This volume publishes the Proceedings of the 1st International Meeting "Thinking Baroque in Portugal" (26-28 June 2017), which dealt with the metaphysical, ethical and political thought of Francisco Suárez. Counting on the collaboration of some of the greatest international specialists in the work and thought of this famous professor of the University of Coimbra in the 17th century, this volume celebrates the 400th anniversary of his death and marks the productivity of his philosophical-theological legacy.

Deely's chief orientation, in his Medieval Philosophy field days, was to frame the field's thematic concern in light of the gestation of semiotic awareness. He argued that semiotic awareness was expressed fully for the first time in history by Poinsot, although he said that the process of gestation only resulted in a community-binding Way after the arrival of the Semiotics of Peirce. Between Poinsot and Peirce, a period of darkness preceded a full dawn. In this paper, we provide an introductory (...) picture of Deely's understanding of Medieval Philosophy and strive to convey a preview of the angle adopted by the semiotician. (shrink)

Jurado: Mario Gómez-Torrente (presidente), Miguel Ángel Fernández Vargas (vocal), Santiago Echeverri Saldarriaga (secretario). [Graduado con Mención Honorífica.].

Respuesta al comentario de Gustavo Caponi. “Ginnobili, Santiago. ‘El estatus fenomenológico de la teoría de la selección natural’”, Ideas y Valores LXII/152 (2013): 319-322.

This is a draft of my chapter on Negligence for the forthcoming Oxford Handbook in Moral Psychology. It discusses philosophical, psychological, and legal approaches to the attribution of culpability in cases of negligent wrongdoing.

What is it like to perceive a feared object? According to a popular neo-Gibsonian theory in psychology, fear biases our perceptions of objects so as to encourage particular kinds of actions: when we are afraid, spiders may be perceived as physically closer than they are in order to promote fleeing. Firestone mounted severe criticisms against this view, arguing that these cases are better explained by non-perceptual biases that operate on accurate perceptions of the external environment. In this paper I will (...) argue that fear might indeed distort our perceptions of the world, but not in the way neo-Gibsonians suppose. In the view I favor, perceptual distortions occur as by-products of fearful attention, a special mode of attention that is part of an orchestrated defensive response that prepares the organism to deal effectively with a threat. To argue for this view I will rely on empirical evidence that fearful attention narrows down the focus of attention and favors processing of local rather than global features of stimuli, which may jointly explain why perceptual distortions might occur in fearful object seeing. This view has consequences not only for empirical investigations in fearful perceptual distortions, but also for an explanation of the intentionality of fear and the phenomenal integration of bodily and intentional elements in fear episodes. (shrink)

Most human actions are complex, but some of them are basic. Which are these? In this paper, I address this question by invoking slips, a common kind of mistake. The proposal is this: an action is basic if and only if it is not possible to slip in performing it. The argument discusses some well-established results from the psychology of language production in the context of a philosophical theory of action. In the end, the proposed criterion is applied to discuss (...) some well-known theories of basic actions. (shrink)

Epistemological disjunctivism (ED) has been thought to solve the conditionality problem for epistemic externalism. This problem arises from externalists’ characterization of our epistemic standings as conditional on the obtaining of worldly facts which we lack any reflective access to. ED is meant to avoid the conditionality problem by explicating subjects’ perceptual knowledge in paradigmatic cases of perceptual knowledge via their possession of perceptual reasons that are both factive and reflectively accessible. I argue that ED’s account of reflectively accessible factive perceptual (...) reasons is also prey to the conditionality problem. After that, I submit that Stroud’s influential formulation of the conditionality problem relies on a methodological requirement that is potentially dissociable from ED. So, it is possible to put ED in the service of a more modest anti-skeptical strategy. I close by suggesting that this modest anti-skeptical strategy successfully undercuts the underdetermination-based skeptical paradox. Nevertheless, it does not have substantial advantages over some forms of epistemic externalism. (shrink)

RESUMEN: El tema de este trabajo es la reconstrucción de la teoría de la selección natural darwiniana. Me propongo esbozar la ley fundamental de esta teoría de manera informal a partir de sus aplicaciones en El origen de las especies de Darwin y presentar sus conceptos fundamentales. Presentaré la red teórica de leyes especiales que surgen de la especialización de esta ley fundamental. Supondré el estructuralismo como marco metateórico. Señalaré también algunas consecuencias que mi propuesta tiene sobre ciertas discusiones metateóricas (...) en torno a la teoría y, finalmente, relacionaré mi reconstrucción con otras reconstrucciones disponibles.ABSTRACT: This paper is about the reconstruction of the Darwinian Theory of Natural Selection. My aim here is to outline the fundamental law of this theory in an informal way from its applications in The Origin of Species and to make explicit its fundamental concepts. I will introduce the theory-nets of special laws that arisefrom the specialization of the fundamental law. I will assume the metatheoretical structuralist frame. I will also point out many consequences that my proposal has about a few metatheoretical discussions around the theory and, finally, I will relate my propose to other reconstructions available. (shrink)

