In a few texts, Thomas Aquinas says that the first operation of the intellect pertains to (respicit) “the quiddity of a thing” whereas the second operation pertains to “the to be itself of a thing” (esse). But Aquinas also says that quiddities are to the intellect as color is to the power of sight. Statements such as these seem to have led Jacques Maritain and Étienne Gilson to see esse as the proper object of the intellect’s second operation. Against this (...) conclusion, Fr Régis and Ralph McInerny have argued—using Aquinas’s In I Peryermenias, lecture 5—that since ‘is’ is a verb and ‘is’ signifies existence, but all verbs signify the first operation of the intellect, we must be able to form a concept of existence in the first operation of the intellect. This paper does three things. First, it analyzes the nature of the claim made by Maritain and Gilson. Second, it shows from internal textual evidence that “respicit ipsum esse rei” cannot mean what Maritain and Gilson take it to mean. The second operation of the intellect cannot have a proper object distinct from the object of the first operation, which is quiddities. Finally, this paper provides an alternative interpretation of In I Peryermenias, lecture 5, to the one given by McInerny. In that text, Aquinas does not speak about a particular concept of existence in the first operation of the intellect and signified by the verbs ‘is’ or ‘exists.’ Rather, he uses the word ‘esse’ in indirect speech to include generally any form or act joined to a subject by the copula, ‘is.’ Aquinas’s focus is not on what ‘esse’ or ‘est’ signifies, but on the mode in which it signifies (per modum actualitas) absent additional qualifying terms. The conclusion of this paper is that, although the esse contrasted with essence in Aquinas’s metaphysics corresponds to a concept in the intellect’s first operation, nevertheless, like the notions of blindness and of genus, this esse cannot fall properly within the intellect’s object. (shrink)

In the current “second reception” of Althusser, the concept of the capitalist mode of production as explored in Reading Capital and On the Reproduction of Capitalism has been relatively underdiscussed. The concept, however, remains an important component of larger discussions in Marxist theory. This paper rereads Althusser and Balibar’s early contributions to the concept of the mode of production alongside Marx and contemporary thinkers such as Jairus Banaji. In so doing, preliminary connections are made between Althusser’s second reception and important (...) recent interdisciplinary work on subsumption and heterogenous development. (shrink)

In the 17th century the dissemination of philosophical ideas relied also on the critical summaries and reviews published by the journals. The focus of this paper is the reactions of two of these journals – the Journal de Trévoux, edited by the Jesuits of the Parisian Collège Louis Le Grand, and the Journal des Sçavans – to Condillac’s works. The Jesuit journal, under the direction of pére Berthier – probably himself the author of the reviews – had a precise (...) plan in presenting Condillac’s philosophy as an anti-empiricist and anti-materialist doctrine, sometime giving a misrepresentation of the author’s thought, which is also criticized on some points. The decision of the Journal de Trévoux to review the main works of Condillac is anyway worthy of attention, and probably betrays a certain interest toward the more up to date philosophical enquiry. The Journal des Sçavans was on the other hand more faithful in presenting Condillac’s works. (shrink)

