English translation of an entry on pages 137–42 of the Spanish-language dictionary of logic: Luis Vega, Ed. Compendio de Lógica, Argumentación, y Retórica. Madrid: Trotta. -/- DEDICATION: To my friend and collaborator Kevin Tracy. -/- This short essay—containing careful definitions of ‘counterargument’ and ‘counterexample’—is not an easy read but it is one you’ll be glad you struggled through. It contains some carefully chosen examples suitable for classroom discussion. -/- Using the word ‘counterexample’ instead of ‘counterargument’ in connection with (...) Aristotle’s invalidity proofs leads to a misinterpretation of Aristotle’s intentions. The two relations expressed by these two words are drastically different—as explained in this essay. There is however a subtle overlap: Every argument that is a counterargument for a given argument is a counterexample to the universal proposition that every argument in the same form as the given argument is valid. The word ‘counterexample’ was coined in the 1800s. The word ‘counterargument’ was given this sense in the 1960s. Saying that one argument is a counterexample for another argument is bad English—taking the word ‘counterexample’ in its Standard English sense. The word ‘counterinstance’ is an exact synonym for ‘counterexample’. Which logic books define ‘counterinstance’ or ‘counterexample’? Who started using ‘counterinstance’ or ‘counterexample’ in the sense of ‘counterargument’? Did they note that they were not using the word in the Standard sense? Why did it catch on? -/- Also see: https://www.academia.edu/8840909/Argumentations_and_logic_1989_ . (shrink)

This chapter aims to examine the configuration of the sharing economy in the United Kingdom. The chapter provides an examination of the key opportunities and challenges that this socio-economic model generates in the country. It includes an account of different sharing economy initiatives in the United Kingdom, including crowdfunding projects, tool libraries, timesharing banks, men’s sheds, and shared workspaces, commercial sharing economy services, micro-libraries, community-gardening projects, and paid online peer-to-peer accommodation. Increased consumer choice and economic benefits derived from an extended (...) economy around the sharing economy are identified as key opportunities. Key challenges relate to policymaking and taxation of businesses and participants in the sharing economy, as well as the wider enforcement of health and safety regulations and the impact that the recent pandemic is having on the industry. The chapter also provides an examination of the latest developments and regulations in this area. In addition, the chapter identifies the most pressing issues and possible future directions of research in this context. (shrink)

El debate que se gestó alrededor del concepto de existencia en manos de Willard Van Orman Quine y Rudolf Carnap, dio al siglo XX un cúmulo de aportes significativos a la ontología. La postura realista, con algunas variantes, de Quine y el criterio anti-realista de Carnap, otorga insumos para pensar de mejor forma cómo se intenta dar descripciones acerca del inmobiliario del mundo. Conocer este debate es importante, ya que, se expone los alcances y limitaciones que implican las explicaciones ontológicas (...) acerca de la realidad que deben ser tenidas en cuenta en la actualidad. Este trabajo cumple esa función, la de explicar sintéticamente uno de los debates más importantes para la ontología. (shrink)

This paper introduces the Theory of Spatial Materialization of Quantum Possibilities in an Infinite Space, proposing a novel perspective on the realization of quantum probabilities. Traditional interpretations of quantum mechanics, such as the Copenhagen interpretation and the Many-Worlds hypothesis, approach quantum probabilities as either collapsing into a single observable state or manifesting across parallel universes. This theory suggests an alternative: in an infinite space, quantum possibilities materialize simultaneously in distinct spatial regions, without requiring collapse or parallel universes. Building on principles (...) of infinite space and inevitable probabilities, the theory reinterprets phenomena such as superposition and cosmological configurations, offering a unified framework for understanding how quantum possibilities are distributed in space. The implications extend to questions of causality, time, and the nature of observable reality, while challenging traditional assumptions in quantum mechanics. Although speculative, this approach provides fertile ground for interdisciplinary exploration, bridging cosmology, philosophy of science, and quantum mechanics. (shrink)

