This paper introduces the Las Piñas Bamboo Organ as a cultural treasure. By interviewing four key individuals related to the bamboo organ, the paper discusses the history, present condition, and activities related to the preservation and sustenance of the bamboo organ. Interview, a method of oral history, was chosen to let the people involved share their own memories and experiences that are not usually featured in written documents about the bamboo organ. The following themes emerged from the interviews: (1) the (...) introduction of Father Diego Cera as an organ builder, (2) the motivations in using bamboo as the main material of the bamboo organ, (3) the quality of the sound produced by the bamboo organ, (4) the restoration of the bamboo organ, (5) the beginnings, objectives, and activities of the Bamboo Organ Foundation, Inc., (6) the beginnings and objectives of the International Bamboo Organ Festival and the activities related to it, (7) the problems that the bamboo organ faces, and (8) the importance of training organists. The researchers also identified the implications of the conservation of the bamboo organ in the economic, social, ecological, and cultural aspects of the city’s social life based on its potentials for development. This paper can be a useful primary source for future researchers of the bamboo organ and the local history of Las Piñas. (shrink)

In this article, I suggest that combining resources from philosophy and psychology can yield useful tools for philosophical counselling. More specifically, I argue for three theses: a) Iris Murdoch’s notion of just attention and Marshall Rosenberg’s method of non-violent communication are interestingly compatible; b) engaging in non-violent communication serves to support one’s endeavors to acquire the kind of clear vision Murdoch thinks doing well by others requires; and c) non-violent just communication would be beneficial to both counsellors and counselees (...) and thus a useful resource for philosophical counsellors. (shrink)

W. J. T. Mitchell's "Spatial Form in Literature: Toward a General Theory" (Critical Inquiry 6 [Spring 1980]: 539-67) raises some fundamental questions about the concept of form itself and makes some large claims for the centrality of spatial form not only in modern criticism but in our entire culture. I wish to address a few of the questions raised by his discussion. First, Mitchell posits an identity between spatial form and "synchronic structural models" as if all explanatory models abstracted from (...) temporal alteration were necessarily spatial. (shrink)

Y a-t-il des Idées et peut-on démontrer qu’elles existent ? Parmi les protagonistes anciens de la controverse qui a opposé partisans et adversaires des Idées, Aristote mérite une attention toute particulière. De fait, si – au moment où Aristote intervient dans le débat autour de l’hypothèse des Idées – ce débat a déjà une histoire, c’est avec lui que cette histoire atteint une maturité qui est à la fois d’ordre doctrinal et doxographique. De fait, non seulement Aristote est le premier (...) à avoir défini certaines au moins des propriétés de ce qui est et se dit en commun de plusieurs, mais encore a-t-il pris soin d’inscrire ces définitions dans la continuité de l’héritage socratique dont il s’est explicitement revendiqué tout en dénonçant sa dérive aux mains des successeurs de Socrate. L’objectif principal du cycle de conférences a été d’étudier les objections qu’Aristote a formulées à l’encontre des partisans des Idées en prenant comme fil conducteur la notion de substance que sa discussion des Formes platoniciennes tantôt présuppose, tantôt mobilise explicitement. Pour ce faire, nous avons procédé à une lecture détaillée d’un certain nombre de documents, tirés aussi bien de ses écrits d’école que des vestiges de ses traités perdus, où Aristote rejette la notion d’un universel substantiel (autant dire, en l’occurrence, séparé) et s’efforce de mettre à mal les arguments que ses partisans avançaient pour prouver son existence. (shrink)

La actitud del diseño es una estrategia interpretativa propuesta por Dennett, que consiste en tratar al sistema, cuyo “comportamiento” se quiere predecir, bajo el supuesto de que sus partes cumplen funciones que obedecen a un diseño satisfactorio. Sin embargo, estudios recientes sobre atribución funcional en artefactos técnicos consideran que la actitud del diseño supone una estrategia inadecuada para entender qué hace un artefacto técnico. En particular, dos críticas han ganado visibilidad. Por una parte, Vermaas et al. (2013) señalan una inconsistencia (...) en la propuesta dennettiana de la actitud del diseño: las intenciones del diseñador a veces desempeñan un papel en la interpretación de los artefactos y a veces no lo hacen, sin tener finalmente una intuición clara sobre su rol. Por otra parte, Vaesen y Van Amerongen (2008) sostienen que la actitud del diseño admite dos interpretaciones, una descriptiva y una normativa, y que ambas son implausibles. No obstante, en este trabajo argumentamos que estas críticas son rebatibles y que el problema reside en que ambas acusaciones, i.e. inconsistencia e implausibilidad, suponen una interpretación incorrecta de la posición de Dennett. The design attitude is an interpretive strategy proposed by Dennett, which consists of treating the system, whose “behavior” is to be predicted, under the assumption that its parts fulfill functions that accomplish a satisfactory design. Recent studies on technical artifacts' functional attribution claim that the design attitude is an inadequate strategy to elicit what a technical artifact does. In particular, two criticisms have gained visibility. On the one hand, Vermas et al (2013) remark an inconsistency in Dennett’s design stance. The very designer's intentions sometimes play a role in the interpretation of artifacts and sometimes they don´t, without finally having a clear intuition about their role. On the other hand, Vaesen and Van Amerongen (2008) argue that the design stance admits two interpretations, a descriptive and a normative one and that both are implausible. However, we argue that these criticisms miss the point given that both accusations, i.e. of inconsistency and of implausibility, result from a wrong interpretation of Dennett's position. (shrink)

