Are feelings an essential part or aspect of emotion? Cases of unconscious emotion suggest that this is not the case. However, it has been claimed that unconscious emotions are better understood as either (a) emotions that are phenomenally conscious but not reflectively conscious, or (b) dispositions to have emotions rather than emotions proper. Here, I argue that these ways of accounting for unconscious emotions are inadequate, and propose a view of emotions as non-phenomenal attitudes that regard their contents as relevant (...) to one's motivations. (shrink)

Spinoza is often described as an ethical perfectionist—one who accepts an account of the good centered on the development of our natural capacities. Perfectionists typically accept a perfectionist theory of value, in which the properties of good and evil are grounded in a normative property of perfection. Yet I argue that Spinoza rejects a perfectionist theory of value because he believes it conflicts with the doctrine of necessitarianism. This leads him to conclude that attributions of perfection in ethical contexts must (...) be regarded as fictions. If Spinoza is indeed an ethical perfectionist, his perfectionism must be grounded in a theory of value that is not itself perfectionist. (shrink)

Most theories of slurs fall into one of two families: those which understand slurring terms to involve special descriptive/informational content (however conveyed), and those which understand them to encode special emotive/expressive content. Our view is that both offer essential insights, but that part of what sets slurs apart is use-theoretic content. In particular, we urge that slurring words belong at the intersection of a number of categories in a sociolinguistic register taxonomy, one that usually includes [+slang] and [+vulgar] and always (...) includes [-polite] and [+derogatory]. Thus, e.g., what distinguishes ‘Chinese’ from ‘chink’ is neither a peculiar sort of descriptive nor emotional content, but rather the fact that ‘chink’ is lexically marked as belonging to different registers than ‘Chinese’. It is, moreover, partly such facts which makes slurring ethically unacceptable. (shrink)

Do moral beliefs motivate action? To answer this question, extant arguments have considered hypothetical cases of association (dissociation) between agents’ moral beliefs and actions. In this paper, I argue that this approach can be improved by studying people’s actual moral beliefs and actions using empirical research methods. I present three new studies showing that, when the stakes are high, associations between participants’ moral beliefs and actions are actually explained by co-occurring but independent moral emotions. These findings suggest that moral beliefs (...) themselves have little or no motivational force, supporting the Humean picture of moral motivation. (shrink)

Organization figures centrally in the understanding of biological systems advanced by both new mechanists and proponents of the autonomy framework. The new mechanists focus on how components of mechanisms are organized to produce a phenomenon and emphasize productive continuity between these components. The autonomy framework focuses on how the components of a biological system are organized in such a way that they contribute to the maintenance of the organisms that produce them. In this paper we analyze and compare these two (...) accounts of organization and argue that understanding biological organisms as cohesively integrated systems benefits from insights from both. To bring together the two accounts, we focus on the notions of control and regulation as bridge concepts. We start from a characterization of biological mechanisms in terms of constraints and focus on a specific type of mechanism, control mechanisms, that operate on other mechanisms on the basis of measurements of variables in the system and its environment. Control mechanisms are characterized by their own set of constraints that enable them to sense conditions, convey signals, and effect changes on constraints in the controlled mechanism. They thereby allow living organisms to adapt to internal and external variations and to coordinate their parts in such a manner as to maintain viability. Because living organisms contain a vast number of control mechanisms, a central challenge is to understand how they are themselves organized. With the support of examples from both unicellular and multicellular systems we argue that control mechanisms are organized heterarchically, and we discuss how this type of control architecture can, without invoking top-down and centralized forms of organizations, succeed in coordinating internal activities of organisms. (shrink)

In a recent paper in this journal, David Chalmers introduced the meta-problem of consciousness as “the problem of explaining why we think consciousness poses a hard problem” (Chalmers, 2018, p. 6). A solution to the meta-problem could shed light on the hard problem of consciousness. In particular, it would be relevant to elucidate whether people’s problem intuitions (i.e. intuitions holding that conscious experience cannot be reduced to physical processes) are driven by factors related to the nature of consciousness, or rather (...) by factors that are independent of consciousness. Whether people hold problem intuitions, and what factors drive those intuitions, are largely empirical questions. However, there is a lack of empirical research on these issues to date. The results of four studies will show that (1) problem intuitions are not widespread, and (2) when they arise, they do so because of factors that are unrelated to the nature of consciousness. This suggests that consciousness is, after all, not so problematic. (shrink)

It is generally assumed that emotion concepts are purely descriptive. However, recent investigations suggest that the concept of happiness includes information about the morality of the agent's life. In this study, we argue that normative influences on emotion concepts are not restricted to happiness and are not about moral norms. In a series of studies, we show that emotion attribution is influenced by whether the agent's psychological and bodily states fit the situation in which they are experienced. People consider that (...) emotions are not just about feeling in certain ways, but also about feeling the right way. (shrink)