Theories of emotional justification investigate the conditions under which emotions are epistemically justified or unjustified. I make three contributions to this research program. First, I show that we can generalize some familiar epistemological concepts and distinctions to emotional experiences. Second, I use these concepts and distinctions to display the limits of the ‘simple view’ of emotional justification. On this approach, the justification of emotions stems only from the contents of the mental states they are based on, also known as their (...) cognitive bases. The simple view faces the ‘gap problem’: If cognitive bases and emotions (re)present their objects and properties in different ways, then cognitive bases are not sufficient to justify emotions. Third, I offer a novel solution to the gap problem based on emotional dispositions. This solution (1) draws a line between the justification of basic and non-basic emotions, (2) preserves a broadly cognitivist view of emotions, (3) avoids a form of value skepticism that threatens inferentialist views of emotional justification, and (4) sheds new light on the structure of our epistemic access to evaluative properties. (shrink)

The initial problem which motivated the writing of this thesis arose from reading of Emile by Rousseau. In this work, it was possible to detect the influence of different theoretical approaches, such as rationalism and empiricism, inspiring the development of the educational plan designed by Rousseau for his imaginary student (Emile). The very core question of the present thesis regards to whether there was a theory of knowledge pertaining to Rousseau’s philosophical thinking and, if so, how it was related to (...) his theories of education. In the set of his oeuvre, Rousseau’s affiliation to authors like Descartes, Leibniz, Locke and Malebranche, as well as Condillac, Diderot, D’Holbach and Helvétius was discovered. As the reading of the great philosophical work of Rousseau progressed, an original knowledge theory was discovered, of the kind which accepts the coexistence of opposite thoughts. Pedagogy, in the context of (the work) Emile, arose out of the miscellany of such theories and also for the intense philosophical maturing process on the core of Rousseau’s thinking. This study intended, therefore, to understand the origin and development of Rousseau’s theory of knowledge, and also to figure out how the philosopher formulated his theories on Education, especially in Emile. The object of this research, materialized through the extensive bibliography of the Swiss philosopher, was intensively read and analyzed. The methodology used was that of comparative, descriptive and critical documentary research of the mentioned authors. This research is divided into three sections: the first one intends to investigate the philosophical influence from different authors on the foundations of Rousseau’s epistemology; the second section addresses Rousseau’s theories of Education; the third and final part investigates the link between theory of knowledge and Education within Rousseau’s philosophical thought. -/- . (shrink)

This paper introduces a body of research on Organizational Behavior and Industrial/organizational Psychology that expands the range of empirical evidence relevant to the ongoing character-situation debate. This body of research, mostly neglected by moral philosophers, provides important insights to move the debate forward. First, the OB/io scholarship provides empirical evidence to show that social environments like organizations have significant power to shape the character traits of their members. This scholarship also describes some of the mechanisms through which this process of (...) reshaping character takes place. Second, the character-situation debate has narrowly focused on situational influences that affect behavior episodically and haphazardly. The OB/io research, however, highlights the importance of distinguishing such situational influences from influences that, like organizational influences, shape our character traits because they are continuous and coordinated. Third, the OB/io literature suggests that most individuals display character traits that, while local to the organization, can be consistent across situations. This puts pressure on the accounts of character proposed by traditional virtue ethics and situationism and provides empirical support to interactionist models based on cognitive-affective processing system theories of personality. Finally, the OB/io literature raises important challenges to the possibility of achieving virtue, provides valuable and untapped resources to cultivate character, and suggests new avenues of normative and empirical research. (shrink)

In everyday life, we think of skepticism as the position of a stubborn person who has higher epistemic standards than others. Hence, the skeptic is someone who defends extravagant ideas. Some skeptics may deny that climate change is real, while others claim that the first moon landing did not take place. Contemporary philosophers think of skepticism in a different way. In their view, skepticism is the conclusion of a paradoxical argument about epistemic statuses like knowledge and reasons. A paradoxical argument (...) is a logically valid argument that, starting from seemingly plausible premises, reaches an absurd conclusion. We introduce two skeptical arguments. The regress argument purports to show that we lack reasons to believe any claim whatsoever because the search for those reasons inevitably leads to an infinite regress. The underdetermination argument seeks to prove that we lack reasons to believe that there are chairs, trees, other people, and so on; it supports that conclusion by citing skeptical hypotheses, including the idea that we might be dreaming (Descartes 1641) or the suggestion that we could be brains in a vat connected to a supercomputer that mimics the pattern of neural activity that would be produced if we were perceiving external objects (Putnam 1981). (shrink)