The thought experiment is a seemingly indispensable tool in the armchair philosopher’s toolbox. One wonders, for example, how philosophers could come to think that justified true belief isn’t knowledge, that reference isn’t determined by an expression’s associated description, or that moral responsibility doesn’t require the ability to do otherwise, without the use of thought experiments. But even if thought experiments play an integral role in philosophical methodology, their legitimacy is at least initially puzzling: one would think that significant knowledge of (...) the world requires extensive empirical investigation. But since thought experiments are done from the armchair, how can they tell us about the world? -/- A standard account of the nature and utility of thought experiments provides an answer to this question, and in a way that fits naturally with a standard picture of the nature of the facts philosophers investigate: Philosophers are about the business of investigating the essences of things and kinds. But a thing’s essential and accidental properties are modal properties. Thus, one can discern a thing’s essence by discovering its modal profile. But if so, then thought experiments are naturally suited as tools for the armchair philosopher. For thought experiments shed light on modal facts. Therefore, since philosophers investigate essences, facts about essence are modal facts, and the thought experiment is one of the few tools they have for discerning such facts, thought experiments play a legitimate and indispensable role in philosophical methodology. In my dissertation, I argue that the standard account of the nature and utility of thought experiments is inadequate, and sketch a more promising account. -/- First, I argue that our knowledge of possibility is restricted to the relatively humdrum. And if so, then since the standard account ties the utility of thought experiments to our knowledge of possibility, too many thought experiments will be ruled out as useless, which raises serious concerns about the significance, and perhaps even the legitimacy, of armchair philosophy. Thus, there is pressure for armchair philosophers to reject the standard account. -/- Second, I sketch an alternative picture of the nature of facts philosophers investigate – one that’s more fine-grained than the standard modal-profile picture. Relatedly, I sketch a correspondingly fine-grained semantics for claims about such facts. This alternative picture underwrites the legitimacy of a hitherto underappreciated sort of thought experiment, which I call the non-modal thought experiment. Such thought experiments shed light on facts about the world that are more fine-grained than what can be discerned by merely examining their modal profiles. I argue that non-modal thought experiments often succeed at just the points where the more familiar modal thought experiments fail, and thus that the two are naturally suited to complement one another in the philosopher’s practice. -/- Finally, I exploit the points mentioned above to sketch an account of the variety and utility of thought experiments that’s much more nuanced than that of the standard account. I then illustrate some of its virtues by indicating its ability to account for a wide range of epistemically forceful thought experiments – both humdrum and exotic –, and by demonstrating how it can be used to make progress in debates that have reached a stalemate due to conflicting modal intuitions. -/- . (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to investigate Nishida Kitarō’s way of philosophizing in the light of the concept of “transition” in order to deepen our understanding of both Nishida’s philosophy and our thinking about and in transitions, using the concept of “boundary” or “border” (Grenze) as a catalyst. For that purpose, we focus on Nishida’s essay “Place” (「場所」), passing through different parts of the text as if through successive gates on a path of transition between one place and the (...) next, until we reach the final place of “absolute nothingness.” Dwelling on this place, we turn our attention to its internal structure and try to depict it along the outlines of a boundary, following the movements taking place in Nishida’s essay. The second part proposes an interpretation of the place of nothingness as an interminable practice of boundary-crossing that doesn’t come to a halt in a final, all-encompassing place, but dynamically situates itself on countless intersecting planes. After a more or less abstract analysis of the concept of “boundary,” we will apply and concretize this approach by using the example of the skin. To this end, we expose five main features of the skin as boundary: permeability, enclosure, excessiveness, interstitiality and reciprocal self-formation. (shrink)

Some contemporary philosophers suggest that we know just by introspection that folk psychological states exist. However, such an "armchair refutation" of eliminativism seems too easy. I first attack two strategems, inspired by Descartes, on how such a refutation might proceed. However, I concede that the Cartesian intuition that we have direct knowledge of representational states is very powerful. The rest of this paper then offers an error theory of how that intuition might really be mistaken. The idea is that introspection (...) does not detect any folk psychological states, but rather detects neural states that dispose us to certain sorts of linguistic behavior. Briefly, rather than detecting a mental appearance of the state-of-affairs that I am sitting near the fire, introspection detects a state disposing me to assert "It appears to me that I am sitting by the fire." The nature of this linguistic-dispositional state is then given a connectionist underpinning, where inputs from introspection lead to such assertive behavior. The Cartesian certainty we feel in self-ascribing such appearances is also explained. Even though I do not endorse such an error theory outright, I suggest that its tenability is enough to undercut introspection arguments against eliminativism. (shrink)

While the philosophers of science discuss the General Relativity, the mathematical physicists do not question it. Therefore, there is a conflict. From the theoretical point view “the question of precisely what Einstein discovered remains unanswered, for we have no consensus over the exact nature of the theory 's foundations. Is this the theory that extends the relativity of motion from inertial motion to accelerated motion, as Einstein contended? Or is it just a theory that treats gravitation geometrically in the spacetime (...) setting?”. “The voices of dissent proclaim that Einstein was mistaken over the fundamental ideas of his own theory and that their basic principles are simply incompatible with this theory. Many newer texts make no mention of the principles Einstein listed as fundamental to his theory; they appear as neither axiom nor theorem. At best, they are recalled as ideas of purely historical importance in the theory's formation. The very name General Relativity is now routinely condemned as a misnomer and its use often zealously avoided in favour of, say , Einstein's theory of gravitation What has complicated an easy resolution of the debate are the alterations of Einstein's own position on the foundations of his theory”, (Norton, 1993). Of other hand from the mathematical point view the “General Relativity had been formulated as a messy set of partial differential equations in a single coordinate system. People were so pleased when they found a solution that they didn't care that it probably had no physical significance” (Hawking and Penrose, 1996). So, during a time, the declaration of quantum theorists:“I take the positivist viewpoint that a physical theory is just a mathematical model and that it is meaningless to ask whether it corresponds to reality. All that one can ask is that its predictions should be in agreement with observation.” (Hawking and Penrose, 1996)seemed to solve the problem, but recently achieved with the help of the tightly and collectively synchronized clocks in orbit frontally contradicts fundamental assumptions of the theory of Relativity. These observations are in disagree from predictions of the theory of Relativity. (Hatch, 2004a, 2004b, 2007). The mathematical model was developed first by Grossmann who presented it, in 1913, as the mathematical part of the Entwurf theory, still referred to a curved Minkowski spacetime. Einstein completed the mathematical model, in 1915, formulated for Riemann ́s spacetimes. In this paper, we present as of General Relativity currently remains only the mathematical model, darkened with the results of Hatch and, course, we conclude that a Einstein ́s gravity theory does not exist. (shrink)