PREMISSA No século XIX, ocorreram transformações impulsionadas pela emergência de novas fontes energéticas (água e petróleo), por novos ramos industriais e pela alteração profunda nos processos produtivos, com a introdução de novas máquinas e equipamentos. Depois de 300 anos de exploração por parte das nações europeias, iniciou -se, principalmente nas colônias latino-americanas, um processo intenso de lutas pela independência. É no século XIX, já com a consolidação do sistema capitalista na Europa, que se encontra a herança intelectual mais próxima da (...) qual surgirá a Sociologia como ciência particular. No início desse século, as ideias do Conde de Saint-Simon (1760-1825), de Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770-1831), de David Ricardo (1772-1823) e de Charles Darwin (1809-1882), entre outros, foram o elo para que Alexis de Tocqueville (1805-1859), Auguste Comte (1798-1857), Karl Marx (1818 -1883) e Herbert Spencer (1820-1903), entre outros, desenvolvessem reflexões sobre a sociedade de seu tempo. Auguste Comte e Karl Marx foram os pensadores que lançaram as bases do pensamento sociológico e de duas grandes tradições – a positivista e a socialista – que muito influenciaram o desenvolvimento da Sociologia no Brasil. 1 AUGUSTE COMTE E A TRADIÇÃO POSITIVISTA Isidore Auguste Marie François Xavier Comte nasceu em Montpellier, na França, em 19 de janeiro de 1798. Com 16 anos de idade, ingressou na Escola Politécnica de Paris, fato que teria significativa influência na orientação posterior de seu pensamento. De 1817 a 1824, foi secretário do Conde de Saint-Simon. Comte declarou que, com Saint -Simon, aprendeu muitas coisas que jamais encontraria nos livros e que, no pouco tempo em que conviveu com o conde, fez mais progressos do que faria em muitos anos, se estivesse sozinho. Toda a obra de Comte está permeada pelos acontecimentos que ocorreram após a Revolução Francesa de 1789. Ele defendeu parte dos princípios revolucionários e criticou a restauração da monarquia, preocupando-se fundamentalmente em reorganizar a sociedade, que, no seu entender, estava em ebulição e mergulhada no caos. Para Comte, a desordem e a anarquia imperavam em virtude da confusão de princípios (metafísicos e teológicos), que não se adequavam à sociedade industrial em expansão. Era, portanto, necessário superar esse estado de coisas, usando a razão como fundamento da nova sociedade. Propôs, então, a mudança da sociedade por meio da reforma intelectual plena das pessoas. De acordo com o pensador, com a modificação do pensamento humano, por meio do método científico, que ele chamava de “filosofia positiva”, haveria uma reforma das instituições. Com a proposta do estudo da sociedade por meio da análise de seus processos e estruturas, e da reforma prática das instituições, Comte criou uma nova ciência, à qual deu o nome de “física social”, passando a chamá-la posteriormente de Sociologia. A Sociologia representava, para Comte, o coroamento da evolução do conhecimento, mediante o emprego de métodos utilizados por outras ciências, que buscavam conhecer os fenômenos constantes e repetitivos da natureza: a observação, a experimentação, a comparação e a classificação. De acordo com esse pensador, a Sociologia, como as ciências naturais, deve sempre procurar a reconciliação entre os aspectos estáticos e os dinâmicos do mundo natural ou, no caso da sociedade humana, entre a ordem e o progresso. O lema da “filosofia positiva” proposta por Comte era “conhecer para prever, prever para prover”, ou seja, o conhecimento é necessário para fazer previsões e também para solucionar possíveis problemas. A influência de Comte no desenvolvimento da Sociologia foi marcante, sobretudo, na escola francesa, evidenciando-se em Émile Durkheim e seus contemporâneos e seguidores. Seu pensamento esteve presente em muitas das tentativas de criar tipologias para explicar a sociedade. Suas principais obras são: Curso de filosofia positiva (1830-1842), Discurso sobre o espírito positivo (1848), Catecismo positivista (1852) e Sistema de política positiva (1854). Para concluirmos, Comte explanava que para a superação da anarquia reinante na nova sociedade industrial, a filosofia positivista defendia a subordinação do progresso à ordem. O mesmo era contra o retorno de Luís XVIII ao trono: em sua concepção, a sociedade industrial que emergia requeria um governo fundado na razão. 2 A TRADIÇÃO SOCIALISTA: KARL MARX E FRIEDRICH ENGELS Karl Heinrich Marx nasceu em Tréveris, na antiga Prússia, hoje Alemanha, em 1818 e, em 1830, ingressou no Liceu Friedrich Wilhelm, nessa mesma cidade. Anos depois, foi cursar Direito na Universidade de Bonn, transferindo-se para Berlim em seguida. Pouco a pouco, entretanto, seus interesses migraram para a Filosofia, área na qual defendeu, em 1841, a tese de doutorado A diferença da filosofia da natureza em Demócrito e Epicuro. Sua vida universitária foi marcada pelo debate político e intelectual influenciado pelo pensamento de Ludwig Feuerbach (1804-1872) e, principalmente, pelo de Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770- 1831). Friedrich Engels (1820-1895) nasceu em Barmen (Renânia), na antiga Prússia, hoje Alemanha, filho mais velho de um rico industrial do ramo têxtil. Terminou sua formação secundária em 1837 e a partir de então sua formação intelectual foi por conta própria (autodidata), com alguns cursos universitários esparsos e de curta duração. Desde cedo começou a trabalhar nas empresas de seu pai e foi nessa condição que se deslocou para Bremen por três anos e depois foi enviado pelos pais a Manchester, na Inglaterra, onde trabalhou nas fábricas da família. Engels ficou impressionado com a miséria na qual viviam os trabalhadores das fábricas inglesas. Os dois, Marx e Engels, se encontraram em 1842, quando Marx passou a escrever para A Gazeta Renana, jornal da província de Colônia, do qual Engels era colaborador e mais tarde editor-chefe. O jornal, que criticava o poder prussiano, foi fechado em 1843, e Marx se viu desempregado. Ao perder o emprego, mudou-se para Paris, na França. Ali escreveu, em 1844, os Manuscritos econômico-filosóficos (só publicados em 1932) e, junto com F. Engels, o livro A sagrada família. Por sua vez, F. Engels, em 1844, decidiu voltar para a Alemanha, onde publicou, em 1845, A situação da classe trabalhadora na Inglaterra. Entre 1845 e 1847, Marx exilou-se em Bruxelas, na Bélgica, onde escreveu A ideologia alemã (em parceria com Friedrich Engels) e Miséria da filosofia (1847), obra na qual criticou o filósofo Pierre-Joseph Proudhon (1809-1865). Em 1848, ainda na Bélgica, a parceria com Engels se solidificou ao escreverem juntos o livreto O Manifesto Comunista. Em 1848, Marx foi expulso da Bélgica e retornou a Colônia, na Alemanha (Prússia), sempre pensando na possibilidade de uma mudança estrutural em sua terra natal. Isso, entretanto, não aconteceu e Marx foi expulso da Alemanha em 1849, ano em que migrou para Londres, na Inglaterra, onde permaneceu até o fim da vida. Lá escreveu O 18 Brumário de Luís Bonaparte (1852), sua mais importante obra de reflexão sobre a vida política europeia do século XIX, desenvolveu pesquisas e concluiu seu maior trabalho: O capital: crítica da economia política. O primeiro volume dessa obra foi publicado em 1867; os outros três, em 1885, 1894 e 1905, após a morte de Marx, revisados por F. Engels. 2.1 O contexto histórico e a obra de Marx e Engels Para situar a obra de Marx e Engels, é necessário conhecer um pouco do que acontecia em meados do século XIX. Com as transformações que ocorriam no mundo ocidental, principalmente na esfera da produção industrial, houve um crescimento expressivo no número de trabalhadores industriais urbanos, com uma consequência evidente: precariedade da vida dos operários nas cidades. As condições de trabalho no interior das fábricas eram péssimas. Os empregados eram superexplorados, alimentavam-se mal e trabalhavam em ambientes insalubres. Para enfrentar essa situação e tentar modificá-la, os trabalhadores passaram a se organizar em associações e sindicatos e a promover movimentos de reivindicação. Desenvolveu-se, então, uma discussão das condições sociais, políticas e econômicas para se definirem as possibilidades de intervenção nessa realidade. Desde o início do século XIX, muitos pensadores discutiram essas questões, nas perspectivas socialista e anarquista. Na Inglaterra podem ser citados, entre outros: William Godwin (1756-1836), Thomas Spence (1750-1814), Thomas Paine (1737-1809), Robert Owen (1771-1858) e Thomas Hodgkin (1787-1866). Na França, destacaram-se Étienne Cabet (1788- 1856), Flora Tristan (1803-1844), Charles Fourier (1772-1837) e Pierre-Joseph Proudhon (1809-1865). Marx e Engels levaram em conta esses pensadores, debatendo com alguns contemporâneos e criticando-os. Além disso, incorporaram a tradição da economia clássica inglesa, presente principalmente nas obras de Adam Smith e de David Ricardo. Pode-se dizer, portanto, que Marx e Engels desenvolveram seu trabalho com base na análise crítica da economia política inglesa, do socialismo utópico francês e da filosofia alemã. Esses dois autores não buscavam definir uma ciência específica para estudar a sociedade (como a Sociologia, para Auguste Comte) ou situar seu trabalho em um campo científico particular. Em alguns escritos, Marx afirmou que a História seria a ciência que mais se aproximava de suas preocupações, por abarcar as múltiplas dimensões da sociedade, a qual deveria ser analisada na totalidade, não havendo uma separação rígida entre os aspectos sociais, econômicos, políticos, ideológicos, religiosos, culturais etc. O objetivo de Marx e Engels era estudar criticamente a sociedade capitalista com base em seus princípios constitutivos e em seu desenvolvimento, visando dotar a classe trabalhadora de uma análise política da sociedade de seu tempo. Assim, a tradição socialista nascida da luta dos trabalhadores, muitos anos antes e em situações diferentes, tem como expressão intelectual o pensamento de Karl Marx e Friedrich Engels. Para entender as concepções fundamentais de Marx e Engels é necessário fazer a conexão entre as lutas da classe trabalhadora, suas aspirações e as ideias revolucionárias que estavam presentes no século XIX na Europa. Para eles, o conhecimento científico da realidade só tem sentido quando visa à transformação dessa mesma realidade. A separação entre teoria e prática não é discutida, pois a “verdade histórica” não é algo abstrato e que se define teoricamente; sua verificação está na prática. Apesar de haver algumas diferenças em seus escritos, os elementos essenciais do pensamento de Marx e Engels podem ser assim sintetizados: • historicidade das ações humanas – crítica ao idealismo alemão; • divisão social do trabalho e o surgimento das classes sociais – a luta de classes; • o fetichismo da mercadoria e o processo de alienação; • crítica à economia política e ao capitalismo; • transformação social e revolução; • utopia – sociedade comunista. A obra desses dois autores é muito vasta e não ficou vinculada estritamente aos movimentos sociais dos trabalhadores. Pouco a pouco foi introduzida nas universidades como parte do estudo em diferentes áreas do conhecimento. Estudiosos de Filosofia, Sociologia, Ciência Política, Economia, História e Geografia, entre outras áreas, foram influenciados por ela. Na Sociologia, como afirma Irving M. Zeitlin, no livro Ideología y teoría sociológica, tanto Max Weber quanto Émile Durkheim fizeram, em suas obras, um debate com as ideias de Karl Marx. Pelas análises da sociedade capitalista de seu tempo e a repercussão que tiveram em todo o mundo, principalmente no século XX, nos movimentos sociais e nas universidades, Marx e Engels são considerados autores clássicos da Sociologia. No campo dessa disciplina, porém, o pensamento deles ficou um pouco restrito, pois perdeu aquela relação entre teoria e prática (práxis), ou seja, entre a análise crítica e a prática revolucionária. Essa relação esteve presente, por exemplo, na vida e na obra dos russos Vladimir Ilitch Ulianov, conhecido como Lênin (1870-1924), e Leon D. Bronstein, conhecido como Trotsky (1879-1940), da alemã Rosa Luxemburgo (1871-1919) e do italiano Antonio Gramsci (1891- 1937), que tiveram significativa influência no movimento operário do século XX. Com base no trabalho de Marx e Engels, muitos autores desenvolveram estudos acadêmicos em vários campos do conhecimento. Podemos citar, por exemplo, Georg Lukács (1885-1971), Theodor Adorno (1903-1969), Walter Benjamin (1892-1940), Henri Lefebvre (1901-1991), Lucien Goldmanm (1913 -1970), Louis Althusser (1918 -1990), Nikos Poulantzas (1936-1979), Edward P. Thompson (1924-1993) e Eric Hobsbawm (1917 -2012). O pensamento de Marx e Engels continua, assim, presente em todo o mundo, com múltiplas tendências e variações, sempre gerando controvérsias. REFERENCIAL TEÓRICO GEMKOW, H.; PSUA, I. M. L. Marx e Engels: Vida e Obra. São Paulo: Alfa e Ômega, 1984. 232 pp. GIANOTTI, J. A. Comte. São Paulo: Abril Cultural, 1978. 318 pp. (Col. Os Pensadores) KONDER, L. Marx: vida e obra. 7ª ed. São Paulo: Paz e Terra, 2007. 154 pp. (Col. Vida e Obra). (shrink)