It is a widespread idea that suspended judgement implies a state of doxastic neutrality. Jane Friedman has recently claimed that while inquiring into a given question, one suspends one’s judgement on it. Jointly considered, the previous claims imply that one is in a state of doxastic neutrality about a given question while inquiring into it. In this article, I explore the leading cases against Friedman’s perspective, arguing that it is debatable whether they exhibit inquiries into questions without doxastic neutrality. However, (...) I will propose the possibility of “explorative disconfirmation inquiries” to show that doxastically non-neutral inquiries do exist. (shrink)

Despite numerous and increasing attempts to define what life is, there is no consensus on necessary and sufficient conditions for life. Accordingly, some scholars have questioned the value of definitions of life and encouraged scientists and philosophers alike to discard the project. As an alternative to this pessimistic conclusion, we argue that critically rethinking the nature and uses of definitions can provide new insights into the epistemic roles of definitions of life for different research practices. This paper examines the possible (...) contributions of definitions of life in scientific domains where such definitions are used most (e.g., Synthetic Biology, Origins of Life, Alife, and Astrobiology). Rather than as classificatory tools for demarcation of natural kinds, we highlight the pragmatic utility of what we call operational definitions that serve as theoretical and epistemic tools in scientific practice. In particular, we examine contexts where definitions integrate criteria for life into theoretical models that involve or enable observable operations. We show how these definitions of life play important roles in influencing research agendas and evaluating results, and we argue that to discard the project of defining life is neither sufficiently motivated, nor possible without dismissing important theoretical and practical research. (shrink)

Living organisms act as integrated wholes to maintain themselves. Individual actions can each be explained by characterizing the mechanisms that perform the activity. But these alone do not explain how various activities are coordinated and performed versatilely. We argue that this depends on a specific type of mechanism, a control mechanism. We develop an account of control by examining several extensively studied control mechanisms operative in the bacterium E. coli. On our analysis, what distinguishes a control mechanism from other mechanisms (...) is that it relies on measuring one or more variables, which results in setting constraints in the control mechanism that determine its action on flexible constraints in other mechanisms. In the most basic arrangement, the measurement process directly determines the action of the control mechanism, but in more complex arrangements signals mediate between measurements and effectors. This opens the possibility of multiple responses to the same measurement and responses based on multiple measurements. It also allows crosstalk, resulting in networks of control mechanisms. Such networks integrate the behaviors of the organism but also present a challenge in tailoring responses to particular measurements. We discuss how integrated activity can still result in differential, versatile, responses. (shrink)

In emotion research, both conceptual analyses and empirical studies commonly rely on emotion reports. But what do people mean when they say that they are angry, afraid, joyful, etc.? Building on extant theories of emotion, this paper presents four new studies (including a pre-registered replication) measuring the weight of cognitive evaluations, bodily changes, and action tendencies in people’s use of emotion concepts. The results of these studies suggest that the presence or absence of cognitive evaluations has the largest impact on (...) people’s emotion attributions, and that bodily changes and action tendencies are considered to depend on cognitive evaluations. Implications for theories of emotion (concepts) and the interpretation of emotion reports are discussed. (shrink)

Emergency situations require individuals to make important changes in their behavior. In the case of the COVID-19 pandemic, official recommendations to avoid the spread of the virus include costly behaviors such as self-quarantining or drastically diminishing social contacts. Compliance (or lack thereof) with these recommendations is a controversial and divisive topic, and lay hypotheses abound regarding what underlies this divide. This paper investigates which cognitive, moral, and emotional traits separate people who comply with official recommendations from those who don't. In (...) four studies (three pre-registered) on both U.S. and French samples, we found that individuals' self-reported compliance with official recommendations during the COVID-19 pandemic was partly driven by individual differences in moral values, disgust sensitivity, and psychological reactance. We discuss the limitations of our studies and suggest possible applications in the context of health communication. (shrink)

The new mechanists and the autonomy approach both aim to account for how biological phenomena are explained. One identifies appeals to how components of a mechanism are organized so that their activities produce a phenomenon. The other directs attention towards the whole organism and focuses on how it achieves self-maintenance. This paper discusses challenges each confronts and how each could benefit from collaboration with the other: the new mechanistic framework can gain by taking into account what happens outside individual mechanisms, (...) while the autonomy approach can ground itself in biological research into how the actual components constituting an autonomous system interact and contribute in different ways to realize and maintain the system. To press the case that these two traditions should be constructively integrated we describe how three recent developments in the autonomy tradition together provide a bridge between the two traditions: (1) a framework of work and constraints, (2) a conception of function grounded in the organization of an autonomous system, and (3) a focus on control. (shrink)

Can we experience emotion without the feeling of accelerated heartbeats, perspiration, or other changes in the body? In his paper “What is an emotion”, William James famously claimed that “if we fancy some strong emotion and then try to abstract from our consciousness of it all the feelings of its bodily symptoms, we find we have nothing left behind” (1884, p. 193). Thus, bodily changes are essential to emotion. This is known as the Subtraction Argument. The Subtraction Argument is still (...) used to support Embodied theories of emotion. Proponents of Disembodied theories, however, have different intuitions regarding the role of bodily changes in the experience of emotion. In order to advance this debate, I conducted a series of studies testing people’s intuitions regarding the Subtraction Argument. Results show that, against James’ claims, most people consider that their hypothetical (Study 1) and actual (Study 2) emotions persist in the absence of bodily feelings. Furthermore, Study 1 found that participants’ responses were not related to individual differences in reflection or interoceptive awareness. These results pose a problem for Embodied theories of emotion and challenge extant explanations for the persistence of emotional experience in cases of impaired interoception. (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)