En On the Origin of Species Darwin distingue explícitamente entre tres tipos de selección: la selección natural, la artificial y la sexual. En este trabajo, a partir de un estudio más sistemático que historiográfico, se intenta encontrar la relación entre estos tres tipos de selección en la obra de Darwin. Si bien la distinción entre estos distintos mecanismos es de suma importancia en la obra de Darwin, la tesis de este trabajo es que tanto la selección artificial como la sexual (...) no son mecanismos distintos de la selección natural. Particularmente se sostiene que la selección artificial y la sexual son casos de la natural, y por esto sirven para su contrastación. (shrink)

This paper argues that habits, just like beliefs, can guide intentional action. To do this, a variety of real-life cases where a person acts habitually but contrary to her beliefs are discussed. The cases serve as dissociations showing that intentional agency is possible without doxastic guidance. The upshot is a model for thinking about the rationality of habitual action and the rationalizing role that habits can play in it. The model highlights the role that our history and institutions play in (...) shaping what actions become habitual for us. (shrink)

According to epistemological disjunctivism (ED), in paradigmatic cases of perceptual knowledge, a subject, S, has perceptual knowledge that p in virtue of being in possession of reasons for her belief that p which are both factive and reflectively accessible to S. It has been argued that ED is better placed than both knowledge internalism and knowledge externalism to undercut underdetermination-based skepticism. I identify several principles that must be true if ED is to be uniquely placed to attain this goal. After (...) that, I use those principles to formulate a diachronic skeptical argument. This argument yields the counterintuitive conclusion that understanding a global skeptical hypothesis is all it takes for a rational subject to lose all her perceptual knowledge of the world. Next, I show that a popular Austinian move must reject one or another of the principles that underlie ED. I close by delineating a novel strategy that can block the diachronic skeptical argument while preserving all the principles. The key idea is that perceptual knowledge is grounded in primitive, perceptual and recognitional abilities. This view sheds new light on some puzzling features of global skepticism that have been noted by Descartes and Hume, among others. (shrink)

Even today there persist perceptions of the thought of António Sérgio (1883 – 1969) that confine this prominent philosopher, journalist, sociologist and essayist within rather narrow bounds of strictly classicist framing − in other words, immune to the influences of ‘sensibility’. The present study, however, endeavours to suggest that this is no more than a limited glimpse, a glimpse that in fact ignores the intricacy of a Sérgian manner of perceiving. What one confronts here is a cultural myth that calls (...) for being deconstructed in order to demonstrate the substance of Sérgio’s humanist discourse. The study leverages, to this effect, both the philosophy of Jean- Jacques Rousseau (1712 – 1778) and the novel "A Cidade e as Serras" by Eça de Queiroz (1845 –1900). (shrink)

Scholars who favor shareholder primacy usually claim either that managers should not fulfill corporate duties of beneficence or that, if they are required to fulfill them, they do so by going against their obligations to shareholders. Distinguishing between structurally different types of duties of beneficence and recognizing the full force of the normative demands imposed on managers reveal that this view needs to be qualified. Although it is correct to think that managers, when acting on behalf of shareholders, are not (...) required to fulfill wide duties of charity, they are nevertheless required to fulfill a variety of narrow duties of beneficence. What is more, the obligation to fulfill these duties arises precisely because they are acting on behalf of shareholders. As such, this article 1) refines our understanding of the duties of corporate beneficence and 2) helps to identify which duties of beneficence are imposed on managers when they are acting on behalf of shareholders. (shrink)

The foundationalist needs to deal with two fundamental problems: (i) to explain how a justificator grants justification without itself need justification and (ii) to determine the justificator’s epistemic status. Burdzinski (Burdzinski 2007), following Sellars and Bonjour, argues that the perceptive experience could not be a response to the first problem, because if its content was not propositional it would not grant justification and if its content was propositional it would grant justification and would require justification. My proposal is that perceptual (...) experience justifies in virtue of its representational nature. The act of taking the content of a perception by its face value is justified until there is a reason to the contrary, ie, this act is prima facie justified. This forces us to answer the second problem by saying that the basic justificator is not infallible. This falibilist response dislike the skeptic, but it is the best foundationalist answer to epistemic regress. (shrink)