El texto aborda cómo la interacción entre tecnología y sociedad, sobre todo desde el contexto del determinismo tecnológico, ha configurado el entorno humano desde la prehistoria hasta la contemporaneidad. La tecnología no es solo una herramienta, sino un agente activo que afecta y reconfigura las dinámicas sociales, además de estar influenciada por valores y decisiones humanas. En este sentido, se subraya la necesidad de una ética tecnológica que garantice que los avances sirvan al bienestar humano y promuevan la justicia social. (...) Esta ética aplicada, que emergió como respuesta a los impactos negativos de los avances tecnológicos, explora dimensiones complejas y multifacéticas de decisiones morales influenciadas por la racionalidad humana. Además, se enfatiza la responsabilidad compartida de ingenieros, sectores industriales y sociedad para guiar la tecnología hacia un futuro sostenible, promoviendo una relación armoniosa entre los valores humanos y el desarrollo tecnológico. (shrink)

Deontological evidentialism is the claim that we ought to form and maintain our beliefs in accordance with our evidence. In this paper, I criticize two arguments in its defense. I begin by discussing Berit Broogard’s use of the distinction between narrow-scope and wide-scope requirements against W.K. Clifford’s moral defense of. I then use this very distinction against a defense of inspired by Stephen Grimm’s more recent claims about the moral source of epistemic normativity. I use this distinction once again to (...) argue that Hilary Kornblith’s criticism of Richard Feldman’s defense of is incomplete. Finally, I argue that Feldman’s defense is insensitive to the relation between normative requirements and privileged values: values that have normative authority over us. (shrink)

Paul Silva has recently argued that doxastic justification does not have a basing requirement. An important part of his argument depends on the assumption that doxastic and moral permissibility have a parallel structure. I here reply to Silva's argument by challenging this assumption. I claim that moral permissibility is an agential notion, while doxastic permissibility is not. I then briefly explore the nature of these notions and briefly consider their implications for praise and blame.

Ontologies are some of the most central constructs in today's large plethora of knowledge technologies, namely in the context of the semantic web. As their coinage indicates, they are direct heirs to the ontological investigations in the long Western philosophical tradition, but it is not easy to make bridges between them. Contemporary ontological commitments often take causality as a central aspect for the ur-segregation of entities, especially in scientific upper ontologies; theories of causality and philosophical ontological investigations often go hand-in-hand, (...) and were essentially inseparable in medieval thought. This constitutes the foundation for a bridge, and this article analyzes the causality-based ontology of the late medieval philosopher Dietrich of Freiberg from the viewpoint of today's upper-ontology engineering. In this bridging attempt, it offers a translation into English of the first part of Dietrich's De origine (abbreviated title) that is a compromise between traditional scholarly translations of medieval Latin philosophical texts and contemporary ontology. (shrink)

Foundational ontologies, central constructs in ontological investigations and engineering alike, are based on ontological categories. Firstly proposed by Aristotle as the very ur- elements from which the whole of reality can be derived, they are not easy to identify, let alone partition and/or hierarchize; in particular, the question of their number poses serious challenges. The late medieval philosopher Dietrich of Freiberg wrote around 1286 a tutorial that can help us today with this exceedingly difficult task. In this paper, I discuss (...) ontological categories and their importance for foundational ontologies from both the contemporary perspective and the original Aristotelian viewpoint, I provide the translation from the Latin into English of Dietrich's De origine II with an introductory elaboration, and I extract a foundational ontology–that is in fact a single-category one–from this text rooted in Dietrich's specification of types of subjecthood and his conception of intentionality as causal operation. (shrink)

Deontological evidentialism is the claim that S ought to form or maintain S’s beliefs in accordance with S’s evidence. A promising argument for this view turns on the premise that consideration c is a normative reason for S to form or maintain a belief that p only if c is evidence that p is true. In this paper, I discuss the surprising relation between a recently influential argument for this key premise and the principle that ought implies can. I argue (...) that anyone who antecedently accepts or rejects this principle already has a reason to resist either this argument’s premises or its role in support of deontological evidentialism. (shrink)