If citizens are to make enlightened collective decisions, they need to rely on true factual beliefs, but misinformation impairs their ability to do so. Although some cases of misinformation are deliberate and amount to propaganda, cases of inadvertent misinformation are just as problematic in affecting the beliefs and behavior of democratic citizens. A review of empirical evidence suggests that this is a serious problem that cannot entirely be corrected by means of deliberation.

Many neo-Aristotelians argue that practical identities are normative, that is, they provide us with reasons for action and create binding obligations. Kantian constructivists agree with this insight but argue that contemporary Aristotelians fail to fully justify it. Practical identities are normative, Kantian constructivists contend, but their normativity necessarily derives from the normativity of humanity. In this paper, I shed light on this underexplored similarity between neo-Aristotelian and Kantian constructivist accounts of the normativity of practical identities, and argue that both ultimately (...) fail. I end by suggesting an alternative justification of the claim that practical identities are normative. (shrink)

A compelling idea holds that reality has a layered structure. We often disagree about what inhabits the bottom layer, but we agree that higher up we find chemical, biological, geological, psychological, sociological, economic, /etc./, entities: molecules, human beings, diamonds, mental states, cities, interest rates, and so on. How is this intuitive talk of a layered structure of entities to be understood? Traditionally, philosophers have proposed to understand layered structure in terms of either reduction or supervenience. But these traditional views face (...) well-known problems. A plausible alternative is that layered structure is to be explicated by appeal to explanations of a certain sort, termed / grounding explanations/. Grounding explanations tell us what obtains in virtue of what. Unfortunately, the use of grounding explanations to articulate the layered conception faces a problem, which I call /the collapse/. The collapse turns on the question of how to ground the facts stated by the explanations themselves. In this paper I make a suggestion about how to ground explanations that avoids the collapse. Briefly, the suggestion is that the fact stated by a grounding explanation is grounded in its /explanans/. (shrink)

In a recent contribution to conceptual ethics, Joshua Habgood-Coote argues that philosophers should refrain from using the term “fake news,” which is commonly employed in public discussions focusing on the epistemic health of democracies. In this short discussion note, I take issue with this claim, discussing each of the three arguments advanced by Coote to support the conclusion that we should abandon this concept. First, I contend that although “fake news” is a contested concept, there is significant agreement among contemporary (...) philosophers about its key feature. Second, I argue against the claim that “fake news” is an unnecessary concept by underlying that it is not reducible to other terms we customarily use to describe the epistemic dysfunctions of democracies. Lastly, I suggest that using the term “fake news” need not serve propagandistic aims, and that philosophers can use this concept without engaging in epistemic policing, that is, commanding their interlocutors not to believe specific news stories or sources. (shrink)