The scientific revolution of the XVII siècle is normally described as erasing final causes and the teleology of physics. Nevertheless, the functional language plays a central role in certain areas of biological practice. This is why many philosophers have tried to explicate the concept of function, sometimes to defend the relevance of its use, some other times to show that it is merely a way of speaking that could be easily eliminated without any relevant information loss. The principal purpose of (...) this paper is to show the necessity of appealing to functional concepts for an adequate reconstruction of the Darwinian natural selection theory. Thus, functional language is used in the conceptualization of the theory’s domain of application, and that domain should be determined independently of the natural selection theory. (shrink)

Rob Withagen has rendered the distinction between affordances and invitations more radical in two aspects: (i) affordances do not explain behavior anymore, invitations do; (ii) invitations do not boil down to affectively charged affordances, they also encompass affectively charged misperceptions. I argue that Withagen went too far. If we understand affordances as a relation between the abilities of an individual organism and its environment, then we already have sufficient resources to incorporate affectivity in the ecological approach. Affective states constitute perceptual (...) abilities and modulate their exercise, in that every perception of affordance is affectively charged. Affective states are crucial for guiding our attention to the possibilities of action relevant to the activities in which we are engaged and for providing a sense of the quality of our relationship with the environment. (shrink)

It is widely assumed that perception is a source of reasons (SR). There is a weak sense in which this claim is trivially true: even if one characterizes perception in purely causal terms, perceptual beliefs originate from the mind's interaction with the world. When philosophers argue for (SR), however, they have a stronger view in mind: they claim that perception provides pre- or non-doxastic reasons for belief. In this article I examine some ways of developing this view and criticize them. (...) I exploit these results to formulate a series of constraints that a satisfactory account of the epistemic role of perception should fulfil. I also make a positive suggestion: coherentists are right when they claim that only beliefs can be reasons for other beliefs. Nevertheless, I depart from traditional coherentism, for I do not buy its conception of perception as bare sensation, nor explicate the justificatory status of beliefs in terms of coherence. My point is rather that, when one invokes experience to justify a belief, the justifying state must have structural features of beliefs. (shrink)

En este artículo, se pretende brindar una nueva perspectiva al respecto de la atribución de funciones en biología. La idea consiste en considerar que los conceptos funcionales son conceptos primitivos de una teoría científica, tal como desarrollada por Darwin en sus textos sobre la fecundación cruzada. Intentaré mostrar que teorías, que hacen ese uso de los conceptos funcionales, tienen características sintomáticas de teorías consideradas habitualmente genuinas y compararé mi enfoque con otros alternativos acerca de las funciones. En la reconstrucción, se (...) presupondrán las herramientas del estructuralismo metateórico. (shrink)

La discusión acerca de funciones es de larga data en filosofía. Normalmente se describe a la revolución científica del siglo XVII como eliminando las causas finales y la teleología de la física. Sin embargo, el lenguaje funcional cumple un papel central en ciertas áreas de la práctica biológica. Esto ha llevado a muchos filósofos a intentar elucidar el concepto de función, en algunos casos para defender la relevancia de estos usos, en otros para mostrar que se trata de meras formas (...) de hablar que podrían ser eliminadas sin pérdida de ningún tipo de información relevante. El objetivo principal de este trabajo es mostrar la necesidad de apelar a conceptos funcionales para una reconstrucción adecuada de la teoría de la selección natural darwiniana. Pues, se utiliza lenguaje funcional en la conceptualización del campo de aplicación de esta teoría, y tal campo debe ser determinable con independencia la teoría de la selección natural. (shrink)

ABSTRACT:The distinction between what I call nonelective obligations and discretionary obligations, a distinction that focuses on one particular thread of the distinction between perfect and imperfect duties, helps us to identify the obligations that carry over from principals to agents. Clarity on this issue is necessary to identify the moral obligations within “shareholder primacy”, which conceives of managers as agents of shareholders. My main claim is that the principal-agent relation requires agents to fulfill nonelective obligations, but it does not always (...) require discharging discretionary obligations. I show that the requirement to fulfill nonelective obligations is more far-reaching than has been acknowledged by most defenders and critics of shareholder primacy. But I also show that managers are not bound by certain discretionary obligations like charity, showing that their moral obligations are more circumscribed than the obligations that apply to human beings in general. (shrink)