For millennia, knowledge has eluded a precise definition. The industrialization of knowledge (IoK) and the associated proliferation of the so-called knowledge communities in the last few decades caused this state of affairs to deteriorate, namely by creating a trio composed of data, knowledge, and information (DIK) that is not unlike the aporia of the trinity in philosophy. This calls for a general theory of knowledge (ToK) that can work as a foundation for a science of knowledge (SoK) and additionally distinguishes (...) knowledge from both data and information. In this paper, I attempt to sketch this generality via the establishing of both knowledge structures and knowledge systems that can then be adopted/adapted by the diverse communities for the respective knowledge technologies and practices. This is achieved by means of a formal–indeed, mathematical–approach to epistemological matters a.k.a. formal epistemology. The corresponding application focus is on knowledge systems implementable as computer programs. (shrink)

Are philosophy and literature allies or enemies in Jorge Luis Borges's fictions? In this paper, I argue that Borges can satisfy membership in the allies camp because his fictions provide the imaginative scenarios the allies believe are so necessary to this coalition; however, because his stories question philosophy's hold on reality, they can also seem to fall into the enemies camp by countervailing any claim philosophy has on reality and truth; although, ultimately, the manner in which Borges forges an (...) alliance between philosophy and literature will be for reasons not traditionally accepted by those in either the allies or enemies camps. (shrink)

Etnomatematika merupakan konsep matematika yang terdapat didalam suatu budaya. kehadiran matematika yang bernuansa budaya akan memberikan kontribusi yang besar terhadap pembelajaran matematika. Penelitian ini bertujuan untuk menentukan bagaimana model pembelajaran etnomatematika dalam menumbuhkan motivasi belajar siswa di sekolah dasar. Jenis penelitian deskriptif kualitatif digunakan dalam penelitian ini. Metode penelitian yang meliputi kepada mengamati bersama menemukan jawaban atas masalah secara metode dan analisis. Penelitian ini dilakukan pada bulan Februari 2023 selama semester genap. Dengan cara mengumpulkan data meliputi wawancara kepada guru kelas (...) lV dan siswa kelas lV di SD Lematang Lestari. Hasil penelitian menunjukkan bahwa Jembatan Ampera dan Kain Songket pada Kota Palembang Provinsi Sumatera Selatan memiliki etnomatematika yang berkaitan dengan konsep-konsep matematika diantaranya macam-macam garis dan bangun datar. Membuat pembalajaran matematika lebih menarik dan menyenangkan serta menumbuhkan motivasi belajar siswa sesuai dengan wawancara yang dilakukan oleh guru kelas lV dan siswa kelas lV Sekolah Dasar Lematang Lestari. (shrink)

The gulf between philosophical and formal ontology can and should be bridged. In this Editorial, I elaborate briefly on this subject.

Logic arguably plays a role in the normativity of reasoning. In particular, there are plausible norms of belief/disbelief whose antecedents are constituted by claims about what follows from what. But is logic also relevant to the normativity of agnostic attitudes? The question here is whether logical entailment also puts constraints on what kinds of things one can suspend judgment about. In this paper I address that question and I give a positive answer to it. In particular, I advance two logical (...) norms of agnosticism, where the first one allows us to assess situations in which the subject is agnostic about the conclusion of a valid argument and the second one allows us to assess situations in which the subject is agnostic about one of the premises of a valid argument. (shrink)

