norms—including the laws of the land, norms of etiquette, and informal customs—generate moral obligations? I argue that the answer lies in the duty to respect others, specifically to give them what I call “agency respect.” This is the kind of respect that people are owed in light of how they exercise their agency. My central thesis is this: To the extent that (i) existing norms are underpinned by people’s commitments as agents and (ii) they (...) do not conflict with morality, they place moral demands on us on agency-respect grounds. This view of the moral force of socially constructed norms, I suggest, is superior to views that deny the moral force of such norms, and it elegantly explains certain instances of wrongdoing that would otherwise remain unaccounted for. (shrink)

Various philosophers authors have argued—on the basis of powerful examples—that we can have compelling moral or practical reasons to believe, even when the evidence suggests otherwise. This paper explores an alternative story, which still aims to respect widely shared intuitions about the motivating examples. Specifically, the paper proposes that what is at stake in these cases is not belief, but rather acceptance—an attitude classically characterized as taking a proposition as a premise in practical deliberation and action. I suggest that acceptance’s (...) theoretical usefulness in the ethics of belief has been hidden by its psychological obscurity. I thus aim to develop an empirically adequate and mechanistically specific psychological profile of acceptance. I characterize acceptance as centrally involving a cognitive gating function, in which we prevent a target belief state from having its characteristic downstream effects on reasoning, cognition, and action, and restructure those downstream processes. I then argue that there is substantial empirical support for the existence of the cognitive mechanisms needed to instantiate this view, coming from the science of emotion regulation. I argue that acceptance involves deploying the same mechanisms used in emotional response modulation to belief states: acceptance is doxastic response modulation. I then propose that having a better understanding of the psychological profile of acceptance leaves us better positioned to appreciate its potential usefulness for making progress on various puzzles within the ethics of belief. (shrink)

It is widely held that it is unhelpful to model our epistemic access to modal facts on the basis of perception, and postulate the existence of a bodily mechanism attuned to modal features of the world. In this paper I defend modalizing mechanisms. I present and discuss a decision-theoretic model in which agents with severely limited cognitive abilities, at the end of an evolutionary process, have states which encode substantial information about the probabilities with which the outcomes of a certain (...) Bernoulli process occur. Thus, in the model, a process driven by very simple, thoroughly naturalistic mechanisms eventuates in modal sensitivity. (shrink)

A globalized world, some argue, needs a global democracy. But there is considerable disagreement about whether global democracy is an ideal worth pursuing. One of the main grounds for scepticism is captured by the slogan: “No global demos, no global democracy.” The fact that a key precondition of democracy—a demos—is absent at the global level, some argue, speaks against the pursuit of global democracy. The paper discusses four interpretations of the skeptical slogan—each based on a specific account of the notion (...) of “the demos”—and concludes that none of them establishes that the global democratic ideal must be abandoned. In so doing, the paper (i) systematizes different types of objections against global democracy, thus bringing some clarity to an otherwise intricate debate and (ii) offers a robust but qualified defense of the global democratic ideal. (shrink)

Moods have global and profound effects on our thoughts, motivations and behavior. To understand human behavior and cognition fully, we must understand moods. In this paper I critically examine and reject the methodology of conventional ?cognitive theories? of affect. I lay the foundations of a new theory of moods that identifies them with processes of our cognitive functional architecture. Moods differ fundamentally from some of our other affective states and hence require distinct explanatory tools. The computational theory of mood I (...) propose places them within the context of other mental phenomena and is consistent with the empirical data on moods. (shrink)

Both Franz Brentano and Edmund Husserl addressed sound while trying to explain the inner consciousness of time and gave to it the status of a supporting example. Although their inquiries were not aimed at clarifying in detail the nature of the auditory experience or sounds themselves, they made some interesting observations that can contribute to the current philosophical discussion on sounds. On the other hand, in analytic philosophy, while inquiring the nature of sounds, their location, auditory experience or the audible (...) qualities and so on, the representatives of that trend of thought have remained silent about the depiction of sound and the auditory phenomena in the phenomenological tradition. The paper’s intention is to relate both endeavours, yet the perspective carried out is that of analytic philosophy and, thus, I pay special attention to conceptual analysis as a methodological framework. In this sense, I first explain what sound ontology is in the context of analytic philosophy and the views that it encompasses— namely, the Property View (PV), the Wave View (WV) and the Event View (EV)—. Secondly, I address the problems it entails, emphasising that of sound individuation. In a third section, I propose the possibly controversial conjunction of a “Brentano-Husserl Analysis of the Consciousness of Time” (for short “Brentano-Husserl analysis”) and outline the commonalities of both authors, without ignoring its discrepancies. My main focus is Husserl’s 1905 Vorlesungen zur Phänomenologie des Inneren Zeitbewusstseins. While addressing the Brentano-Husserl analysis, I elaborate on the problem of temporal and spatial extension (Raumlichkeit and Zeitlichkeit, respectively) of both consciousness and sound. Such comparison is a key one, since after these two developments, one can notice some theoretical movements concerning the shift of attention from sounds to the unity of consciousness, and how they mirror each other. After examining the controversial claims concerning the temporal and spatial extension of both consciousness and sound, I argue in the concluding paragraphs that while considering the accounts of sound ontology, the Brentano-Husserl analysis would probably endorse a Property View and that this could have interesting consequences for the issue of Sound Individuation. (shrink)

In this paper I lay the foundations for the construction of an affective quality space. I begin by outlining what quality spaces are, and how they have been constructed for sensory qualities across different perceptual modalities. I then turn to tackle four obstacles that an affective quality space might face that would make an affective quality space unfeasible. After showing these obstacles to be surmountable, I propose a number of conditions and methodological constraints that should be satisfied in attempts to (...) construct an affective quality space. Before concluding, I detail the high explanatory pay-off such a project promises. (shrink)

Trust is a core feature of the physician-patient relationship, and risk is central to trust. Patients take risks when they trust their providers to care for them effectively and appropriately. Not all patients take these risks: some medical relationships are marked by mistrust and suspicion. Empirical evidence suggests that some patients and families of color in the United States may be more likely to mistrust their providers and to be suspicious of specific medical practices and institutions. Given both historical and (...) ongoing oppression and injustice in American medical institutions, such mistrust can be apt. Yet it can also frustrate patient care, leading to family and provider distress. In this paper, I propose one way that providers might work to reestablish trust by taking risks in signaling their own trustworthiness. This interpersonal step is not meant to replace efforts to remedy systemic injustice, but is an immediate measure for addressing mistrust in occurrent cases. (shrink)