Aunque parece una teoría relativamente simple, la teoría de la selección natural ha traído muchas discusiones al respecto de su reconstrucción. En particular, los autores han tenido dificultades a la hora de elucidar el concepto de aptitud (fitness) adecuadamente. El punto de vista de este trabajo consiste en que para entender adecuadamente esta cuestión, y además, para dar cuenta de manera adecuada de las explicaciones seleccionistas, tanto las dadas por Darwin como sus aplicaciones más actuales, es necesario a la hora (...) de reconstruir la teoría utilizar más conceptos de los que habitualmente se utilizan. En este trabajo se explayará sobre este punto y se presentará una reconstrucción de la teoría en cuestión con las herramientas del estructuralismo metateórico. -/- Title: Structuralist Reconstruction of Natural Selection Theory Abstract: Despite seeming relatively simple Natural Selection Theory has brought up many discussions regarding its reconstruction. In particular, many authors have had difficulties in explicating the concept of fitness. The point of view of this paper is that more concepts are needed in order to, on the one hand, understand more adequately this issue, and on the other hand, to account for selectionist explanations, both Darwin’s and current applications, in an adequate way. Having this in mind, I will offer a reconstruction of Natural Selection Theory using the tools of metatheoretical structuralism. (shrink)

As far as the relationship between The Society of the Spectacle (1967) and Commentaries on the Society of the Spectacle (1988) is concerned, one either acknowledges Guy Debord's self interpretation, according to which these books complement each other, or one is forced to concede, on the contrary, the existence of an "epistemological cut", undermining, therefore, the revolutionary unity of Debord’s work. According to the first hypothesis, Machiavelli and Marx will eventually be linked up in a Situationist project to overthrow spectacular (...) society. However, the second hypothesis involves dismissing political economy analysis, whose field is apparently occupied by police logic. Because Debord’s interpretation seems to us to be more plausible, even though its defence is not an easy task, we will endorse his point of view. (shrink)

Resumo Neste artigo, procura-se analisar os fatores envolvidos na determinação da natureza substancial do organismo vivo, em Aristóteles. Tais fatores seriam, por um lado, a forte unidade e coesão interna composicional e, por outro, o elevado caráter de independência quanto às propriedades essenciais ou formais, relativamente às propriedades dos componentes materiais, por meio dos quais o organismo vivo vem a ser formado, ou com referência aos outros tipos de particularidades de seres. Com esta análise, pretende-se mostrar, ao mesmo tempo, que (...) a unidade do composto orgânico-animado, de um modo geral, é constituída por um complexo arranjo de camadas estratificadas, no qual as camadas ou os tipos de composições materiais apresentam, entre si, um forte grau de interdependência. Tal interdependência entre as partes materiais, que formam uma rede composicional complexa e bem-articulada, faz com que as propriedades essenciais ou formais do todo orgânico se diferenciem sobremaneira das propriedades essenciais dos tipos de componentes que integram esse todo, caracterizando, assim, o caráter substancial da composição orgânica.In this paper, I will try to analyze the factors involved in determining the substantial nature of the living organism in Aristotle. Such factors would be, on the one hand, the strong unity and compositional internal cohesion and, on the other hand, the high character of independence as regards the essential or formal properties, relative to the proper properties of the material components through which the living organism comes to be formed, or relative to other types of particularities of beings. With this analysis, it is intended at the same time to show that, in a general way, the unity of the organic-animate compound is constituted by a complex arrangement of stratified layers, in which the layers or types of material compositions have a strong degree of interdependence among themselves. Such interdependence between the material parts, which form a complex and well-articulated compositional network, makes the essential or formal properties of the organic whole very different from the essential properties of the types of components that make up the whole, thus characterizing the substantial character of organic composition. (shrink)

Suele señalarse la fuerte influencia que la teología natural tuvo sobre Darwin en su conceptualización del fenómeno de la adaptación. La teoría de la selección natural explicaría el mismo fenómeno que los teólogos naturales querían explicar: la adaptación. Recientemente ha sido señalado, sin embargo, que la forma darwiniana de conceptualizar la adaptación es novedosa. Las adaptaciones de la teología natural presupondrían la idea de que los organismos existen para la realización y manutención del equilibrio natural establecido por el creador. El (...) punto de este trabajo discutir esta cuestión, asumiendo el marco del estructuralismo metateórico. The strong influence that natural theology had over Darwin’s conceptualization of the adaptation phenomenon is frequently noted. The natural selection theory would explain the same phenomenon that the natural theologist intended to explain: the adaptation. Recently has been claimed, on the contrary, that the Darwinian way of conceptualizing adaptation is new. The concept of adaptation from natural theology presupposes the idea that organisms exist for realization and support of the natural equilibrium stated by the creator. In this work I will discuss this point, assuming the metatheoretical structuralism frame. (shrink)