To most of us – believers and non-believers alike – the possibility of a perfect God co-existing with the kinds of evil that we see calls out for explanation. It is unsurprising, therefore, that the belief that God must have justifying reasons for allowing all the evil that we see has been a perennial feature of theistic thought. Recently, however, a growing number of authors have argued that the existence of a perfect God is compatible with the existence of gratuitous (...) evil. Given powerful, millenia-long sensibilities about power and love and justice, it isn’t hard to find that suggestion simply incredible. Nonetheless, in this paper I will argue that the most prominent theistic alternatives to what has seemed incredible to most of us throughout most of history are themselves patently unacceptable for the theist as well. On any of the most widely accepted accounts of how God could have justifying reasons for permitting some evils, God’s existence means that we have justifying reasons for perpetrating and allowing every evil that we see. That's hard to swallow too. If I’m right about all of this, then two competing outcomes seem to present themselves as a possible result. On the one hand, for the theist, the apparently outrageous suggestion that the existence of a perfect God is compatible with gratuitous evil no longer looks like it faces a formidable, hard-to-resist alternative. On the other hand, some like me might think that my arguments go no distance at all towards dispelling the incredibility of the gratuitous evil nouvelle vague. On this line, theism may seem now to be between the rock and the hard place: it seems hard to make sense of the existence of a perfect God whether or not He has justifying reasons for allowing all the evil that we see. (shrink)

Given plausible assumptions about the nature of evidence and undercutting defeat, many believe that the force of the evidential problem of evil depends on sceptical theism’s being false: if evil is...

3rd ed, 2021. A circumscription of the classical theory of computation building up from the Chomsky hierarchy. With the usual topics in formal language and automata theory.

In this paper I present reasons for us to accept the hypothesis that suspended judgment has correctness conditions, just like beliefs do. Roughly put, the idea is that suspended judgment about p is correct when both p and ¬p might be true in view of certain facts that characterize the subject’s situation. The reasons to accept that hypothesis are broadly theoretical ones: it adds unifying power to our epistemological theories, it delivers good and conservative consequences, and it allows us to (...) assess processes of reasoning involving attitudes of suspended judgment. (shrink)

Not focusing on the history of classical logic, this book provides discussions and quotes central passages on its origins and development, namely from a philosophical perspective. Not being a book in mathematical logic, it takes formal logic from an essentially mathematical perspective. Biased towards a computational approach, with SAT and VAL as its backbone, this is an introduction to logic that covers essential aspects of the three branches of logic, to wit, philosophical, mathematical, and computational.

Choreographing Space is a reflection on the collaborative work of e+i studio, a New York City based architecture practice. Founders Eva Perez de Vega and Ian Gordon guide the reader through a dynamic selection of projects, each one opening us up to their relationship with the choreography of human and nonhuman forces at play. -/- Born as a retrospective and future-oriented book, it engages philosophical thought with architectural projects located in Europe, Asia, and the US, as well as speculative (...) scenarios that offer an alternative, less human-centric way of practicing architecture. -/- Organised into four parts, each part opens with a philosophical text that acts as an insightful prelude to the topics, questions and reflections posed by each project. Each part concludes with a speculative scenario, where one of the projects is imagined thriving in a future where life is now almost extinct. These are not intended as apocalyptic or even nostalgic scenarios, but rather as affirmative alternatives to the bleak imaginary arising from the world’s current climate crisis. (shrink)

In this paper, I offer two counterexamples to the so-called ‘Uniqueness Thesis.’ As one of these examples rely on the thesis that it is possible for a justified belief to be based on an inconsistent body of evidence, I also offer reasons for this further thesis. On the assumption that doxastic justification entails propositional justification, the counterexamples seem to work.