Endocrinologists apply the idea of feedback loops to explain how hormones regulate certain bodily functions such as glucose metabolism. In particular, feedback loops focus on the maintenance of the plasma concentrations of glucose within a narrow range. Here, we put forward a different, organicist perspective on the endocrine regulation of glycaemia, by relying on the pivotal concept of closure of constraints. From this perspective, biological systems are understood as organized ones, which means that they are constituted of a set of (...) mutually dependent functional structures acting as constraints, whose maintenance depends on their reciprocal interactions. Closure refers specifically to the mutual dependence among functional constraints in an organism. We show that, when compared to feedback loops, organizational closure can generate much richer descriptions of the processes and constraints at play in the metabolism and regulation of glycaemia, by making explicit the different hierarchical orders involved. We expect that the proposed theoretical framework will open the way to the construction of original mathematical models, which would provide a better understanding of endocrine regulation from an organicist perspective. (shrink)

El presente artículo tiene como propósito criticar y reformular la teoría de valores del autor y filósofo argentino Risieri Frondizi. Para ello, se someterán a falsacionismo las tesis según las cuales la cualidad estructural es, primero, estructuralista y no analítica y, segundo, empírica, de acuerdo con la metodología holista de la ciencia. La crítica, así, se desarrollará a partir de los siguientes interrogantes. Inicialmente, ¿el autor acude al holismo o al reduccionismo como enfoques metodológicos de desarrollo? Finalmente, ¿cuál es la (...) distinción lógica entre el valor como cualidad sui géneris y el valor como cualidad estructural? (shrink)

Husserl’s theory of types is most often associated with his account of perception. Here, types operate as pre-predicative frames of experience that guide the perception of objects. In this paper, I will argue that Husserl’s theory of types is also central to his account of intersubjectivity. More specifically, I will show that a foundational kind of typical subjectivity is entailed by his discussion of the sphere of ownness. It is by way of this type that even a solitary subject can (...) tacitly anticipate the possibility of other subjects. It is also this type that is enriched through interactions between actual subjects. (shrink)

In this study, we examine the philosophical bases of one of the leading clinical psychological methods of therapy for anxiety, anger, and depression, Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT). We trace this method back to its philosophical roots in the Stoic, Buddhist, Taoist, and Existentialist philosophical traditions. We start by discussing the tenets of CBT, and then we expand on the philosophical traditions that ground this approach. Given that CBT has had a clinically measured positive effect on the psychological well-being of individuals, (...) it becomes important to study the philosophical foundations on which this therapy is based. (shrink)

The syllogism and the predicate calculus cannot account for an ontological argument in Descartes' Fifth Meditation and related texts. Descartes' notion of god relies on the analytic-synthetic distinction, which Descartes had identified before Leibniz and Kant did. I describe how the syllogism and the predicate calculus cannot explain Descartes' ontological argument; then I apply the analytic-synthetic distinction to Descartes’ idea of god.

The general aim of this article is to carry out a reconstruction of the theory of Population Dynamics (DP) in Ecology, according to Castle’s (2001) general stance with regard to the semantic view of theories, but doing it within the framework of metatheoretical structuralism. Thus, we will first identify Population Dynamics’ basic theory-element: its core K(DP) – with the class of potential models, the class of models (through the identification of its fundamental law) and the class of partial potential models (...) (though leaving aside the identification of its constraints and its intertheoretical links) –, and its domain of intended applications I(DP). Then, we will establish the general guiding lines of its theory-net, developing in some detail one of its main lines of specialization – namely, that related to the so-called “continuous growing” of the considered populations –, with DP’s principal “models”, and leave developing of the other of its main lines of specialization – namely, that related to the so-called “discrete growing” of the considered populations – for a further publication. (shrink)

In this article we analyse the problem of emergence in its diachronic dimension. In other words, we intend to deal with the generation of novelties in natural processes. Our approach aims at integrating some insights coming from Whitehead’s Philosophy of the Process with the epistemological framework developed by the “autopoietic” tradition. Our thesis is that the emergence of new entities and rules of interaction (new “fields of relatedness”) requires the development of discontinuous models of change. From this standpoint natural evolution (...) can be conceived as a succession of emergences — each one realizing a novel “extended” present, described by distinct models — rather than as a single and continuous dynamics. This theoretical and epistemological framework is particularly suitable to the investigation of the origin of life, an emblematic example of this kind of processes. (shrink)