Kant’s discussion of the highest good is subject to continuous disagreement between the proponents of two interpretations of this concept. According to the secular interpretation, Kant conceived of the highest good as a political ideal which can be realized through human agency alone, albeit only from the Critique of the Power of Judgement onwards. By way of contrast, proponents of the theological interpretation find Kant’s treatment of the highest good in his later works to be wholly coherent with the discussions (...) of this concept found in the second Critique. In their view, however, Kant never conceived of the highest good as a political ideal, and some go as far as to argue that it is the work of God alone. In this article, I defend a theologico-political account of the highest good that avoids the pitfalls of both readings. (shrink)

This paper establishes a sound and complete semantics for the impure logic of ground. Fine (Review of Symbolic Logic, 5(1), 1–25, 2012a) sets out a system for the pure logic of ground, one in which the formulas between which ground-theoretic claims hold have no internal logical complexity; and it provides a sound and complete semantics for the system. Fine (2012b) [§§6-8] sets out a system for an impure logic of ground, one that extends the rules of the original pure system (...) with rules for the truth-functional connectives, the first-order quantifiers, and λ-abstraction. However, no semantics has yet been provided for this system. The present paper partly fills this lacuna by providing a sound and complete semantics for a system GG containing the truth-functional operators that is closely related to the truth-functional part of the system of Fine (2012b). (shrink)

Consider the kinds of macroscopic concrete objects that common sense and the sciences allege to exist: tables, raindrops, tectonic plates, galaxies, and the rest. Are there any such things? Opinions differ. Ontological liberals say they do; ontological radicals say they don't. Liberalism seems favored by its plausible acquiescence to the dictates of common sense abetted by science; radicalism by its ontological parsimony. Priority theorists claim we can have the virtues of both views. They hold that tables, raindrops, etc., exist, but (...) they aren't fundamental. The ontological liberal's ontology provides the correct inventory of existent individuals. The ontological radical's more restricted ontology provides the correct inventory of fundamental individuals. The priority theorist claims that the derivative individuals are "no addition in being" to the fundamental ones, so we can have our cake and eat it too. It would be nice if priority theorists were right. In this paper I argue, with regret, that they are not. One upshot is that the sort of explanations which underwrite the priority theorist's distinction between fundamental and derivative individuals do not mitigate our ontological commitments. Another is that we still have to choose between the charms of liberalism and radicalism. (shrink)

This summary is not exactly the way I would have done it myself but I must admit that my writing is sometimes a challenge to read. So I asked an AI to do this summary expecting that it will give an easily understandable although not totally accurate view on Ontology of Knowledge and from this general understanding help the reader to read the original papers. Jean-Louis Boucon’s works, "Introduction to the Ontology of Knowledge" and "Time, Space, and World as (...) Knowledge," delve into the intricate nature of reality, meaning, and the process of knowing. Boucon challenges traditional dichotomies in philosophy and science, presenting a cohesive framework where the knowing subject and the world are intertwined aspects of a single dynamic reality. His ideas provide a robust foundation for exploring ontological and epistemological questions, including the interpretation of quantum mechanics. (shrink)

Alternative currencies are means of payment that circulate alongside—as an alternative or complement to—official currencies. While these currencies have existed for a long time, both society and academia have shown a renewed interest in their potential to decentralize the governance of monetary affairs and to bring people and organizations together in more ethical or sustainable ways. This article is a review of the ethical and philosophical implications of these alternative monetary projects. We first discuss various classifications of these currencies before (...) analyzing the ethical challenges linked to the way they tackle social and environmental issues. We also examine the incentive-based and coercive mechanisms used by these currencies from an ethical perspective and debate the promises and perils of monetary decentralization and democracy. We conclude by identifying an agenda for future research. (shrink)

One central objection to philosophical defences of liberal neutrality is that many neutrally justified laws and policies are nonetheless discriminatory as they unilaterally impose costs or confer unearned privileges on the bearers of a particular conception of the good. Call this the false neutrality objection. While liberal neutralists seldom consider this objection to be a serious allegation, and often claim that it rests on a misunderstanding, I argue that it is a serious challenge for proponents of justificatory neutrality. Indeed, a (...) careful examination of recent French and Canadian laws which impede the members of cultural minorities from freely practising their religion reveals that the state can hide its discriminatory aims by cloaking the policies it enacts in neutral language. In order to avoid the problem of false neutrality, I contend, liberal neutralists should defend a combination of neutrality of justification and neutrality of aim and operationalize neutrality of aim through a practical test that has been a defining feature of American jurisprudence on religious freedom in the last thirty years: the general applicability requirement. (shrink)

An impressive variety of new forms of money has aroused in recent decades from various groups of people and various kinds of institutions. These currencies are at the heart of intense debates, which raise important, but often neglected, normative issues. The diversity of their goals, uses and charac-teristics is so large that it makes some preliminary distinctions necessary. This paper aims at provid-ing a proper background for the discussion of the possible merits and drawbacks of different kinds of currencies. It (...) proposes a classification that demarcates currencies according to how they relate to several crucial normative issues. Its aim is to show, for every type of currency, and as unambiguously as possible, to which side of these controversies it lies. (shrink)

Local Currencies, Local Exchange Trading Systems, and Time Banks are all part of a new social movement that aims to restrict money's purchasing power within a certain geographic area, or within a certain community. According to their proponents, these restrictions may contribute to building sustainable local economies, supporting local businesses and creating “warmer” social relations. This article inquires whether the overall enthusiasm that surrounds alternative currencies is justified. It argues that the potential benefits of these currencies are not sufficient to (...) justify the restrictions they impose on money's purchasing power. Turning these currencies into effective channels of change, by increasing their scope and their strength, could severely hinder the pursuit of social justice, in a way that is probably not even necessary for achieving their objectives. The paper concludes that large-scale limitations of money's purchasing power are, therefore, undesirable. (shrink)