Para algunos la selección natural se identifica con las diferencias de éxito de distintos organismos en la reproducción diferencial. Si esto fuese así, el principio de Hardy-Weinberg, por permitir determinar con bastante precisión bajo ciertos supuestos que la frecuencia génica en una población no es la esperada, podría ser visto como una versión cuantitativa de la selección natural cualitativa propuesta por Darwin. Es mi intención mostrar, a través del análisis de explicaciones dadas por Darwin, que la selección natural es más (...) que la mera diferencia en el éxito en la reproducción diferencial e investigar algunas relaciones entre la teoría de la selección natural y la genética de poblaciones. (shrink)

A ideia de que a ciência — ou ao menos as atividades científicas que são consideradas as mais essenciais para a ciência — deve ser livre de valores é bastante difundida. Neste capítulo, vou discutir essa tese, normalmente entendida como um ideal de ciência. Na primeira seção, introduzo alguns conceitos e distinções que são importantes para entender essa tese, como a diferença entre valores cognitivos e não-cognitivos. Na segunda seção, discuto o papel dos valores na seleção de problemas e na (...) metodologia científica. Na terceira seção, apresento dois argumentos canônicos contra o ideal da ciência como livre de valores: o argumento da lacuna explicativa, de Helen Longino (1990), e o argumento do risco indutivo, de Heather Douglas (2009). Na quarta seção, discuto algumas respostas a esses argumentos. Por fim, na última seção, a partir da abordagem ecológica, exploro e sustendo a ideia de que a reconcepção da ciência como uma atividade social situada e adaptativa supera a dicotomia entre fato e valor que subjaz a discussão. Essa nova concepção de ciência nos permite acomodar melhor os resultados dos argumentos apresentados na terceira seção. (shrink)

Evidence from cognitive science supports the claim that humans and other animals see the world as divided into objects. Although this claim is widely accepted, it remains unclear whether the mechanisms of visual reference have representational content or are directly instantiated in the functional architecture. I put forward a version of the former approach that construes object files as icons for objects. This view is consistent with the evidence that motivates the architectural account, can respond to the key arguments against (...) representational accounts, and has explanatory advantages. I draw general lessons for the philosophy of perception and the naturalization of intentionality. (shrink)

In this paper, I compare the Megarian thesis of Metaphysics IX 3 with other sources on the Megarians in order to clarify two questions: that of the unity and nature of the so-called Megarian school and that of Aristotle’s broader argument in IX 3. I first review the disputed issue of the status of the Megarian school and then examine two hypotheses regarding the identity behind Aristotle’s allusion in IX 3. Third, I explore the connection between Megarianism and Plato’s Euthydemus, (...) a task that helps us to contextualize Aristotle’s anti-Megarian polemic. Lastly, I build on the preceding argument in a re-examination of the Eleatic hypothesis with regard both to the Megarians as a whole and to the thesis that Aristotle transmits. (shrink)

Abstract: In Mind and World, McDowell conceives of the content of perceptual experiences as conceptual. This picture is supposed to provide a therapy for skepticism, by showing that empirical thinking is objectively and normatively constrained. The paper offers a reconstruction of McDowell's view and shows that the therapy fails. This claim is based on three arguments: 1) the identity conception of truth he exploits is unable to sustain the idea that perception-judgment transitions are normally truth conducing; 2) it could be (...) plausible only from an externalist point of view that is in tension with the view of normativity that motivates conceptualism; 3) the identity conception of truth is incompatible with McDowell's recent version of conceptualism in terms of ‘non-propositional intuitive contents’. (shrink)

:In this essay, I present an account of forgiveness as a process of emotional distancing. The central claim is that, understood in these terms, forgiveness does not require a change in judgment. Rationally forgiving someone, in other words, does not require that one judges the significance of the wrongdoing differently or that one comes to the conclusion that the attitudes behind it have changed in a favorable way. The model shows in what sense forgiving is inherently social, shows why we (...) should be pluralists about it, and provides a basis for arguing against the existence of necessary conditions of forgiving. (shrink)

Object files are mental representations that enable perceptual systems to keep track of objects as numerically the same. How is their reference fixed? A prominent approach, championed by Zenon Pylyshyn and John Campbell, makes room for a non-satisfactional use of properties to fix reference. This maneuver has enabled them to reconcile a singularist view of reference with the intuition that properties must play a role in reference fixing. This paper examines Campbell’s influential defense of this strategy. After criticizing it, a (...) new approach is sketched. The alternative view introduces representational contents to explain perceptual individuation. After arguing that those contents are not satisfactional, it is concluded that there is room for a third view of reference fixing that does not fit into the singularist/descriptivist dichotomy. (shrink)