This chapter analyses the prospects of using neuroimaging methods, in particular functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), for philosophical purposes. To do so, it will use two case studies from the field of emotion research: Greene et al. (2001) used fMRI to uncover the mental processes underlying moral intuitions, while Lindquist et al. (2012) used fMRI to inform the debate around the nature of a specific mental process, namely, emotion. These studies illustrate two main approaches in cognitive neuroscience: Reverse inference and (...) ontology testing, respectively. With regards to Greene et al.’s study, the use of Neurosynth (Yarkoni 2011) will show that the available formulations of reverse inference, although viable a priori, seem to be of limited use in practice. On the other hand, the discussion of Lindquist et al.’s study will present the so far neglected potential of ontology-testing approaches to inform philosophical questions. (shrink)

Jane Friedman claims that when we inquire, there is a tension between the instrumental normativity of our inquiries and some basic epistemic norms: The former forbids what the latter permit. Moreover, she argues that since the instrumental normativity of inquiry is epistemic, the previous tension shows that our current conception of epistemic normativity is incoherent and needs to be revised. To solve the problem, she suggests that all our epistemic norms should be considered “zetetic”, namely, norms of inquiry. In this (...) paper, I will argue that the instrumental normativity of inquiry Friedman depicts is inaccurate. I will propose the following alternative picture: All our reasons to inquire and take means to answer our questions are instrumental and can be derivative from the epistemic, the practical, or both. However, developing this alternative view, I will argue that our duties to inquire and take means to answer our questions are just practical in nature. Based on this, I will show that the tension between the epistemic and the zetetic Friedman depicts is just a conflict between the practical and the epistemic: A conflict that does not show per se that the current conception of epistemic normativity is incoherent and needs to be revised. (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)

Testimonial injustices occur when individuals from particular social groups are systematically and persistently given less credibility in their claims merely because of their group identity. Recent “pluralistic” approaches to folk psychology, by taking into account the role of stereotypes in how we understand others, have the power to explain how and why cases of testimonial injustice occur. If how we make sense of others’ behavior depends on assumptions about how individuals from certain groups think and act, this can explain why (...) speakers are given different degrees of credibility depending on their group identity. For example, if people assume that women are more emotional than men, they will systematically give less credibility to women’s claims. This explanation involves three empirical claims: people assume that women are more emotional than men, people assume that emotionality hinders credibility, and people give less credibility to women’s claims. While extant studies provide some support for and, no study to date has directly tested. In two different studies, we tested all these three claims. The results from both studies provide support for, as we found significant negative correlations between emotionality and credibility attributions. However, in contrast to what some accounts of folk psychology posit, we did not find any significant difference in people’s attributions of emotionality and credibility towards women versus men speakers. We hope that our studies here pave the way for further empirical studies testing the phenomenon of testimonial injustice in a context-sensitive way, in order to have a better understanding of the conditions in which testimonial injustices are likely to happen. (shrink)

In his genetic phenomenology, Husserl introduces types, pre-predicative frames of experience that guide the perception and cognition of objects. In this essay, I argue that there are two types that are functionally almost identical to Kant’s schemata. To support this conclusion, I first present an interpretation of Kant’s discussion of schemata. I argue that we must see schemata as pure, a priori cognitions that involve only pure intuition, pure concepts of the understanding, and the imagination. I offer two analogies to (...) explain how schemata function to subsume objects under concepts and to anticipate possible objects of experience before moving on to discuss the schema of substance. Next, I present a brief explanation of Husserl’s genetic phenomenology, organizing my presentation around the idea of apperception. This paves the way for a demonstration of how the fundamental type is best understood as standing at the center of a cluster of concepts, including apperception, passive belief, natural bodies, and the one spatio-temporal horizon of experience. I argue that the fundamental type is central to Husserl’s attempt to ground logic in pre-predicative experience. Finally, I compare two specific types with schemata on the grounds cultivated in the previous sections. The first of these types, the fundamental type, functions to pre-predicatively anticipate objects of possible experience, just as schemata do. The second of these types, which is implied by but never discussed in Husserl’s work, serves to mediate between a formal system of rules and an intuitive grasp of the world, just as schemata do. (shrink)

Drawing on the work of John Rawls and Thomas Pogge, I argue that the U.S. is in part responsible for the immigration of Mexicans and Central Americans into the U.S. By seeking to further its national interests through its foreign policies, the U.S. has created economic and politically oppressive conditions that Mexican and Central American people seek to escape. The significance of this project is to highlight the role of the U.S. in illegal immigration so that we may first acknowledge (...) our responsibility in order to seek lasting humane solutions. (shrink)

Subtractive schooling is a type of pedagogy that subtracts from the student aspects of her identity in order to assimilate and reshape her identity to fit the American mainstream. Here, I question the value of assimilation as it takes place in our public school systems. Currently, immigrant children are often made to feel inadequate for being culturally different. This is detrimental to their development as students given that at their young age they do not yet have the emotional maturity to (...) know that their experience, language and culture are legitimate and valuable. My goal is to shift the focus of subtractive schooling to one that fosters the growth of students through recognition. I suggest that John Dewey’s and Paulo Freire’s pedagogy of recognition is a helpful approach to this problem. Both Dewey and Freire’s pedagogy emphasize recognition as central to their pedagogy. (shrink)