Why should we avoid incoherence? An influential view tells us that incoherent combinations of attitudes are such that it is impossible for all of those attitudes to be simultaneously vindicated by the evidence. But it is not clear whether this view successfully explains what is wrong with certain akratic doxastic states. In this paper I flesh out an alternative response to that question, one according to which the problem with incoherent combinations of attitudes is that it is impossible for all (...) of those attitudes to be simultaneously knowledgeable. This alternative response explains what is wrong with akratic combinations of attitudes using commonly accepted epistemological theses. The paper still shows how this proposal is able to explain the badness of incoherent combinations involving the absence of attitudes, suspended judgment and credence. These explanations deploy the notions of knowledge and being in a position to know, instead of the notion of responding properly to the evidence. Finally, I suggest that this picture can be generalized to the realm of practical rationality as well. (shrink)

Este artículo presenta una interpretación alternativa de la funcionalidad en el diseño de artefactos técnicos, integrando el concepto de teleología en el ámbito de la filosofía de la tecnología. A través de un análisis detallado y apoyándose en la literatura especializada, se examina cómo la teleología puede enriquecer la comprensión de la esencia de los artefactos técnicos. Las conclusiones proponen una fusión entre los dilemas de la filosofía de la tecnología y la metafísica, expandiendo el marco teórico que aborda la (...) teleología. El trabajo critica las teorías funcionales existentes y propone nuevas definiciones y características para los artefactos técnicos, aportando al debate sobre su funcionalidad y naturaleza. (shrink)

This book concerns the nature and the norms of inquiry. It tackles not only philosophical issues regarding what inquiry is, but also issues regarding how it should and should not be executed. Roughly put, inquiry is the activity of searching for the true answers to questions of our interest. But what is the difference between empirical and armchair inquiry? And what are the right and the wrong ways to inquire? Under what conditions should one start inquiring? Which questions are such (...) that one should not inquire into them? The book offers answers to these questions. It argues that competent armchair inquiry only makes explicit what was already implicit--the inquirer already had the answer to her question before inquiring into it, though this was not explicit to her. It also argues that we should avoid inquiring into questions whose answers are unknowable to us, in the instrumental sense of 'should', and that different modes of inquiry are called for, depending on which type of information is available to the subject. These answers are rigorously argued for, and they stem from a unified framework for modeling the activity of inquiry. (shrink)

Contemporary studies in unconscious cognition are essentially founded on dissociation, i.e., on how it dissociates with respect to conscious mental processes and representations. This is claimed to be in so many and diverse ways that one is often lost in dissociation. In order to reduce this state of confusion we here carry out two major tasks: based on the central distinction between cognitive processes and representations, we identify and isolate the main dissociation paradigms; we then critically analyze their key tenets (...) and reported findings. (shrink)

"Noé y la Rama de Olivo" de Luis Herrera explora el profundo simbolismo de la rama de olivo en el contexto de la moralidad humana y la renovación existencial. Basándose en la narrativa bíblica del Arca de Noé, Herrera desarrolla una metáfora sobre la paz, la reconciliación y la restauración de la armonía entre la humanidad y el mundo natural. La obra interpreta la rama de olivo no solo como un signo del fin del diluvio, sino como un emblema (...) más profundo de renacimiento ético, que simboliza la oportunidad para que la humanidad reconstruya un mundo más justo y compasivo tras la calamidad. -/- A través de un lente filosófico, Herrera examina la dualidad entre destrucción y creación, planteando que el potencial de crecimiento moral y espiritual surge tras grandes pruebas. El texto cuestiona la naturaleza de la justicia divina y la responsabilidad humana, sugiriendo un llamado a una vigilancia ética constante en un mundo perpetuamente al borde de la autodestrucción. Es una parábola sobre la búsqueda del hombre por la conexión y la reconciliación con lo divino, en un mundo violento lleno de caos, anarquía y la búsqueda antinómica de ideales hedonistas. -/- La obra de Herrera resuena con las preocupaciones contemporáneas sobre la degradación cultural y la fragmentación social, instando a una re-evaluación de nuestra relación con Dios y entre nosotros. La rama de olivo, en esta interpretación, se convierte en un símbolo eterno de esperanza, resiliencia y la búsqueda duradera de una existencia armoniosa. (shrink)