Suppose that disgust can provide evidence of moral wrongdoing. What account of disgust might make sense of this? A recent and promising theory is the social contagion view, proposed by Alexandra Plakias. After criticizing both its descriptive and normative claims, I draw two conclusions. First, we should question the wisdom of drawing so straight a line from biological poisons and pathogens to social counterparts. Second, we don’t need to explain the evidential value of disgust by appealing to what the response (...) tracks. These lessons point toward an alternative: namely, that disgust is a moral heuristic. On the heuristic view, disgust is a trigger for the subconscious use of a particular rule: I show how this view fits with a plausible hypothesis about the social function of disgust, and then apply it to Leon Kass’s famous use of repugnance to criticize cloning. (shrink)

The paper addresses Leon Hen.kin's proposition as a " lighthouse", which can elucidate a vast territory of knowledge uniformly: logic, set theory, information theory, and quantum mechanics: Two strategies to infinity are equally relevant for it is as universal and t hus complete as open and thus incomplete. Henkin's, Godel's, Robert Jeroslow's, and Hartley Rogers' proposition are reformulated so that both completeness and incompleteness to be unified and thus reduced as a joint property of infinity and of all infinite (...) sets. However, only Henkin's proposition equivalent to an internal position to infinity is consistent . This can be retraced back to set theory and its axioms, where that of choice is a key. Quantum mechanics is forced to introduce infinity implicitly by Hilbert space, on which is founded its formalism. One can demonstrate that some essential properties of quantum information, entanglement, and quantum computer originate directly from infinity once it is involved in quantum mechanics. Thus, these phenomena can be elucidated as both complete and incomplete, after which choice is the border between them. A special kind of invariance to the axiom of choice shared by quantum mechanics is discussed to be involved that border between the completeness and incompleteness of infinity in a consistent way. The so-called paradox of Albert Einstein, Boris Podolsky, and Nathan Rosen is interpreted entirely in the same terms only of set theory. Quantum computer can demonstrate especially clearly the privilege of the internal position, or " observer'' , or "user" to infinity implied by Henkin's proposition as the only consistent ones as to infinity. An essential area of contemporary knowledge may be synthesized from a single viewpoint. (shrink)

Sober and Elgin defend the claim that there are a priori causal laws in biology. Lange and Rosenberg take issue with this on Humean grounds, among others. I will argue that Sober and Elgin don’t go far enough – there are a priori causal laws in many sciences. Furthermore, I will argue that this thesis is compatible with a Humean metaphysics and an empiricist epistemology.

Are words like ‘woman’ or ‘man’ sex terms that we use to talk about biological features of individuals? Are they gender terms that we use to talk about non-biological features e.g. social roles? Contextualists answer both questions affirmatively, arguing that these terms concern biological or non-biological features depending on context. I argue that a recent version of contextualism from Jennifer Saul that Esa Diaz-Leon develops doesn't exhibit the right kind of flexibility to capture our theoretical intuitions or moral and (...) political practices concerning our uses of these words. I then float the view that terms like 'woman' or 'man' are polysemous, arguing that it makes better sense of the significance of some forms of criticisms of mainstream gender ideology. (shrink)

It is often supposed that Marxist philosophy and Wittgensteinian philosophy are not just very different but that they are opposed to each other. Wittgenstein was notoriously against theorizing in philosophy whereas Marx tried to give a scientific account of human society and culture. Marx famously said that ‘[t]he philosophers have only interpreted the world, in various ways; the point is to change it’, while Wittgenstein was concerned with conceptual considerations and had very little to say about workers' struggles. My aim (...) in this paper is to show that these apparent differences dissolve once one realizes that Marx and Wittgenstein thought differently about the nature of philosophy. In the course of coming to this conclusion I will look at misinterpretations of Wittgenstein's philosophy from Perry Anderson and Alex Callinicos as well as at Wittgensteinian criticisms of Marxist philosophers such as Leon Trotsky, John Rees and Slavoj Žižek. I will conclude that Marxist philosophers stand to gain from a clearer understanding of Wittgenstein's philosophy and that Wittgensteinians can similarly gain from an appreciation of the kind of analysis of economics, society and politics offered by Marxists. (shrink)

Martin E. Rosenberg -/- The Gift of Silence: Towards an Anthropology of Jazz Improvisation as Neuro-Resistance. -/- ABSTRACT: -/- This essay addresses how the complex processes that occur during jazz improvisation enact behaviors that resemble the logic of gift exchange first described by Marcel Mauss. It is possible to bring to bear structural, sociological, political economical, deconstructive or even ethical approaches to what constitutes gift exchange during the performance of jazz. Yet, I would like to shift from focusing this (...) analysis of jazz improvisation with reference to the language of music as symbolic action (which all of these approaches require), to grounding improvisation in embodied and distributed cognition, the performance of which begins with a ritual gift of silence. By silence, I refer to the embodied, yet shared pure duration as felt synchrony within an individual performer, that extends to the members of an ensemble. Thus, I refer to both aesthetic and micro-political implications of embodied, yet also distributed musical cognition in real time. -/- For jazz musicians, embodied silence becomes the initial condition for processes of cognitive bifurcation. For it is bifurcation that attracts us to jazz in the first place. Here I expand my previous work establishing similarities in the behavior of bifurcating systems in physical and cognitive sciences to the unfolding of ambiguity in real time during improvisation with respect to polyphony, polytonality and polyrhythms in the history of jazz from Charlie Parker to Ornette Coleman. We can therefore re-conceptualize jazz improvisation as a subversive antidote for processes of determination identified in a sub-discipline of cultural studies called “cognitive capitalism.” By examining silence from this anthropological perspective, we can conceive of jazz performance as a ritualized resistance to top-down cognitive control immanent with social and digital networks. The ritual enactment that is jazz improvisation points towards an aesthetics of bifurcation that is simultaneously a micro-politics of neuro-resistance. In other words, I argue that freedom of thought requires freedom from thought as an initial condition. -/- Yet, I emphasize the empirical rather than mystical grounds to this gift of silence. The valorization of silence by jazz musicians is not simply etiquette, an ethics of reciprocity for performers exchanging “riffs,” but an initial condition that jazz performers (and, I would argue, listeners) experience in their bodies, thus linking embodied cognition to a collective field of cultural production that emerges from each embodied individual, and yet also pervades the ensemble in ways reminiscent of feedback loops in complex systems. The recent and remarkable research on music and the brain has demonstrated that it is now possible to describe jazz improvisation as possessing both embodied and distributed cognitive properties. The emergent neuronal ensemble behavior within the individual that is visible in jazz improvisors, discovered by the neuroscientists at Johns Hopkins led by Charles Limb, bears striking resemblance to the interactive behaviors of the jazz ensemble itself. Thus, it is by recourse to recent research by myself and others into the cognitive neuroscience of music generally, and jazz improvisation specifically, that the empirical grounds for an anthropology of neuro-resistance become visible. (shrink)