Theoretical accounts of development exhibit several internal tensions and face multiple challenges. They span from the problem of the identification of the temporal boundaries of development (beginning and end) to the characterization of the distinctive type of change involved compared to other biological processes. They include questions such as the role to ascribe to the environment or what types of biological systems can undergo development and whether they should include colonies or even ecosystems. In this chapter we discuss these conceptual (...) issues, and we argue that adopting an organizational approach may help solve or clarify them. -/- While development is usually identified with the achievement of an adult form with the capability to reproduce and therefore maintain a lineage, adopting the organizational approach may provide a different strategy, which focuses also on the maintenance of the current organization of the organism. By doing so an organizational approach favors a switch in perspective which consists in analyzing how organisms maintain their viability at each moment of development rather than considering them as going through intermediate stages of a process directed toward a specific goal state. This developmental dimension of biological organization has yet to be given a general and detailed analysis within the organizational theoretical perspective, apart from some preliminary attempts. How a biological organization is maintained through a series of radical organizational changes and what these changes are issues that still require clarification. In this chapter we offer the beginnings of such an analysis of developmental transitions, understood as changes in functionality brought forth by regulatory mechanisms in the context of the continued maintenance of organizational viability at every step. (shrink)

A recent quarrel over faultless disagreements assumes that disputes over evaluative sentences should be understood as regular, factual disagreements. Instead, I propose that evaluative disagreements should be understood in Lewisian terms. Language use works like a rule-governed game. In it, the assertion of an evaluative sentence is an attempt to establish one value as default in the conversation; its rejection, in turn, is in most cases the refusal to accept this move.

Definition The authors’ definition of the autopoietic system has evolved through the years. One of them states that an autopoietic system is organized (defined as a unity) as a network of processes of production (transformation and destruction) of components that produces the components which: (1) through their interactions and transformations regenerate and realize the network of processes (relations) that produced them; and (2) constitute it (the machine) as a concrete unity in the space in which they exist by specifying the (...) topological domain of its realization as such a network (Varela 1979, p. 13). Nearly the same formula was earlier used to define an autopoietic machine (Maturana and Varela 1973/1980, 1984/1987, p. 135). (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to provide a theoretical framework to understand how multicellular systems realize functionally integrated physiological entities by organizing their intercellular space. From a perspective centered on physiology and integration, biological systems are often characterized as organized in such a way that they realize metabolic self-production and self-maintenance. The existence and activity of their components rely on the network they realize and on the continuous management of the exchange of matter and energy with their environment. One (...) of the virtues of the organismic approach focused on organization is that it can provide an understanding of how biological systems are functionally integrated into coherent wholes. Organismic frameworks have been primarily developed by focusing on unicellular life. Multicellularity, however, presents additional challenges to our understanding of biological systems, related to how cells are capable to live together in higher-order entities, in such a way that some of their features and behaviors are constrained and controlled by the system they realize. Whereas most accounts of multicellularity focus on cell differentiation and increase in size as the main elements to understand biological systems at this level of organization, we argue that these factors are insufficient to provide an understanding of how cells are physically and functionally integrated in a coherent system. In this paper, we provide a new theoretical framework to understand multicellularity, capable to overcome these issues. Our thesis is that one of the fundamental theoretical principles to understand multicellularity, which is missing or underdeveloped in current accounts, is the functional organization of the intercellular space. In our view, the capability to be organized in space plays a central role in this context, as it enables (and allows to exploit all the implications of) cell differentiation and increase in size, and even specialized functions such as immunity. We argue that the extracellular matrix plays a crucial active role in this respect, as an evolutionary ancient and specific (non-cellular) control subsystem that contributes as a key actor to the functional specification of the multicellular space and to modulate cell fate and behavior. We also analyze how multicellular systems exert control upon internal movement and communication. Finally, we show how the organization of space is involved in some of the failures of multicellular organization, such as aging and cancer. (shrink)

The folk Psychology frames propositional attitudes as fundamental theoretical entities for the construction of a model designed to predict the behavior of a subject. A trivial, such as grasping a pen and writing reveals - something complex - about the behavior. When I take a pen and start writing I do, trivially, because I believe that a certain object in front of me is a pen and who performs a specific function that is, in fact, that of writing. When I (...) believe that the object that stands before me is a pen, I am in relation to "believe" with the propositional content: that in front of me is a pen. Philosophers of the proposition, from Frege onwards, have dedicated their studies to the analysis of what kinds of entities are the propositional attitudes. Jerry Fodor says that now, the proper prediction of the psychology of common sense, can not be questioned and that the propositional attitudes represent the most effective way to describe our behavior. What Fodor says, however, is that propositional attitudes function, but not how they work. Most philosophers interested in the issue, we are dedicated to the search for a theory that can account consistently both a semantics for propositional attitudes, both of these entities that seem to cause the behavior of a rational subject. There are two main paradigms in the theory of the proposition that contributed to the discussion of the propositional attitudes. One is the one that begins with Gottlob Frege, the other with Bertrand Russell. Defenders of Frege argue that the paradigm scrub objects and properties can not be constituents of the propositional content which have a purely conceptual. In other words, the philosophers belonging to the paradigm of Frege, but not all, mean that you can test in a rigorous way the truth conditions of propositional attitudes. Who defends the russellian’s paradigm argues that the propositional content are made by the objects and properties on which propositional attitudes relate. The purpose of this article is not to rebuild - in detail - both paradigms, nor to reconstruct one but, in a sense, my work will be a completely partial objective is to demonstrate how the paradigm is more profitable russell not only to make a coherent semantic theory for propositional attitudes2 but also to predict the behavior of a rational subject thing, completely innovative, given the repeated objections in contemporary literature3. At the end of this paper will be drafted a proposal to build a consistent model to predict the behavior,of a rational agent, based on a referential theory of propositional attitudes. (shrink)