A. Newell and H. A. Simon were two of the most influential scientists in the emerging field of artificial intelligence (AI) in the late 1950s through to the early 1990s. This paper reviews their crucial contribution to this field, namely to symbolic AI. This contribution was constituted mostly by their quest for the implementation of general intelligence and (commonsense) knowledge in artificial thinking or reasoning artifacts, a project they shared with many other scientists but that in their case was theoretically (...) based on the idiosyncratic notions of symbol systems and the representational abilities they give rise to, in particular with respect to knowledge. While focusing on the period 1956-1982, this review cites both earlier and later literature and it attempts to make visible their potential relevance to today's greatest unifying AI challenge, to wit, the design of wholly autonomous artificial agents (a.k.a. robots) that are not only rational and ethical, but also self-conscious. (shrink)

Genera, typically hand-in-hand with their branching species, are essential elements of vocabulary-based information constructs, in particular scientific taxonomies. Should they also feature in formal ontologies, the highest of such constructs? I argue in this article that the answer is “Yes” and that the question posed in its title also has a Yes-answer: The way medieval ontologists sliced up the world into genera does matter to formal ontology. More specifically, the way Dietrich of Freiberg, a Latin scholastic, conceived and applied strictly (...) generic criteria to slice up the world into its entities can provide some guidelines to the field of formal ontology with respect to not only its contents, but also its scope. In particular, Dietrich's information criterion plays here a central role. (shrink)

Throughout the present text, an account of the main contributions of Luis Villoro Toranzo will be made as a tribute to three years after his death.

What I call the Doxastic Puzzle, is the impression that while each of these claims seems true, at least one of them must be false: (a) Claims of the form ‘S ought to have doxastic attitude D towards p at t’ are sometimes true at t, (b) If Φ-ing at t is not within S’s effective control at t, then it is false, at t, that ‘S ought to Φ at t’, (c) For all S, p, and t, having doxastic (...) attitude D towards p at t is not within S’s effective control at t. All three natural replies to the puzzle have been pursued. Some have claimed that doxastic attitudes like believing that p are, in fact, within our effective control, or sufficiently so. Others have claimed that doxastic ought-claims, strictly speaking, are always false. And some have denied that effective control is required for the adequacy of doxastic ought-claims in general. I here pursue and examine a different strategy. In the first part of this paper, I argue that these claims are not only each true but actually not in tension with each other in the first place. Instead of attempting to dispel the puzzle, this solution proposes to evade it instead: to solve it by properly understanding, and by thereby accepting without contradiction, all of its constitutive claims. In the second part of the paper, I argue that the evasive strategy forces us to re-think our understanding of the place of normative reasons in epistemology. More exactly, it seems to come at the cost of one central way of thinking about our reasons for having doxastic attitudes, one where such reasons are good-standing exemplars of normative reasons in general. The evasive strategy, that is, threatens to lead us very quickly to a deflationary picture of epistemic normativity: it rescues normative talk, but sacrifices normative substance. I conclude by explaining why I think this is more consequential than some have made it out to be, and by suggesting that these consequences are welcome nonetheless. (shrink)

Recent investigations surprisingly indicate that single RNA "stem-loops" operate solely by chemical laws that act without selective forces, and in contrast, self-ligated consortia of RNA stem-loops operate by biological selection. To understand consortial RNA selection, the concept of single quasi-species and its mutant spectra as drivers of RNA variation and evolution is rethought here. Instead, we evaluate the current RNA world scenario in which consortia of cooperating RNA stem-loops are the basic players. We thus redefine quasispecies as RNA quasispecies consortia (...) and argue that it has essential behavioral motifs that are relevant to the inherent variation, evolution and diversity in biology. We propose that qs-c is an especially innovative force. We apply qs-c thinking to RNA stem-loops and evaluate how it yields altered bulges and loops in the stem-loop regions, not as errors, but as a natural capability to generate diversity. This basic competence-not error-opens a variety of combinatorial possibilities which may alter and create new biological interactions, identities and newly emerged self identity functions. Thus RNA stem-loops typically operate as cooperative modules, like members of social groups. From such qs-c of stem-loop groups we can trace a variety of RNA secondary structures such as ribozymes, viroids, viruses, mobile genetic elements as abundant infection derived agents that provide the stem-loop societies of small and long non-coding RNAs. (shrink)