The prescriptive force of methodological rules rests, I argue, on the acceptance of scientific theories; that of the most general methodological rules rests on theories in the philosophy of science, which differ from theories in the several sciences only in generality and abstraction. I illustrate these claims by reference to methodological disputes in social science and among philosophers of science. My conclusions substantiate those of Laudan except that I argue for the existence of transtheoretical goals common to all scientists and (...) concrete enough actually to have bearing on methodology. And I argue that Laudan is committed to such goals himself, willy nilly. (shrink)

[ES] En recientes décadas se ha observado un renovado interés por algunos de los temas clásicos de la ontología, desde áreas de conocimiento externas a la filosofía, sin embargo, este renacimiento ontológico ha «estimulado» una multiplicidad y diversidad de teorías y concepciones «ontológicas» que ha dado como consecuencia una proliferación de «ontologías» y de interminables batallas para determinar qué tipo de «entidades» estudian sus respectivos «dominios», que a su vez se consideran autónomos e independientes entre sí, inclusive de la propia (...) ontología. En este sentido, el propósito de este trabajo es caracterizar y representar de manera adecuada estas «ontologías», dentro del marco general del debate acerca de la naturaleza de la ontología. Es así que, en la primera sección haré un diagnostico de la ontología contemporánea; en la segunda proporcionaré algunas definiciones y caracterizaciones de las principales concepciones, en especial de las denominadas «ontologías aplicadas»; y en la tercera analizaré sí estas concepciones pueden ser consideradas diversos tipos de ontología o simplemente son diversos niveles de ontología. El marco de la discusión no se centrará en confrontar todas estas nociones, sino en describirlas y analizarlas para ofrecer un enfoque sobre el estado actual de la ontología y sus problemas. [EN] In recent decades there has been a renewed interest in some of the classic themes of ontology, from areas of knowledge external to philosophy; however, this ontological revival has «stimulated» a multiplicity and diversity of «ontological» theories and concepts that has resulted in a proliferation of «ontologies» and endless battles to determine what kind of «entities» study their respective «domains», which in turn are considered autonomous and independent, even of ontology itself. In this sense, the purpose of this work is to adequately characterize and represent these «ontologies», within the general framework of the debate about the nature of ontology. Thus, in the first section I will make a diagnosis of contemporary ontology; in the second I will provide some definitions and characterizations of the main concepts, especially the so-called «applied ontologies»; and in the third I will analyze whether these concepts can be considered different types of ontology or simply are different levels of ontology. The framework of the discussion will not center on confronting all these notions, but to describe and analyze them to provide a focus on the current state of ontology and its problems. (shrink)

‘The problem with simulations is that they are doomed to succeed.’ So runs a common criticism of simulations—that they can be used to ‘prove’ anything and are thus of little or no scientific value. While this particular objection represents a minority view, especially among those who work with simulations in a scientific context, it raises a difficult question: what standards should we use to differentiate a simulation that fails from one that succeeds? In this paper we build on a structural (...) analysis of simulation developed in previous work to provide an evaluative account of the variety of ways in which simulations do fail. We expand the structural analysis in terms of the relationship between a simulation and its real-world target emphasizing the important role of aspects intended to correspond and also those specifically intended not to correspond to reality. The result is an outline both of the ways in which simulations can fail and the scientific importance of those various forms of failure. (shrink)

What does it mean to say that some features, such as gender, race and sexual orientation, are socially constructed? Many scholars claim that social constructionism about a kind is a version of realism about that kind, according to which the corresponding kind is a social construction, that it, it is constituted by social factors and practices. Social constructionism, then, is a version of realism about a kind that asserts that the kind is real, and puts forward a particular view about (...) the nature of the kind, namely, that it is constituted by social factors and practices. Social constructivists about human kinds such as gender, race and sexual orientation often make an additional claim, namely, that these kinds are social constructions but they are typically believed to be biological kinds (that is, people are typically wrong about the nature of these kinds). Ron Mallon (2017) calls social constructions that are (falsely) taken to be biological kinds covert social constructions. This paper is about how we could have terms in our natural language that come to refer to covert social constructions. (shrink)

The metaphysics of gender and race is a growing area of concern in contemporary analytic metaphysics, with many different views about the nature of gender and race being submitted and discussed. But what are these debates about? What questions are these accounts trying to answer? And is there real disagreement between advocates of differ- ent views about race or gender? If so, what are they really disagreeing about? In this paper I want to develop a view about what the debates (...) in the metaphysics of gender and race are about, namely, a version of metaphysical deflationism, according to which these debates are about how we actually use or should use the terms ‘gender’ and ‘race’ (and other related terms), where moral and political considerations play a central role. I will also argue that my version of the view can overcome some recent and powerful objections to metaphysical deflationism of- fered by Elizabeth Barnes (2014, 2017). (shrink)