Basandomi su (Harvey 2012) argomenterò che la struttura architettonica della città deve seguire un determinato modello morale: gli edifici devono adattarsi alla persone e alle loro esigenze, e non il contrario. Definita la città come un particolare tipo di oggetto sociale, difenderò la tesi della possibilità di cambiamento “qui e ora” delle strutture architettoniche delle città sulla base del modello che, come mostra (Sudjic 2011), è attualmente ribaltato in una situazione in cui gli agglomerati urbani seguono sostanzialmente una struttura che (...) sposa le sole esigenze dei costruttori. Una volta argomentato che la città deve tenere conto degli interessi di tutti, modificando di continuo le proprie strutture, mi baserò su (Frau 2009) per sostenere che la città deve anche trasformarsi in un luogo in cui anche i “ diversi” (malati mentali, ecc.) trovano un loro spazio non dissimile da chi è definito “normale”. (shrink)

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

The aim of this paper is to present some system-theoretical notions ─ such as constraint, closure, integration, coordination, etc. ─ which have recently raised a renovated interest and have undergone a deep development, especially in those branches of philosophy of biology characterized by a systemic approach. The im- plications of these notions for the analysis and characterization of self-maintaining organizations will be discussed with the aid of examples taken from models of minimal living systems, and some conceptual distinctions will be (...) provided. In the last part of the paper the epistemic implications of these ideas will be presented. (shrink)