The idea that some objects are metaphysically “cheap” has wide appeal. An influential version of the idea builds on abstractionist views in the philosophy of mathematics, on which numbers and other mathematical objects are abstracted from other phenomena. For example, Hume's Principle states that two collections have the same number just in case they are equinumerous, in the sense that they can be correlated one‐to‐one:. The principal aim of this article is to use the notion of grounding to develop this (...) sort of abstractionism. The appeal to grounding enables a unified response to the two main challenges that confront abstractionism. First, we must explicate the metaphor of metaphysical “cheapness.” Second, we must rebut the “bad company” objection, which rejects abstraction principles like (HP) as tarnished by their similarity to inconsistent principles like Frege's Basic Law V. By enforcing a simple requirement that all abstraction be properly grounded, we propose a unified solution to these two hard, and prima facie unrelated, problems. On our view, grounded abstraction simultaneously ensures “cheap” abstracta and permissible abstraction. (shrink)

/Analyticity theorists/, as I will call them, endorse the /doctrine of analyticity in ontology/: if some truth P analytically entails the existence of certain things, then a theory that contains P but does not claim that those things exist is no more ontologically parsimonious than a theory that also claims that they exist. Suppose, for instance, that the existence of a table in a certain location is analytically entailed by the existence and features of certain particles in that location. The (...) doctrine implies that the table's existence requires nothing more of the world than that those particles exist and bear the features in question. Analyticity theorists have alleged that this idea may be used to defend controversial existence claims against a battery of objections. I argue that this style of defense fails, because the doctrine faces counter-examples. An existence claim may be analytically entailed by some truth and still report a substantial further fact. (shrink)

There is a curious bifurcation in the literature on ground and its logic. On the one hand, there has been a great deal of work that presumes that logical complexity invariably yields grounding. So, for instance, it is widely presumed that any fact stated by a true conjunction is grounded in those stated by its conjuncts, that any fact stated by a true disjunction is grounded in that stated by any of its true disjuncts, and that any fact stated by (...) a true double negation is grounded in that stated by the doubly-negated formula. This commitment is encapsulated in the system GG axiomatized and semantically characterized by [deRosset and Fine, 2023] (following [Fine, 2012]). On the other hand, there has been a great deal of important formal work on “flatter” theories of ground, yielding logics very different from GG [Correia, 2010] [Fine, 2016, 2017b]. For instance, these theories identify the fact stated by a self-conjunction $$(\phi \wedge \phi )$$ with that stated by its conjunct $$\phi $$. Since, in these systems, no fact grounds itself, the “flatter” theories are inconsistent with the principles of GG. This bifurcation raises the question of whether there is a single notion of ground suited to fulfill the philosophical ambitions of grounding enthusiasts. There is, at present, no unified semantic framework employing a single conception of ground for simultaneously characterizing both GG and the “flatter” approaches. This paper fills this gap by specifying such a framework and demonstrating its adequacy. (shrink)

The scientific successes of the last 400 years strongly suggest a picture on which our scientific theories exhibit a layered structure of dependence and determination. Economics is dependent on and determined by psychology; psychology in its turn is, plausibly, dependent on and determined by biology; and so it goes. It is tempting to explain this layered structure of dependence and determination among our theories by appeal to a corresponding layered structure of dependence and determination among the entities putatively treated by (...) those theories. In this paper, I argue that we can resist this temptation: we can explain the sense in which, e.g., the biological truths are dependent on and determined by chemical truths without appealing to properly biological or chemical entities. This opens the door to a view on which, though there are more truths than just the purely physical truths, there are no entities, states, or properties other than the purely physical entities, states, and properties. I argue that some familiar strategies to explicate the idea of a layered structure of theories by appeal to reduction, ground, and truthmaking encounter difficulties. I then show how these difficulties point the way to a more satisfactory treatment which appeals to something very close to the notion of ground. Finally, I show how this treatment provides a theoretical setting in which we might fruitfully frame debates about which entities there really are. (shrink)

This is a technical supplement to "Abstraction and Grounding", forthcoming in /Philosophy and Public Affairs/.

Research in experimental philosophy has increasingly been turning to corpus methods to produce evidence for empirical claims, as they open up new possibilities for testing linguistic claims or studying concepts across time and cultures. The present article reviews the quasi-experimental studies that have been done using textual data from corpora in philosophy, with an eye for the modeling and experimental design that enable statistical inference. I find that most studies forego comparisons that could control for confounds, and that only a (...) little less than half employ statistical testing methods to control for chance results. Furthermore, at least some researchers make modeling decisions that either do not take into account the nature of corpora and of the word-concept relationship, or undermine the experiment's capacity to answer research questions. I suggest that corpus methods could both provide more powerful evidence and gain more mainstream acceptance by improving their modeling practices. (shrink)

Philosophers have spilled a lot of ink over the past few years exploring the nature and significance of grounding. Kit Fine has made several seminal contributions to this discussion, including an exact treatment of the formal features of grounding [Fine, 2012a]. He has specified a language in which grounding claims may be expressed, proposed a system of axioms which capture the relevant formal features, and offered a semantics which interprets the language. Unfortunately, the semantics Fine offers faces a number of (...) problems. In this paper, I review the problems and offer an alternative that avoids them. I offer a semantics for the pure logic of ground that is motivated by ideas already present in the grounding literature, and for which a natural axiomatization capturing central formal features of grounding is sound and complete. I also show how the semantics I offer avoids the problems faced by Fine’s semantics. (shrink)

Though the study of grounding is still in the early stages, Kit Fine, in ”The Pure Logic of Ground”, has made a seminal attempt at formalization. Formalization of this sort is supposed to bring clarity and precision to our theorizing, as it has to the study of other metaphysically important phenomena, like modality and vagueness. Unfortunately, as I will argue, Fine ties the formal treatment of grounding to the obscure notion of a weak ground. The obscurity of weak ground, together (...) with its centrality in Fine’s system, threatens to undermine the extent to which this formalization offers clarity and precision. In this paper, I show how to overcome this problem. I describe a system, the logic of strict ground (LSG) and demonstrate its adequacy; I specify a translation scheme for interpreting Fine’s weak grounding claims; I show that the interpretation verifies all of the principles of Fine’s system; and I show that derivability in Fine’s system can be exactly characterized in terms of derivability in LSG. I conclude that Fine’s system is reducible to LSG. (shrink)