This collection highlights the new trend away from rationalism and toward empiricism in the epistemology of modality. Accordingly, the book represents a wide range of positions on the empirical sources of modal knowledge. Readers will find an introduction that surveys the field and provides a brief overview of the work, which progresses from empirically-sensitive rationalist accounts to fully empiricist accounts of modal knowledge. Early chapters focus on challenges to rationalist theories, essence-based approaches to modal knowledge, and the prospects for naturalizing (...) modal epistemology. The middle chapters present positive accounts that reject rationalism, but which stop short of advocating exclusive appeal to empirical sources of modal knowledge. The final chapters mark a transition toward exclusive reliance on empirical sources of modal knowledge. They explore ways of making similarity-based, analogical, inductive, and abductive arguments for modal claims based on empirical information. Modal epistemology is coming into its own as a field, and this book has the potential to anchor a new research agenda. (shrink)

Algunas de las preguntas fundamentales de la filosofía del arte son: 1) ¿Qué es una obra de arte?, 2) ¿Qué es Arte?, 3) ¿Qué es el arte? Responderlas es determinar el sentido del arte. Este tipo de preguntas están planteadas bajo la fórmula ¿Qué es X?, es decir, preguntas en las cuales en lo simple esta lo complejo, preguntas en donde lo simple no quiere decir que sean sencillas; son preguntas que traen dentro de si su naturaleza y carácter metafísico-ontológico-gnoseológico, (...) y hasta axiológico. No es el propósito de este trabajo hacer frente o resolver estos problemas, sino proporcionar una aproximación al concepto de “obra de arte” en la época actual y como podría entenderse en relación a ciertos problemas ontológicos y epistemológicos actuales. -/- [Extended Version of: Vélez León, Paulo (2006). «Aproximaciones a la ¿obra de arte?». En Políticas al borde. Una investigación sobre el arte contemporáneo cuencano en los discursos políticos actuales, editado por Paulo Vélez León y Hernán Pacucuru. Cuenca: Universidad de Cuenca/Bienal Internacional de Cuenca, 2006, pp. 1-12]. (shrink)

Recent debates in psychopathy studies have articulated concerns about false-positives in assessment and research sampling. These are pressing concerns for research progress, since scientific quality depends on sample quality, that is, if we wish to study psychopathy we must be certain that the individuals we study are, in fact, psychopaths. Thus, if conventional assessment tools yield substantial false-positives, this would explain why central research is laden with discrepancies and nonreplicable findings. This paper draws on moral psychology in order to develop (...) tentative theory-driven exclusion criteria applicable in research sampling. Implementing standardized procedures to discriminate between research participants has the potential to yield more homogenous and discrete samples, a vital prerequisite for research progress in etiology, epidemiology, and treatment strategies. (shrink)

Since its formulation in the twentieth century, Systems Theory has lacked a truly unifying paradigm. One fundamental reason for this fragmentation is the persistent anthropocentric bias that separates what we label “natural” from what we deem “artificial.” This paper argues that such a distinction is not an ontological truth but rather a cultural construct that has shaped our understanding of reality. By dismantling this false opposition, we can envision a “Systemic Continuum,” where biological, technological, and social systems are studied within (...) a single theoretical framework. This approach could revolutionize our understanding of Artificial Intelligence, technological evolution, and the emergence of complex structures, paving the way for a more robust integration of the diverse strands within Systems Theory. (shrink)

A key premise of the kalam cosmological argument is that the universe began to exist. However, while a number of philosophers have offered powerful criticisms of William Lane Craig’s defense of the premise, J.P. Moreland has also offered a number of unique arguments in support of it, and to date, little attention has been paid to these in the literature. In this paper, I attempt to go some way toward redressing this matter. In particular, I shall argue that Moreland’s philosophical (...) arguments against the possibility of traversing a beginningless past are unsuccessful. (shrink)

Is simulation some new kind of science? We argue that instead simulation fits smoothly into existing scientific practice, but does so in several importantly different ways. Simulations in general, and computer simulations in particular, ought to be understood as techniques which, like many scientific techniques, can be employed in the service of various and diverse epistemic goals. We focus our attentions on the way in which simulations can function as (i) explanatory and (ii) predictive tools. We argue that a wide (...) variety of simulations, both computational and physical, are best conceived in terms of a set of common features: initial or input conditions, a mechanism or set of rules, and a set of results or output conditions. Studying simulations in these terms yields a new understanding of their character as well as a body of normative recommendations for the care and feeding of scientific simulations. (shrink)

In this paper we describe and interpret the formal machinery of abstraction processes in which the domain of abstracta is a subset of the domain of objects from which is abstracted.

[ES] Nicolai Hartmann es uno de los filósofos más significativos en la filosofía contemporánea; empero, en la actualidad es poco conocido por nuestro mundo filosófico, posiblemente debido a que el esplendor de su filosofía coincidió con el naciente giro lingüístico y con el apogeo del existencialismo, los cuales, como se sabe, absorbieron gran parte de la atención y del quehacer filosófico de la época. Lo anterior, de una u otra manera ha dificultado el conocimiento objetivo de su obra. Es por (...) este motivo, que en este breve trabajo, me propongo presentar en forma esquemática una apostilla sobre su vida y su obra —y no una biografía completa—, que nos permita sentar las bases histórico-filosóficas para una primera aproximación a algunas de sus preocupaciones filosóficas. Esta aproximación se completa, en la parte final del trabajo, con una breve relación bibliográfica de algunos estudios introductorios a su vida y obra. [EN] Nicolai Hartmann is one of the most significant philosophers in contemporary philosophy; however, today is little known by our philosophical world, possibly because the splendor of his philosophy coincided with the nascent linguistic turn and the heyday of existentialism, which, as is known, absorbed much of the attention and philosophical work of the time. This, in one way or another has hindered the objective knowledge of his work. It is for this reason that in this short paper, I intend to present in schematic form a commentary on his life and his work —and not a full biography—, that allows us to lay the historical and philosophical foundations for a first approach to some of its philosophical concerns. This approach is completed at the end of the work, with a brief bibliographical note with some introductory studies to his life and work. (shrink)