Dieses Grundlagenwerk soll die Fundamente der Erkenntnistheorie und philosophischen Ethik vollständig neu herleiten, sowie den aktuellen Forschungsstand kritisch zusammenfassen. Im Zentrum steht dabei die Frage, inwiefern Erkenntnis der Wirklichkeit möglich ist, sowie die Suche nach elementaren, rationalen Rechtfertigungen, auf denen jegliche Erkenntnis aufbaut. Über fünfzehn Jahre hinweg habe ich dazu das Rechtfertigungsproblem ergründet, sowie herkömmliche Theorien und Argumentationen umfassend analysiert. Mit diesem Grundlagenwerk will ich einen voraussetzungsfreien, vollständig hergeleiteten Erkenntnisstand schaffen und ihn auf ein sicheres Fundament stellen. Mein Ziel ist (...) es, eine moderne Erkenntnistheorie aufzustellen, die eine vollständige Rechtfertigung auf allen Ebenen liefern kann. ––––––––––––––– Programm (mit fachlichen Begrifflichkeiten): Der erkenntnistheoretische Teil untersucht die ontologischen und epistemischen Fragen des Realismus von Wirklichkeit und Bewusstsein. Es zeigt sich, dass sich die physikalische Wirklichkeit möglicherweise fundamental und damit auch ontologisch von (phänomenalen) Bewusstsein unterscheidet, welches durch die Wirklichkeit determiniert zu sein scheint (psychophysische Supervenienz; Epiphänomenalismus). Es wird untersucht, inwiefern die Existenz und Erkennbarkeit der Wirklichkeit aus einem direkten, naiven – aber rechtfertigungstheoretisch grundlegenden – Realismus logisch übertragen werden kann (externalistische, realistische Rechtfertigung), sowie ob sich die Realismus-Hypothese der Wirklichkeit auch aus selbstevidenten Basisüberzeugungen einer Fundierungstheorie (unseren momentanen Bewusstseinsinhalten) sowie fundamentalen Schlussmethoden rational begründen lässt (internalistische Rechtfertigung). Unsere fundamentalen Schlussmethoden, um von Gegebenen auf Unbekanntes zu schließen, lassen sich als bestimmte Arten von Induktion und Abduktion identifizieren, deren herkömmliche Begründungsversuche untersucht werden. So werden unsere induktiven, abduktiven, rationalen und logischen Grundlagen für Erkenntnisse, Annahmen und Theorien analysiert. Da Überzeugungen über Basisüberzeugungen hinaus immer unsicher sind, muss ihre Rechtfertigung nach dem Regressproblem in fundamentalen Schlüssen bzw. Rechtfertigungen enden, die schlicht gegeben sind, und nicht weiter gerechtfertigt werden können. Es zeigt sich, dass diese Schlüsse (bzw. Rechtfertigungen von nicht-Gegebenen) möglicherweise unserer fundamentalen intuitiven Rationalität bzw. Logik entspringen (Intuitionismus) – bzw. nur dadurch gerechtfertigt werden können, dass sie dieser entsprechen. (Dies entspricht einer intuitionistisch bzw. internalistisch-naturalistisch erweiterten Fundierungstheorie.) Diese rein idealistische Argumentation, wird durch die Annahme, dass wir in einer physikalischen Wirklichkeit leben, „bestätigt“, da unser gesamtes Denken letztlich durch die Strukturen unseres Gehirns determiniert ist (Evolutionäre Erkenntnistheorie). Abduktion und Induktion scheinen der rational alternativlosen, fundamentalen kognitiven Disposition zu entspringen, Gleichheiten bzw. sich wiederholende Unterschiede zusammenzufassen, und logische Verknüpfungen zu erkennen. Dies entspricht einer Reduktion gegebener Evidenz auf einen Informationsgehalt. Die realistische Rechtfertigung von Abduktion und auf ihr basierender Induktion scheint ebenfalls aus unserer fundamentalen Rationalität zu entspringen, und in ihrer Überzeugungsstärke an die Stärke der reduktiven Abduktivität gekoppelt zu sein. So nehmen wir reale, notwendige, induktiv fortgesetzte Gesetzmäßigkeiten an. Jeder externalistische Erkenntnisanspruch scheint nur internalistisch gerechtfertigt werden zu können. Auch eine Rechtfertigung mittels Kohärenz (Kohärentismus) scheint auf Abduktion zu gründen. Die alltäglichen Verwendungen der Begriffe Wahrheit und Wissen verweisen aufgrund ihrer verschiedenen, aufeinander aufbauenden, fehlbaren Rechtfertigungsarten bzw. -stärken auf einen Kontextualismus des Begriffs der Rechtfertigung. Wahrheit und Wissen scheinen also möglicherweise für ein Subjekt nur unvollständig gerechtfertigt sein zu müssen, bis die Unvollständigkeit bzw. Fehlbarkeit ihrer Rechtfertigung begründet aufgezeigt wird (Epistemic Conservatism). Der Teil zur philosophischen Ethik untersucht das Konzept der Normativität und ethische Begriffe wie das Sollen, der Wertung und das Gute. Ethische/moralische Inhalte werden hinsichtlich ihrer Ontologie, Bedeutung, Wahrheit und Objektivität untersucht. Dazu zählt eine Analyse ethischer Theorien und Konzepte, wie Sensualismus, Subjektivismus, Relativismus, Realismus, Teleologie, Deontologie, Utilitarismus und moralischer Status. Dabei wird unter anderem geklärt, ob normative Fragen letztlich in kausalen Fakten gründen müssen (Naturalismus, Nonkognitivismus), also insofern rein beschreibend beantwortet werden können. Zuletzt wird eine präzise Definition des Begriffs der Gerechtigkeit aufgestellt. (shrink)

This paper critically revises the organisational account of teleology, which argues that living systems are first and foremost oriented towards a goal: maintaining their own conditions of existence. It points out some limitations of this account, mainly in the capability to account for the richness and complexity of biological systems and their purposeful behaviours. It identifies the reason of these limitations in the theoretical grounding of this account, specifically in the too narrow notion of closure of constraints, focused on self-production. (...) It proposes to ground an organisational account of biological teleology in the capability of living system not just to produce and replace their parts, but to control their own internal dynamics and behaviours in such a way as to maintain themselves. This theoretical framework has two advantages. It better captures the distinctive features of biological organisations and consequently the richness and active nature of their purposeful behaviours. By doing so, it makes it possible to apply this framework beyond minimal theoretical models to real biological cases. (shrink)

One of the best-known aspects of José Carlos Mariátegui’s philosophy is his concept of a revolutionary myth. What does this revolutionary myth entail, how and why did Mariátegui develop this idea? The following article situates Mariátegui’s thought in both the historical and intellectual context of the 1920’s in order to answer these questions. This is relevant because Mariátegui’s philosophy and his revolutionary myth have influenced several Latin American revolutionaries such as Ernesto Che Guevara and Sendero Luminoso (Shining Path). Mariátegui’s ideas (...) have thus changed the lives and history of Latin Americans and it is important that we neither demonize nor idolize Mariátegui’s intellectual work without first attempting to understand it. (shrink)

El presente artículo tiene como objeto llevar a cabo un estudio pragmático y analítico sobre la acción de valoración, el valor y los valores a la luz de la ciencia semiótica y de la ciencia cibernética. Por ello, se desarrollará un proceso axiológico que ilustre cómo sucede el ingreso, la transición y la salida de códigos morales en función de un esquema cognitivo. Así pues, el proceso axiológico se postula, primero, en fundamento de tres sistemas: de mentalidad, de valores y (...) de biomoralidad y, segundo, conforme a la teoría de la información y de la teoría general de sistemas. (shrink)