At a time when bioethical issues are at the top of public and political agendas, there is a renewed interest in representations of the embryo in various religious traditions. One of the major traditions that have contributed to Western representations of the embryo is the Jewish tradition. This tradition poses some difficulties that may deter scholars, but also presents some invaluable advantages. These derive from two components, the search for limits and narrativity, both of which are directly connected with the (...) manner in which Jewish tradition was constructed in Antiquity. The article accomplishes three goals: • To introduce some central elements in ancient Rabbinic literature on the subject of the embryo and its representation; • To present this body of literature as clearly as possible, noting some of the difficulties encountered by scholars who engage in its study; • To explain how the literature’s textuality came about, examining the particular sociopolitical circumstances of Judaism at that time, including the reasons for the delay in the production of scientific texts, transmitted as such, as compared to other philosophical or religious traditions. The claim is that these circumstances engendered a tradition peculiarly relevant for the study and teaching of medical ethics today. (shrink)

This paper seeks to clarity the extent to which we can legitimately apply evolutionary explanation to the realm of moral and social behavior. It evaluates two perspectives, one dealing with purely philosophical arguments, and the other with arguments from within the Catholic tradition. The challenges faced by evolutionary ethics discernible from the secular perspective turn out to be practically the same as those discernible from the religious perspective. Whether we discuss the issues in terms of intentional states or in terms (...) of freedom of human beings created in the image of God, the result seems to be the same: evolutionary explanation turns out to be useful to some extent but not across the board. It leaves out the distinctively moral aspect of individual and social behavior. (shrink)

In "Analyticity and Ontology," I argued that there are counterexamples to the claim that the sentences analytically entailed by a claim $\phi$ require nothing more of the world for their truth than does $\phi$. The counterexamples involve sentences which, I argued, are analytically entailed by certain truths, but which nevertheless require more of the world for their truth. John Horden has offered two interesting criticisms of this argument. First, he contends that its conclusion is inconsistent. Second, he contends that the (...) argument faces a dilemma, depending on which of two hypotheses about the meanings of the sentences involved in the counterexamples turns out to be true. Here I reply to Horden's criticisms and briefly indicate what I take their lesson to be. (shrink)

-/- Les agents artificiels et les nouvelles technologies de l’information, de par leur capacité à établir de nouvelles dynamiques de transfert d’information, ont des effets perturbateurs sur les écosystèmes épistémiques. Se représenter la responsabilité pour ces chambardements représente un défi considérable : comment ce concept peut-il rendre compte de son objet dans des systèmes complexes dans lesquels il est difficile de rattacher l’action à un agent ou à une agente ? Cet article présente un aperçu du concept d’écosystème épistémique et (...) de la force de changement que représentent les nouvelles technologies pour celui-ci, puis illustre les difficultés rencontrées avec la notion classique de responsabilité dans les écosystèmes épistémiques. -/- Artificial agents and new information technologies, through their capacity to foster new information dynamics, have disruptive effects on epistemic ecosystems. Making sense of responsibility for these changes represent a challenge: the notion of responsibility struggles in complex systems, where actions are often hard to connect to an agent. This paper presents an overview of the concept of epistemic ecosystem and of the potential for disruption in new technologies, and then illustrates the difficulties with the classical notion of responsibility in such cases. (shrink)

A standard view of reference holds that a speaker's use of a name refers to a certain thing in virtue of the speaker's associating a condition with that use that singles the referent out. This view has been criticized by Saul Kripke as empirically inadequate. Recently, however, it has been argued that a version of the standard view, a /response-based theory of reference/, survives the charge of empirical inadequacy by allowing that associated conditions may be largely or even entirely implicit. (...) This paper argues that response-based theories of reference are prey to a variant of the empirical inadequacy objection, because they are ill-suited to accommodate the successful use of proper names by pre-school children. Further, I argue that there is reason to believe that normal adults are, by and large, no different from children with respect to how the referents of their names are determined. I conclude that speakers typically refer /positionally/: the referent of a use of a proper name is typically determined by aspects of the speaker's position, rather than by associated conditions present, however implicitly, in her psychology. (shrink)

The primary aim of this discussion is to present a detailed case study of Descartes’ use of émotion in Les passions de l’ame and in his early writings leading up to that work. A secondary aim is to argue that while Descartes was innovative in suggesting that émotion might be a better keyword for the affective sciences than passion, he did not consistently follow his own advice. His innovation therefore failed in that regard, even though it did inspire later thinkers (...) to explore the distinction between “passion” and “emotion” in their own manner. (shrink)

The clash between Galileo and the Catholic Inquisition has been discussed, studied, and written about for many decades. The scientific, theological, political, and social implications have all been carefully analysed and appreciated in all their interpretative fruitfulness. The relatively recent trend in this kind of scholarship however seems to have underestimated the fact that Galileo in this debate, as in his earlier debates, showed a particular style marked by overconfidence. If we keep in mind the Lakatosian account of scientific development, (...) it is of course perfectly understandable that scientists at times stick to their convictions by producing auxiliary hypotheses as buffers against contrary evidence. And elements of this are detectable in the arguments of both Galileo and his opponents. But one still needs to ask: To what extent did Galileo depend on auxiliary hypotheses? How insecure did they render his position? And how ad hoc were they? These are important questions because Galileo’s particular way of dealing with auxiliary hypotheses can throw light on the broader question of when and how auxiliary hypotheses are needed within scientific practice in general. It can even indicate some way of conceiving degrees of ad hocness. In this paper, I explore this issue by comparing two important debates in which Galileo was involved: one about the nature of water and buoyancy, the other about cosmology. I revisit not only the scientific content of these debates but also the cultural context in which they took place, especially their dependence on patronage and their theological repercussions. The results indicate that scholarship on Galileo can still be useful in clarifying currently relevant aspects of scientific practice, and is thus still far from its expiry date. (shrink)

It is often assumed that the suppression of the Jesuits in 1773 meant an abrupt dissipation of Jesuit intellectual culture and science. Recent interest in this period, however, indicates that Jesuit theologians, philosophers, and scientists constituted a heterogenous group and that the suppression affected them in various ways. This paper builds on this research and deals with the following question. What can a micro-historical approach, focusing on individuals rather than on general cultural trends, reveal about the effects of the suppression? (...) The paper focuses on five Jesuit scientists who lived through the suppression and who represent different lines, or forms, of philosophical and empirical inquiry. After this first section, the argument shifts to more general considerations, referring to some counterfactual situations, in view of evaluating the cultural and scientific cost of the suppression. (shrink)