It’s constitutive of classical theism that there is a necessarily existent personal god who is also the creator of the universe, where the latter claim includes at least the following three theses: (i) God is wholly distinct from the natural world; (ii) God is the originating or sustaining cause of the natural world; and (iii) God created the natural world ex nihilo, i.e., without the use of pre-existing materials. Call this tripartite component of classical theism the classical view of creation. (...) In this paper, I offer a new argument against classical theism. In particular, I argue that creation ex nihilo is prima facie impossible, and that since the doctrine of creation ex nihilo is constitutive of classical theism, classical theism is false. (shrink)

There is some cost to you in voting. While it may be small for some, it is significant for others. Some people go to a great deal of effort just to vote. What return do they get for this effort? Zilch! A single vote can only impact an election when there is a tie, which has essentially zero chance of happening in a state or national election. The typical response to this is "Well, what if everyone did that?" Of course, (...) that would be a disaster. But we are not talking about everyone, we are talking about ONE individual. (shrink)

[ES] En este trabajo, ofreceré una reconstrucción sucinta de los argumentos sobre el significado de la noción de mundo del arte, así como de sus implicaciones en la ontología del arte. En primer lugar, describiré de manera esquemática los principios básicos de la noción de mundo del arte de Danto, y a partir de estos principios delinearé su influencia en la teoría institucional del arte de George Dickie. Sobre esta base, apoyado en la crítica al rol de la teoría en (...) estética de Morris Weitz, intentaré evidenciar las dificultades de lo que se ha dado en llamar la teoría institucional del arte al momento definir lo que es el arte. En la parte final del trabajo, presentaré algunas sugerencias que podrían tomarse en consideración al momento de abordar la relación entre el mundo del arte y la ontología del mundo del arte. [EN] In this paper, I will offer a succinct reconstruction of the arguments about the meaning of the notion of the world of art, as well as its implications in the ontology of art. First, I will outline the basic principles of Danto's notion of the art world, and from these principles I will outline its influence on George Dickie's institutional theory of art. On this basis, supported by Morris Weitz's critique to the role of the theory of aesthetics, I will try to highlight the difficulties of what has been called the institutional theory of art at the moment of defining what art is. In the final part of the paper, I will present some suggestions that could be taken into account when considering the relation between the world of art and the artworld ontology. (shrink)

This letter addresses the editorial decision to publish the article, “Research on group differences in intelligence: A defense of free inquiry” (Cofnas, 2020). Our letter points out several critical problems with Cofnas's article, which we believe should have either disqualified the manuscript upon submission or been addressed during the review process and resulted in substantial revisions.

[ES] En este trabajo propedéutico, a través de los propios textos de Kant, intentaré ofrecer una descripción equilibrada y una reconstrucción sucinta de los argumentos que ofrece Kant acerca de la posibilidad e imposibilidad de la metafísica. En primer lugar presentaré algunas críticas a la metafísica, luego visualizaré la noción kantiana de metafísica, así como sus razones y momentos constitutivos; y finalmente, analizaré que tipo de conocimiento es la metafísica y las características y naturaleza de esta para que sea viable (...) dicha «ciencia». Para realizar este cometido, asumiré la hipótesis de que la metafísica para Kant, en correspondencia con la resolucion de la tercera cuestion del conocimiento, es una ciencia que integra razón práctica y teórica en un sistema universal que busca la transcendencia. Si la metafísica tiene alguna posibilidad, ésta probablemente sería la vía. [EN] In this propaedeutic work, through Kant’s own texts, I will try to offer a balanced description and a succinct reconstruction of Kant’s arguments about the possibility and impossibility of Metaphysics. In the first place I will present some criticisms of Metaphysics, then I will visualize the Kantian notion of Metaphysics, as well as its constitutive reasons and moments; and finally, I will analyze what kind of knowledge is Metaphysics and the characteristics and nature of it, so that this «science» is viable. In order to carry out this task, I will assume the hypothesis that Kant’s Metaphysics, in correspondence with the resolution of the third question of knowledge, is a science that integrates practical and theoretical reason into a universal system that seeks transcendence. If Metaphysics has any chance, this would probably be the way. (shrink)

Marjorie Perloff is a distinguished commentator on the literature of this century, best known for her work on Futurism, one of the pre-First War international and inter-art avant garde movements. Radical Artifice takes on the avant garde since 1960, observed from the angle of the institutions of popular culture -- in particular television talk shows, and graphic advertisements. The project of the book is to respond to Charles Bernstein's decree: "There is no natural look or sound to a poem. Every (...) element is intended, chosen. That is what makes a thing a poem" (qtd. 35). "Why, Perloff asks, "is the natural now regarded with such suspicion?" (35). (shrink)

[ES] Este trabajo, realiza una sumarísima revisión histórica, a través de algunas conjeturas epistemológicas, sobre las reflexiones filosóficas acerca del mundo del arte, su estatuto, desarrollo y «funcionamiento» con el propósito de allanar el camino para una ulterior descripción de la problemática acerca de la noción del mundo del arte. [EN] This writing makes a brief historical review, through some epistemological assumptions, on the philosophical reflections on the art world, its status, development and «functioning» in order to pave the way (...) for a further description of the problems about the notion of the art world. (shrink)

El proceso de aprehensión de lo cognoscible, en la filosofía contemporánea, ha sido tratado desde diversas perspectivas, entre ellas la fenomenológica y la analítica. Cada una de estas perspectivas aportan unos presupuestos filosóficos y procesos metodológicos que nos proporcionan marcos de trabajo para indagar en las vías de aprehensión del conocimiento; sin embargo, empleadas por separado son insuficientes y limitadas. En absoluto se trata de procurar un método universal, sino de integrar e indagar sobre diversos presupuestos, procesos, patrones y estructuras (...) para avanzar en la indagación de la aprehensión del conocimiento. En este sentido, en la primera parte, abordaremos la necesidad de tener reglas (definitorias y estratégicas) para ser parte y avanzar en cualquier «juego», en especial el del conocimiento. En la segunda y tercera, describiremos los «métodos» desarrollados por José Ferrater Mora (operaciones filosóficas) y Nicolai Hartmann (pensar sistemático), los que pueden ser un punto de partida, vías a considerar en este proceso. En la parte final, a modo de contraste, se ofrece en un gráfico un esquema metodológico de los dos métodos analizados. (shrink)