Evaluative judgments imply positive or negative regard. But there are different ways in which something can be positive or negative. How do we tell them apart? According to Evaluative Sentimentalism, different evaluations (e.g., dangerousness vs. offensiveness) are grounded on different emotions (e.g., fear vs. anger). If this is the case, evaluation differentiation requires emotional awareness. Here, we test this hypothesis by looking at alexithymia, a deficit in emotional awareness consisting of problems identifying, describing, and thinking about emotions. The results of (...) Study 1 suggest that high alexithymia is not only related to problems distinguishing emotions, but also to problems distinguishing evaluations. Study 2 replicated this latter effect after controlling for individual differences in attentional impulsiveness and reflective reasoning, and found that reasoning makes an independent contribution to evaluation differentiation. These results suggest that emotional sensibilities play an irreducible role in evaluative judgment while affording a role for reasoning. (shrink)

Are emotions bodily feelings or evaluative cognitions? What is happiness, pain, or “being moved”? Are there basic emotions? In this chapter, I review extant empirical work concerning these and related questions in the philosophy of emotion. This will include both (1) studies investigating people’s emotional experiences and (2) studies investigating people’s use of emotion concepts in hypothetical cases. Overall, this review will show the potential of using empirical research methods to inform philosophical questions regarding emotion.

How can we ameliorate the current immigration policies toward Mexican people immigrating to the United States? This study re-examines how the development of scenarios assisted South Africa to dismantle apartheid without engaging in a bloody civil war. Following the scenario approach, we articulate positions taken by different interest groups involved in the debate concerning immigration from Mexico. Next, we formulate a set of scenarios which are evaluated as to how well each contributes to the well-being of the populace both of (...) Mexico and of the United States. The South African scenario model has proven to be an effective tool in times of political disagreement. It fosters a common language among competing groups, non-hierarchal communication among groups, and acknowledgement of the concerns of each group involved. (shrink)

Open peer commentary on the article “Circularity and the Micro-Macro-Difference” by Manfred Füllsack. Upshot: The target article defends the fundamental role of circularity for systems sciences and the necessity to develop a conceptual and methodological approach to it. The concept of circularity, however, is multifarious, and two of the main challenges in this respect are to provide distinctions between different forms of circularities and explore in detail the roles they play in organizations. This commentary provides some suggestions in this direction (...) with the aim to supplement the perspective presented in the target article with some insights from theoretical biology. (shrink)

The article examines education in the information age, proposing an informational perspective. By analyzing the epistemology of informational learning, I offer a framework for understanding how individuals acquire knowledge, highlighting the role of design and models in active and constructive learning. Following this, the paper presents the UDL and ODDE educational models, outlining their key features and potential contributions. I then showcase the practical application of these models through case studies focusing on the use of AI to develop personalized learning (...) tools and inclusive environments. I propose EIML as a competence to address the abundance of information in learning and the need for the concept of reciprocity. (shrink)

Las oraciones con predicados evaluativos son sensibles a la valoración realizada según un parámetro evaluativo contextual. Dos teorías han proporcionado explicaciones para este tipo de sensibilidad: el contextualismo y el relativismo de apreciación. En este trabajo presentaré una tercera opción que logra lo mismo que estas de una manera más sencilla. La teoría se centrará en dos pilares: una reconsideración del contenido expresado por las oraciones con predicados de gusto que parte de la articulación del parámetro evaluativo como una función (...) diádica, y los compromisos que la aserción de este tipo de oraciones impone sobre los hablantes y sobre el auditorio. Con ambas herramientas se logrará una teoría que podrá dar cuenta de acuerdos, desacuerdos y usos ecóicos de las oraciones evaluativas sin apelar a contextos de apreciación suplementarios a la teoría semántica estándar o a presupuestos de comunidad de los parámetros evaluativos. Sentences with evaluative predicates are sensitive to the valuation carried on under an evaluative parameter in the context. Two theories have provided an account for this kind of context-sensitivity: contextualism and assessment relativism. In this paper I will present a third alternative that achieves the same results in a simpler way. This theory is based on two main ideas: understanding the content expressed on the basis of an articulation of the evaluative parameter as a dyadic function, and the practical and linguistic commitments that the assertion of these sentences imposes over speakers and hearers. Both tools will result in a theory that can manage agreements, disagreements and echoic uses of evaluative sentences without the need to supplement the standard semantic theory with contexts of assessment or with presuppositions of commonality of the evaluative standard. (shrink)

Three arguments summarize opposition to laws protecting LGBTQ+ persons from discrimination: (1) The pseudo-democratic argument (social change should be free of governmental coercion); (2) The clinical argument (homosexuality is an illness); (3) The choice argument (homosexuality is a choice). My purpose is to show the three are vulnerable to damaging objections. This article reflects conditions as they were in 1987 in the USA. For example, the expression LGBTQ+ had not been coined. My use of "gays and lesbians," then believed to (...) be inclusive, excluded a lot of people. (shrink)