To describe computers and sophisticated robots, many people today have no problem using personal attributes. Alan Turing published his famous intelligence test in 1950. From that time onwards, computers have gained increasingly higher status in this regard. Computers and robots nowadays are not only intelligent. They perceive, they remember, they understand, they decide, they play and so on. Recently, another such step has occurred but, this time, many researchers are seriously concerned. In February 2017, the European Parliament passed a Resolution (...) to attribute legal personhood to intelligent robots. If this is accepted as law, it will have very serious consequences for our self-understanding and for the way we live together as a community. The EU Resolution has stimulated various studies, arising mainly from the area of legal studies. It is urgent that the response include also a philosophical evaluation regarding the fundamental concepts at play. This paper seeks to make a contribution precisely in this area. It explores the attribution of legal personhood to machines by focusing on what is happening at the level of meaning. It explores crucial concepts like responsibility, autonomy, person and quasi-person by drawing inspiration from the seminal works of Aristotle and L. Wittgenstein and from the ensuing debates between current philosophers like P. Hacker and D. Dennett. The results of this paper indicate what dangers could lie ahead and what could be the right way to avoid them. (shrink)

Any ethical inquiry into addiction research is faced with the preliminary challenge that the term “addiction” is itself a matter of scientific and ethical controversy. Accordingly, the chapter begins with a brief history of the term “addiction.” The chapter then turns to ethical issues surrounding consent and decision-making capacity viewed from the perspective of the current opioid epidemic. One concern is the neglect of the cyclical nature of addiction and the implications of this for the validity of current psychometric instruments (...) used to evaluate decision-making capacity in addiction. Another is the apparent discrepancy—possibly an ethical double standard—in the manner in which society and addiction researchers view the mental capacity and vulnerability of individuals who suffer from severe addiction. On the whole, the main ethical concern of the chapter is the puzzling lack of clinical research on decision-making capacity in research on addiction. (shrink)

La plupart des auteur-es ayant abordé le problème de l'extension du cognitif, tel qu'il a émergé des débats autour de la thèse de l'esprit étendu, ont supposé que cette extension devait prendre la forme d'un espace régulier, qui peut être ceint par des frontières. Cependant, la littérature en question ne traite pas explicitement de cette supposition, de sorte que, malgré son influence, il n'y a pas d'évaluation de sa véracité ou de sa légitimité. Dans ce mémoire, cette hypothèse est remise (...) en question, et nous prenons sa contrepartie pour hypothèse de recherche, à savoir que, malgré l'assurance des auteur-es qui l'épousent, il est tout à fait légitime d'explorer des propositions de caractérisation du cognitif qui aboutissent à d'autres formes d'extension. Pour démontrer notre hypothèse (H1), nous posons deux autres hypothèses : (H2) les auteur-es qui épousent la supposition selon laquelle l'esprit doit s'étendre sur un espace ceint par des frontières le font sur la base de l'intuition individualiste, et (H3) l'intuition individualiste, malgré certaines apparences, ne permet pas de justifier cette supposition. Nous démontrons H2 à l'aide d'une analyse de texte faite sur le corpus des auteur-es ayant abordé la question de l'extension du cognitif dans la foulée des débats sur l'esprit étendu, et nous montrons que la littérature en sciences cognitives et en philosophie de l'esprit nous donne des raisons de croire que H3 est vraie. Ensemble, H2 et H3 justifient H1. (shrink)

These last decades, the many contributions to the literary output on science and religion have dealt with topics that are on the cutting edge of scientific discovery, topics mainly in the area of theoretical physics, cognitive science, and evolutionary biology. Philosophers of religion, responding to this trend, have therefore struggled with intricate arguments, and have often made use of the highly technical language of these sciences. The overall result was that truly original philosophical contributions, ones that present new perspectives regarding (...) this area, have been very rare. Of these few new research programs, one seems to be particularly promising, especially because of the way it has been throwing new light on how science relates to other disciplines. The originality of this research-area lies in the fact that it refers not to particular scientific discoveries, considered individually, but to the general dynamics of the practical side of science. The crucial concept is expertise, which involves the appeal to authority for the justification of arguments. Many people like to think that scientific knowledge is far from all this, that it is purely objective and that it floats way above the murky waters of subjectivism. Those who are directly involved in scientific practice however know that science is not so clean. Appeal to authority remains very much part of the natural sciences, whether we like it or not. Some philosophers have recently ventured into these somewhat dark caverns of scientific thought and practice, and the result of their work has become very significant. In this paper, I will first offer a brief overview of this philosophical work, and then explore how the new insights regarding scientific expertise and scientific appeal to authority can throw light not only on how science works but also on the issue of authoritative knowhow within the Church. To avoid getting lost within the dim world of abstract principles, I will focus on one particular concrete case, the one of Vatican astronomers. This is a particularly interesting case because this group’s complex role lies precisely at the intersection between theological and scientific expertise. (shrink)

Among the most remarkable developments in metaphysics since the 1950’s is the explosion of philosophical interest in possible worlds. This paper proposes an explanation of what possible worlds are, and argues that this proposal, the interpreted models conception, should be attractive to anyone who thinks that modal facts are primitive, and so not to be explained in terms of some non-modal notion of “possible world.” I articulate three constraints on any acceptable primitivist explanation of the nature of possible worlds, and (...) show that the interpreted models conception meets the three constraints. (shrink)

After elucidating the nature of ordinary linguistic behaviour and its ontological implications, the paper critically examines some trends in the philosophy of mind that use the expression folk-psychology. The main argument shows that, when eliminativists hold that everyday discourse dealing with describing and predicting each other’s behaviour is an empirical theory, they are forcing their object of study into an exclusively mechanistic mould, and thus seriously distorting it. The meaning of everyday utter¬ances is not to be sought towards the physical (...) centre of the human individual, the brain, but towards the centre of human practice. Seeking the source of our meaning within the mechanism of the brain is to work in the wrong direction. (shrink)