Let T be any logical truth. Does the subject know that T (any random subject)? It is not rational for any subject to believe that they don’t, whoever they are. Similarly, it is not rational for them to believe that their evidence doesn’t support T, and it is not even rational for them to believe that they don’t believe that T. It is not rational for anyone anywhere at any time to believe that they don’t know that T. Such are (...) the conclusions arrived at in this paper. (shrink)

A short story about love, suspense and criminal inclinations. Un relato literario sobre amor y proyecciones criminales.

An analysis of--yet another--case of academic failure in multi- and interdisciplinarity. An editorial of the Journal of Knowledge Structures & Systems.

2nd edition. Many-valued logics are those logics that have more than the two classical truth values, to wit, true and false; in fact, they can have from three to infinitely many truth values. This property, together with truth-functionality, provides a powerful formalism to reason in settings where classical logic—as well as other non-classical logics—is of no avail. Indeed, originally motivated by philosophical concerns, these logics soon proved relevant for a plethora of applications ranging from switching theory to cognitive modeling, and (...) they are today in more demand than ever, due to the realization that inconsistency and vagueness in knowledge bases and information processes are not only inevitable and acceptable, but also perhaps welcome. The main modern applications of (any) logic are to be found in the digital computer, and we thus require the practical knowledge how to computerize—which also means automate—decisions (i.e. reasoning) in many-valued logics. This, in turn, necessitates a mathematical foundation for these logics. This book provides both these mathematical foundation and practical knowledge in a rigorous, yet accessible, text, while at the same time situating these logics in the context of the satisfiability problem (SAT) and automated deduction. The main text is complemented with a large selection of exercises, a plus for the reader wishing to not only learn about, but also do something with, many-valued logics. (shrink)

The purpose of this paper is to examine the peculiarity of what Aristotle named practical wisdom or practical knowledge. Pivot to our analysis is the first thesis of the Nicomachean Ethics, where the philosopher appears to state a fallacy when he argues that, given that all actions aim at some good, good is that which every action aims to. We argue that the inference is non-fallacious because of the peculiarity of the practical domain, which manifests itself in the identity of (...) the good and the end. This identity is in the origin of what we would call, as an hypothesis, practical significance. (shrink)

This is not a guide for your writing process. You should write in whatever way expressing and making sense of your ideas feels most natural and most productive to you. This is a guide for organizing your ideas, after you have captured some of them in fits and starts of prose, into a particular kind of final product: the basic philosophy paper.

Architecture and human-built structures are embedded with speciesist practices of domination over the environment, where humans are considered special and superior to other species. This (hu)man exceptionalism has driven architecture and the built environment to be conceived in opposition to ‘nature’, dominating natural terrains and consequently displacing or instrumentalizing the many other species that are given little to no ethical consideration. This way of intervening in the world is leading to the existential questions that must be posed given our global (...) climate crisis. A reframing of human intervention as ‘built environment’ placed in opposition to the ‘natural environment’ of supposedly passive nature, is urgently needed. The motivation for this paper is rooted in a deep concern for the role of humans in the climate crisis and a realization that architecture as a discipline is complicit in elevating the human category above all other beings in nature. There are biases embedded in the practices and teaching of architecture that need to be interrogated and reflected upon, starting with the role models and ideals that we unwittingly operate within. To contextualize the idea of human exceptionalism in architecture, we will explore deep-seeded ideals in architecture linked to the concept of Rectitude as a form of ‘rightness’ -or correct- mode of intervening in the world, conceptualized by Western men as a human-centric practice distinct from nature-made. Supported by Ecofeminist thought, the aim is to open alternative models for world-building and housing humans on earth living in its sixth extinction. (shrink)

Viruses and related infectious genetic parasites are the most abundant biological agents on this planet. They invade all cellular organisms, are key agents in the generation of adaptive and innate immune systems, and drive nearly all regulatory processes within living cells.