Philosophers of perception are familiar with the argument from illusion, at least since Hume formulated it to challenge a naïve form of realism. In this paper, I present an analogous argument but in the domain of action. It focuses on slips, a common kind of mistake. But, otherwise, it is structurally similar. The argument challenges some contemporary views about the nature of action inspired by Wittgenstein. The discussion shows how thinking about these common mistakes helps illuminate aspects of human agency (...) that tend to be overlooked whenever too much emphasis is placed on the rationality of human actions. (shrink)

The work of theologian Rudolf Bultmann is often judged without due consideration of the historical and personal circumstances in which it occurred. It is forgotten that theology is always carried out in a specific context. Thus, this article aims to do justice to this theologian by recognizing the relevance of his hermeneutical method. It will be demonstrated that demythologization is a powerful exegetical-apologetic operation, because, at the same time that it points to the mythological layer that covers the text of (...) the New Testament, it emancipates it from myth. The next step will be to show that by recognizing a mythological envelope covering the text of the New Testament, Bultmann intended to prove that the mythological vision itself had a fundamentally existential purpose. This is because mythological language does not present an objective image of the world as it is; on the contrary, it seeks to communicate the understanding that man has of himself in the world in which he lives. Therefore, the myth should be interpreted not cosmologically, but anthropologically, or better still, existentially. It is, therefore, from this perspective that Bultmann seeks to highlight the relevance of the message of the New Testament. (shrink)

Existe una tensión entre pretender aplicar una teoría científica genuina del diseño inteligente en general al caso de los organismos vivos y defender, al mismo tiempo, una posición minimalista al respecto del diseño inteligente en la que no se afirma nada al respecto de los objetivos ni la naturaleza del diseñador. Para que el argumento del diseño tenga la fuerza pretendida, debería establecer la identidad del diseñador y sus objetivos. Por otra parte una teoría del diseño inteligente que acuda a (...) un diseñador con un plan general de creación, como la presupuesta por los teólogos naturales del siglo XIX, es incompatible con grandes porciones de la biología funcional contemporánea. (shrink)

The history of the interpretation of Psalm 46 has been articulated around the search for its context. Some commentators have sought to pin its historical circumstance to certain events in Israel's past, such as the siege of Sennacherib's army over Judah or a major geological event such as an earthquake. Others have asserted that the author of the Psalm did not have in mind a past event, but a future one, namely, a time of peace and cessation of wars. But (...) is this search for the context of the author's day really essential for the modern reader? Shouldn't the diligent reading of any text culminate in merging the past with the present?And, finally, shouldn't the reader's horizons be called into question when interpreting a text? This research will seek to analyze these questions from the dialogue with authors such as Franz Delitzsch, Hermann Gunkel, Hans Georg Gadamer, G. Heinrich Ewald and Arie Folger; authors who contributed to the reflection of this research. -/- . (shrink)

In everyday life, we often understand skepticism as a position that one may set aside because of its absurdity or incoherence. In Greek philosophy, skepticism was rather an inquiring attitude that led to the suspension of judgment and, as a result, the freedom from distress. In Modern philosophy, many philosophers viewed skepticism as a phase of thought that had to be overcome before laying firm foundations for the sciences. These pictures differ from the outlook that dominates current analytic epistemology, where (...) skepticism has normally been understood as a series of paradoxes that arise when we reflect on the workings of ordinary epistemic concepts like KNOWLEDGE and EPISTEMIC JUSTIFICATION. A skeptical paradox emerges when we identify a condition that seems to be necessary to have knowledge or epistemic justification, while it also seems that that condition cannot be met. This chapter explains why the picture of skepticism as a series of paradoxes is central to contemporary analytic epistemology and identifies some of the main features of skeptical paradoxes about the external world. After identifying two types of replies, it presents two influential paradoxes based on the closure and underdetermination principles, identifies some relevant differences between the two paradoxes, and critically examines some attempts at solving them. (shrink)

Tradução de um artigo do discípulo de Husserl, Paul Landsberg, publicado em 1939, onde o autor tece algumas considerações sobre a ideia que Husserl tinha da filosofia.