Aristotle, in his Metaphysics, not only tries to establish a relationship that is direct, coherent, inter-operational and "precise" between this science, its name as a science, and its object of study, but also begins an indignation that tries to set a science — materially adequate and formally correct — to study τὸ ὂν ᾗ ὂν. In order to complete this task, Aristotle does an in-focus strategy that consists on the diffusion of τὸ ὄν in its categories, that allows Aristotle the (...) possibility of formulate a science ἐπιστήμη to study τὸ ὂν ᾗ ὂν at the same time that supports the diffusion of τὸ ὄν in the "different categories or supreme genres" of τὸ ὄν. Due to this argumentation, Aristotle distinguishes the ἐπιστήμη σοφία of any other type of knowledge: the former is fundamentally an enquiry "about the first causes (πρῶτα αἴτια) and the principles (ἀρχὰς)". With this conception in mind, Aristotle was able to characterize several related forms of the ἐπιστήμη σοφία which, as a whole, eventually allow him to establish a science of the principles and causes "maximally universal and referred to…everything real", and in consequence, to "that that is, as long as something is". In this work, I will try to reconstruct such arguments, and offer some observations and conjectures referred to these notions that plausibly incline the scale in favor of an ontological reading of Aristotle’s Metaphysics, in order to contribute to clarify the confusion that exists between the aim of the discipline with the justification to establish the existence of its own object. (shrink)

El presenta trabajo describe y caracteriza de manera breve y concisa lo que podría ser una ontología del arte. En la primera sección se presentan las dificultades actuales, así como las nociones y preguntas principales de la ontología. En la sección segunda, se bosquejan las definiciones y caracterizaciones actuales de la ontología, se hace especial hincapié, en la ontología aplicada. En la tercera, cuarta y quinta sección se caracteriza y configura lo que podría ser una ontología del arte, se evidencian (...) sus limitaciones así́ como sus perspectivas y trazabilidad para hacer viable dicha ontología; adicionalmente se abordan los aportes del realismo anglosajón a la cuestión. El propósito de esta caracterización es hacer evidente que es plausible dar un tratamiento integral al problema de la realidad y su configuración y desarrollo en los mundos regionales, como, el mundo del arte. (shrink)

This article presents a reconstruction of the scientific policies established in Ecuador in the years between 1979 and 2007. The purpose is double: on the one hand, it seeks to understand the process of institutionalization of the System of Science and Technology, on the other hand analysing the achievements of three scientific policies established during this period. Hence, the reconstruction is split into three stages: from 1979 to 1994 when the first scientific policy was in place; from 1994 to 2004 (...) the second policy; and between 2005 and 2007 the third policy. To obtain the objective, some of the most relevant normative aspects during each stage are reviewed, as well as institutional statistical records related to Science and Technology. (shrink)

La noción de mundos posibles, sostiene que nuestro mundo es un mundo entre otros, un subconjunto de todas las cosas que existen. Esto implica aceptar que existen mundos estructuralmente equivalentes con sus propios lenguajes [formales], que entre sí no tienen ningún estatuto privilegiado, p.e., el mundo y lenguaje del arte o el mundo y lenguaje de la física; no obstante, la idea de aceptar otros mundos equivalentes como mundos posibles epistémica y ontológicamente legítimos para acceder y expresar lo cognoscible del (...) mundo no goza de gran aceptación. En este sentido, de entre las múltiples dimensiones de la noción de mundos posibles anotada, su dimensión lógica, es una de las más extendidas, ésta se entiende como un posible estado de cosas o un posible curso de eventos. Empero, esta concepción es la más restrictiva de la noción de mundos posibles, no sólo porque dicha noción transmuta en una especie de «técnica predictiva» que nos permite analizar y visualizar posibles escenarios de un estado de cosas o un curso de eventos, sino porque fundamentalmente, la noción de mundos posibles pierde gran parte de su potencia conceptual. Hablar de proposiciones como conjuntos de mundos posibles, no es un error, pero es limitar innecesariamente el alcance y campo de acción de la noción de mundos posibles. Si entendemos dicha noción en la versión primaría de Lewis [«Nuestro mundo actual es sólo un mundo entre otros»], sería plausible recuperar, entre otras, las dimensiones ontológica y epistémica de la noción de mundos posibles, y por ende la posibilidad objetiva de indagar en formas alternativas y legitimas de acceder y expresar lo cognoscible del mundo; en este sentido, en este trabajo me propongo: (1) retomar la noción primaria de mundos posibles de Lewis, para analizar y explicitar brevemente sus limitaciones, virtudes y requerimientos; (2) examinar las condiciones de posibilidad de un mundo; y, (3) sugerir los lineamientos epistémicos que deberían considerarse y explicitarse cuando se habla de y desde un mundo posible a la hora de expresar un enunciado. (shrink)

My title is derived from Heidegger's 1936-37 lectures, The Will to Power as Art, and my discussion is keyed to two of the Nietzschean remarks on art which Heidegger discusses. The first is: "The phenomenon 'artist' is still the most perspicuous" (Nietzsche 69), and the second is: "The will to semblance, to illusion, to deception, to becoming and change is deeper, more 'metaphysical,' than the will to truth, to reality, to Being" (Nietzsche 74). Heidegger reformulates them respectively as: "Art is (...) the most perspicuous and familiar configuration of will to power," and "Art is worth more than the truth" (75). I propose to tease out what these aphorisms imply for Heidegger's answer to the panel question: "What is a work of art?/Was ist ein Kunstwerk? (shrink)

Psychopathy has been theorized as a disorder of emotion, which impairs moral judgments. However, these theories are increasingly being abandoned as empirical studies show that psychopaths seem to make proper moral judgments. In this contribution, these findings are reassessed, and it is argued that prevalent emotion‐theories of psychopathy appear to operate with the unjustified assumption that psychopaths have no emotions, which leads to the hypothesis that psychopaths are completely unable to make moral judgments. An alternative and novel explanation is proposed, (...) theorizing psychopathy as a degree‐specific emotional deficiency, which causes degree‐specific differences in moral judgments. (shrink)