On how medieval philosophy is not (only) theology.

Aesthetic subjectivism takes the truth of aesthetic judgments to be relative to the individual making that judgment. Despite widespread suspicion, however, this does not mean that one cannot be wrong about such judgments. Accordingly, this does not mean that one cannot gain higher-order evidence of error and fallibility that bears on the rationality of the aesthetic judgment in question. In this paper, we explain and explore these issues in some detail.

One of the few points of agreement between most theists and non-theists working on the problem of evil is that the existence of a perfect God is incompatible with the existence of pointless evil. In a series of influential papers, however, Peter van Inwagen has argued that careful attention to the reasoning behind this claim reveals fatal difficulties related to the Sorites Paradox. In this paper, I explain van Inwagen’s appeal to sorites reasoning, distinguish between two different arguments in his (...) work, and argue that they both commit the same so-far-unnoticed mistake. (shrink)

Deontological internalism is the family of views where justification is a positive deontological appraisal of someone's epistemic agency: S is justified, that is, when S is blameless, praiseworthy, or responsible in believing that p. Brian Weatherson discusses very briefly how a plausible principle of ampliative transmission reveals a worry for versions of deontological internalism formulated in terms of epistemic blame. Weatherson denies, however, that similar principles reveal similar worries for other versions. I disagree. In this article, I argue that plausible (...) principles of ampliative transmission reveal a worry for deontological internalism in general. (shrink)

This paper defends a novel account of how to determine the intrinsic value of possible worlds. Section 1 argues that a highly intuitive and widely accepted account leads to undesirable consequences. Section 2 takes the first of two steps towards a novel account by clarifying and defending a view about value-contribution that is based on some of W. D. Ross’ claims about the value of pleasure. Section 3 takes the second step by clarifying and defending a view about value-suppression that (...) is based on Ross’ claims about the interplay between prima-facie duties. Section 4 states and defends the account that I call Rossian Totalism. According to this account, the atoms of intrinsic value within a world only sometimes contribute their intrinsic value to the value of that world. (shrink)

Cornelius de Pauw was very well known in the last decades of the eighteenth century for his Recherches philosophiques sur les Américains. That work was developed on a naturalist hypothesis that asserted that nature conditioned all living beings. From this, he analyzed and compared American nature, including its animals and inhabitants, and concluded that it was degenerated and inferior in all fields to that of the Old World. This article contends with an author that represents a central link in the (...) eighteenth-century process of indigenous dehumanization. For doing this, the article first points out de Pauw’s context and influences. Second, it expounds his description of American nature and then, as the outcome of this, his characterization of the indigenous “natural” condition. After that, the article considers his reasoning regarding indigenous non-adaptation to Western way of life as a case of moral disengagement. Finally, the author reflects about the type of work de Pauw wrote and stresses his role in promoting the dehumanization and annihilation of the indigenous Americans. (shrink)

The van Wijngaarden grammars are two-level grammars that present many interesting properties. In the present article I elaborate on six of these properties, to wit, (i) their being constituted by two grammars, (ii) their ability to generate (possibly infinitely many) strict languages and their own metalanguage, (iii) their context-sensitivity, (iv) their high descriptive power, (v) their productivity, or the ability to generate an infinite number of production rules, and (vi) their equivalence with the unrestricted, or Type-0, Chomsky grammars.

A topos version of Cantor’s back and forth theorem is established and used to prove that the ordered structure of the rational numbers (Q, <) is homogeneous in any topos with natural numbers object. The notion of effective homogeneity is introduced, and it is shown that (Q, <) is a minimal effectively homogeneous structure, that is, it can be embedded in every other effectively homogeneous ordered structure.