The rule account of self-conscious thought holds that a thought is self-conscious if and only if it contains a token of a concept-type that is governed by a reflexive rule. An account along these lines was discussed in the late 70s. Nevertheless, very few philosophers endorse it nowadays. I shall argue that this summary dismissal is partly unjustified. There is one version of the rule account that can explain a key epistemic property of self-conscious thoughts: Guarantee. Along the way, I (...) will rebut a number of objections and introduce two constraints on how the reflexive rule is implemented. (shrink)

In The Deep History of Ourselves, Joseph LeDoux distinguishes between behavioral and physiological responses caused by the activation of defense circuits, and the emotion of fear. Although the former is found in nearly all bilateral animals, the latter is supposedly a unique human adaptation that requires language, reflective self-awareness, among other cognitive capacities. In this picture, fear is an autonoetic conscious experience that happens when defense circuit activation is integrated into self-awareness and the experience labeled with the “fear” concept. In (...) this commentary I will propose a different view, in which fear is a skillful activity that we coordinate with others as our social interactions unfold in time. If this is true, two important conclusions will follow. Firstly, the relevant brain circuits we should be looking for in our theory of emotions are those involved in affective social learning, social cognition, embodied intersubjectivity, and so on. Secondly, emotions may not be uniquely human, and may be present in any creature with the right kinds of social skills required for affective enactments. Therefore, although LeDoux is right to hold that emotions are not as deep as defense circuits, they are not as shallow as other cognitively sophisticated human capacities. (shrink)

Radical skepticism relies on the hypothesis that one could be completely cut off from the external world. In this paper, I argue that this hypothesis can be rationally motivated by means of a conceivability argument. Subsequently, I submit that this conceivability argument does not furnish a good reason to believe that one could be completely cut off from the external world. To this end, I show that we cannot adequately conceive scenarios that verify the radical skeptical hypothesis. Attempts to do (...) so fall prey to one or another of three pitfalls: they end up incomplete, reveal a deep contradiction or recreate a non-skeptical hypothesis. I use these results to improve upon Pritchard’s recent attempt at undercutting radical skepticism. (shrink)

Research in vision science, developmental psychology, and the foundations of cognitive science has led some theorists to posit referential mechanisms similar to indices. This hypothesis has been framed within a Fodorian conception of the early vision module. The article shows that this conception is mistaken, for it cannot handle the ‘interface problem’—roughly, how indexing mechanisms relate to higher cognition and conceptual thought. As a result, I reject the inaccessibility of early vision to higher cognition and make some constructive remarks on (...) the perception–cognition interface. -/- 1 The Case for Visual Indices 1.1 Preliminary assumptions 1.2 Transcendental arguments 1.3 Evidence from vision science 2 Visual Indices, Object Files, and Fodorian Modularity 3 The Interface Problem 3.1 Top-down attention and modularity 3.2 Selective attention and information 4 Revising the Indexing Hypothesis 4.1 Revising the perception–cognition interface 4.2 Revising the modularity of early vision 5 Concluding Remarks. (shrink)

A traditional view holds that the self-concept is essentially indexical. In a highly influential article, Ruth Millikan famously held that the self-concept should be understood as a Millian name with a sui generis functional role. This article presents a novel explanatory argument against the Millian view and in favor of the indexical view. The argument starts from a characterization of the self-concept as a device of information integration. It then shows that the indexical view yields a better explanation of the (...) integration function than the Millian view. The resulting account can rebut Millikan’s objections and it has broader implications for the debate on the essential indexical. (shrink)

Resumen -/- El objetivo de este trabajo consiste en analizar las relaciones entre los modelos de optimalidad y la selección natural. Defenderemos que esas relaciones pueden dividirse en dos tipos, en tanto hay dos tipos de explicaciones seleccionistas, que llamaremos “históricas” y “ahistóricas”. Las explicaciones históricas revelan como una población dada adquiere un rasgo que es adaptativo en ese ambiente e involucran muchas generaciones, variación, etc. Las explicaciones ahistóricas, explican por qué, en determinado momento, ciertos tipos de organismos tienen un (...) mayor éxito reproductivo que otros. Mostraremos que los modelos de optimalidad pueden jugar un rol en la determinación del explanandum de las explicaciones histórica seleccionistas, esto es, que ayudan a reconocer qué rasgos son adaptativos. Por otra parte, mostramos que los modelos de optimalidad nos permiten determinar a veces la parte del explanans de las explicaciones ahistóricas (particularmente, el concepto de fitness). -/- Abstract -/- The goal of this paper is to analyze the relations between optimality models and natural selection. We contend that these relationships can be divided into two kinds, as there are two kinds of natural selection explanations, which we call “historical” and “ahistorical”. Historical explanations reveal how a given population acquires a trait which is adaptive in its environment, and involves many generations, variations, etc. Ahistorical ones, explain why, at a given moment, certain kinds of organisms have a greater reproductive success than others. We show that optimality models can play a role in determining the explanandum of historical selectionist explanations, that is, they help us to recognize which traits are adaptive. And, on the other hand, that optimality models sometimes allow us to determine part of the explanans of ahistorical explanations (particularly, the concept of fitness). (shrink)