Zeami Motokiyo 世阿弥 元清 (1363–1443) gilt als Schöpfer des klassischen Nō-Theaters und war nicht nur ein herausragender Darsteller, sondern auch Autor vieler Stücke, die noch heute aufgeführt werden. Neben diesen Stücken hat Zeami aber auch theoretische Traktate zur Übungspraxis des Nō-Theaters verfasst, die über viele Jahrhunderte hinweg geheim überliefert wurden und als Anweisungen für seine Nachfolger gedacht waren. In diesen Traktaten reflektiert Zeami auf seine Kunst und stellt sie als einen Übungsweg nach buddhistischem Vorbild dar, als eine ästhetische, aber auch (...) spirituelle Praxis, einen Lebensweg (道 dō, michi), der auf die Verkörperung grundlegender Prinzipien abzielt. Im Folgenden möchte ich vor allem anhand dieser theoretischen Schriften nachvollziehen, welche Rolle der Ausdruck „von-selbst-so“ (自然 jinen, chin. zìrán) bzw. „von selbst“ (onozukara), der heutzutage als Übersetzung für den europäischen Natur-Begriff verwendet wird, in Zeamis Konzeption der leiblichen Übungspraxis spielt und dies mit Stellen aus anderen Schriften vergleichen. Zunächst werde ich aber in knapper Weise zurückverfolgen, was leibliche Praxis vor dem Hintergrund des Daoismus und des Zen-Buddhismus im Kontext der japanischen Übungswege bzw. Wegkünste bedeutet. (shrink)

Panqualityism, recently defended by Sam Coleman, is a variety of Russellian monism on which the categorical properties of fundamental physical entities are qualities, or, in Coleman’s exposition, unconscious qualia. Coleman defends a quotationalist, higher-order thought version of panqualityism. The aim of this paper is, first, to demonstrate that a first-order representationalist panqualityism is also available, and to argue positively in its favor. For it shall become apparent that quotationalist and first-order representationalist panqualityism are, in spite of their close similarities, radically (...) different theories: quotationalist panqualityism locates qualities in the subject of an experience, while first-order panqualityism locates qualities in the world. I argue that this makes quotationalist panqualityism implausible and first-order, representationalist panqualityism a highly natural, elegant, and intuitive theory. (shrink)

Scholarly dissatisfaction with Aristotle’s fallacy of accident has traditionally focused on his examples, whose compatibility with the fallacy’s definition has been doubted time and again. Besides a unified account of the fallacy of accident itself, the paper provides a formalized analysis of its several examples in Aristotle’s Sophistici elenchi. The most problematic instances are dealt with by means of an internal reconstruction of their features as conveyed by Aristotle’s text and an extensive survey of their interpretation in the Byzantine and (...) Latin exegetical tradition. Carefully handled a doxographical approach, as opposed to rapid results oriented practices, proves to be most effective in that it supplies both useful albeit ordinarily overlooked insights and a comprehensive framework of reference for further investigations. (shrink)

One of the singularities of Latin exegesis of Aristotle’s Sophistici elenchi, is that it arbitrarily brought together two families of fallacies, the «figure of speech» and the «accident», despite the fact that they are on either side of the divide between sophisms related to expression and sophisms independent of expression, a divide that lays at the heart of Aristotle’s taxonomy of sophistic arguments. What is behind this surprising identification? The talk is meant to show that it actually originates from a (...) curious mistake in Boethius’ translation of Aristotle’s Sophistici elenchi, 22, 178b 36-37 which radically transformed the nature of the argument at stake. While it was originally an example of the fallacies related to the «figure of speech», Boethius’ translation wrongly brings about two arguments instead of one, both related to the «accident». This explains why authors from the Latin tradition came to think that fallacies of «figure of speech» were linked to fallacies of «accident» closely enough to ask whether they actually fell outside expression, even though it does not at first glance appear that such a possibility was allowed or even suggested by Aristotle’s text. This odd question illustrates some of the remarkable features of the medieval archive and how some of its most peculiar problems came to be. It specifically allows us to reconstruct the mechanisms through which a minor disturbance in the letter of the text leads to a whole new way of organising its exegetical material. (shrink)

Este volumen contiene los trabajos presentados en el I Simposio de Pensamiento Contemporáneo, celebrado en la Universidad Técnica Particular de Loja (UTPL) durante los días 23 y 24 de enero de 2019 y cuyo tema central fue las «Nuevas Tecnologías en la Educación» (SPC–NTE). Este Simposio tuvo como objetivo fomentar la interacción entre personas de diferentes formaciones e intereses en la discusión de problemas y soluciones relevantes para la educación en la era digital, a fin de intercambiar ideas sobre prácticas (...) e investigaciones que busquen comprender, mejorar y ampliar el uso de las nuevas tecnologías en los procesos de enseñanza–aprendizaje en los más diferentes contextos de enseñanza. 28 trabajos analizan abordan temáticas de especial interés para los futuros docentes, así como para quienes ya se desempeñan como tales en los diversos niveles educativos. Estos textos son instantáneas breves, ágiles y claras de las contribuciones teóricas o de experiencias pedagógicas que tratan sobre ambientes, softwares y hardwares para apoyar la enseñanza y aprendizaje; TIC en la educación universitaria; técnicas y estrategias lúdicas en educación; experiencias pedagógicas con las TIC y humanidades digitales en la educación. (shrink)

We are addressing this letter to the editors of Philosophical Psychology after reading an article they decided to publish in the recent vol. 33, issue 1. The article is by Nathan Cofnas and is entitled “Research on group differences in intelligence: A defense of free inquiry” (2020). The purpose of our letter is not to invite Cofnas’s contribution into a broader dialogue, but to respectfully voice our concerns about the decision to publish the manuscript, which, in our opinion, fails to (...) meet a range of academic quality standards usually expected of academic publications. (shrink)

This article discusses how the concept of a fair finite lottery can best be extended to denumerably infinite lotteries. Techniques and ideas from non-standard analysis are brought to bear on the problem.