This paper explores some ways how perceptual-cognitive accounts of anorexia can benefit from philosophy. The first section focuses on the three dimensions of anorexia most open to a contribution from philosophy: the dimensions of language, perception and cognition. In the second section, I offer a brief overview of what philosophy has to say regarding these dimensions, especially as they relate to two crucial issues: introspection and meaning. I draw from current philosophy of language, especially from the arguments against using internal (...) perception as a model for the way we express our own bodily states. I draw also from current philosophy of interpretation, especially from debates concerning the criteria for handling dialogical misunderstanding. I use these insights to expose some dangers in assuming and working with oversimplified accounts of introspection and meaning. I then suggest refined and updated accounts and examine their applicability and usefulness in the diagnosis and treatment of anorexia. (shrink)

Both science and theology involve philosophy. They both involve reasoned argument, evaluation of possible explanations, clarification of concepts, ways of interpreting experience, understanding the present significance of what has gone before us, and other such eminently philosophical tasks. They both involve philosophy, especially when they enter into dialogue with each other. In fact, they involve philosophical thinking even when they may not be aware of it. In this paper I will explore a specific area of philosophy that is particularly important (...) as a bridge between theology and science. I am referring to the area of meaning. Questions regarding meaning are fundamental because whatever is said about the nature of life, by scientists, by theologians, or by anyone else, must be expressed in meaningful words. Meaning is like the ground we walk on. It constitutes what we need to proceed with our activity. Without solid ground under our feet, we cannot go anywhere. (shrink)

This paper critically examines three positions in the area of the evolutionary psychology of religion: the one according to which religion is completely beyond the reach of any evolutionary explanation, the one according to which religion is adaptive in the evolutionary sense, and the one according to which religion is mal-adaptive, in the sense that it confers no survival advantages but rather disadvantages. The result of the critical evaluation of these positions indicates that the embodied rationality of Homo sapiens renders (...) evolutionary explanations applicable and important but only to some extent. Genuine religious belief involves a dimension that is material, and therefore evolutionarily explainable, and a dimension that is not, namely the believer’s act of deliberately accepting or not accepting what he or she is naturally inclined to believe. (shrink)

Introduction au Numéro spécial de la Revue Philosophique de Louvain.

Some metaphysicians believe that existence debates are easily resolved by trivial inferences from Moorean premises. This paper considers how the introduction of negative Moorean facts—negative existentials that command Moorean certainty—complicates this picture. In particular, it shows how such facts, when combined with certain plausible metaontological principles, generate a puzzle that commits the proponents of this method to a contradiction.

An introduction to the special issue of the Journal “Forum Philosophicum” that contains nine studies dealing with a cluster of metaphysical questions of cross-cultural importance: H. Watzka, “A new realistic spirit: the analytical and the existential approaches to ontology”; P. Gilbert, “Voilà pourquoi je ne suis pas ‘ontologue’; P. Favraux, “La pertinence de l’ontologie pour la théologie”; E. Charmetant, "Naturalisme contemporain et ontologie humaine : vers un essentialisme différent"; J. Bremer, "Aristotle on touch”; T. Walsh, "Bonum est causa mali: a (...) problem and an opportunity for metaphysics in the thought of Thomas Aquinas and Hegel”; A. J. Carroll, “Disenchantment, rationality and the modernity of Max Weber”; G. Karuvelil, “Religious experience: reframing the question”; L. Caruana “Universal claims”. (shrink)

Louis Pojman and Robert Westmoreland have compiled the best material on the subject of equality, ranging from classical works by Aristotle, Hobbes and Rousseau to contemporary works by John Rawls, Thomas Nagel, Michael Walzer, Harry Frankfurt, Bernard Williams and Robert Nozick; and including such topics as: the concept of equality; equal opportunity; Welfare egalitarianism; resources; equal human rights and complex equality.

Many commentators have analyzed the Papal Encyclical on the care of the environment entitled “Laudato Si’” from various angles but relatively few have written on the philosophical presuppositions that inform the overall stance of the encyclical. It is becoming increasingly evident that, to appreciate the full impact of this work, we need to uncover its ontological and epistemological commitments. This paper makes a contribution in this neglected area by focusing on the nature of life. Two main points are explored: the (...) way all lifeforms depend on other lifeforms, implying that the biosphere often functions like one single unit of life, and the issue of the intrinsic value of each living thing. By situating the encyclical’s arguments within the history of ideas on the nature of life, the environment, and ecology, this research helps to better appreciate the originality of this document. (shrink)

A major source of latter-day skepticism about necessity is the work of David Hume. Hume is widely taken to have endorsed the Humean claim: there are no necessary connections between distinct existences. The Humean claim is defended on the grounds that necessary connections between wholly distinct things would be mysterious and inexplicable. Philosophers deploy this claim in the service of a wide variety of philosophical projects. But Saul Kripke has argued that it is false. According to Kripke, there are necessary (...) connections between distinct existences; in particular, there are necessary connections between material objects and their material origins. In this paper I argue that the primary motivation for the Humean claim, Hume's datum, also motivates the key premise in an argument for the necessity of origins. The very considerations that the Humean takes to show that necessary connections between wholly distinct things would be mysterious and inexplicable indicate that there must be some such necessary connections. Thus, in the absence of alternative support, there is no reason to believe the Humean claim. (shrink)

Abstract A unique aspect of human communication is the utilization of sets of well- delineated entities, the morphology of which is used to encode the letters of the alphabet. In this paper, we focus on Braille as an exemplar of this phenomenon. We take a Braille cell to be a physical artifact of the human environment, into the structure of which is encoded a representation of a letter of the alphabet. The specific issue we address in this paper concerns an (...) examination of how the code that is embedded in the structure of a Braille cell is transferred with fidelity from the environment through the body and into the Braille reader’s brain. We describe four distinct encoding steps that enable this transfer to occur. (shrink)

One of the aims of the encyclical "Laudato Si’" is to help us “marvel at the manifold connections existing among creatures”, to show how we are also involved, and to motivate us thereby to care for our common home. Are there new dimensions of beauty available to us today because of recent advances in biology? In this paper I seek to answer this question by first recalling the basic criteria for beauty, as expressed by Aristotle and Aquinas, and then evaluating (...) their applicability as regards three ways in which some prominent twentieth century philosophers of biology have sought to overcome the limitations of reductionism. The overall argument refers especially to the works of Jakob von Uexküll and Georges Canguilhem. The results indicate that harmony, proportion, and integrity in the natural order should be more evident than ever before, especially as regards the way the organism and its environment codetermine each other. This insight allows a deeper appreciation of the message of "Laudato Si’". (shrink)