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.

As systems based on opaque Artificial Intelligence (AI) continue to flourish in diverse real-world applications, understanding these black box models has become paramount. In response, Explainable AI (XAI) has emerged as a field of research with practical and ethical benefits across various domains. This paper not only highlights the advancements in XAI and its application in real-world scenarios but also addresses the ongoing challenges within XAI, emphasizing the need for broader perspectives and collaborative efforts. We bring together experts from diverse (...) fields to identify open problems, striving to synchronize research agendas and accelerate XAI in practical applications. By fostering collaborative discussion and interdisciplinary cooperation, we aim to propel XAI forward, contributing to its continued success. Our goal is to put forward a comprehensive proposal for advancing XAI. To achieve this goal, we present a manifesto of 27 open problems categorized into nine categories. These challenges encapsulate the complexities and nuances of XAI and offer a road map for future research. For each problem, we provide promising research directions in the hope of harnessing the collective intelligence of interested stakeholders. (shrink)

Aproximaciones teóricas a la danza es producto de un trabajo investigativo conjunto que permite la circulación del conocimiento producido por distintos actores involucrados en el campo de la danza en Colombia. Para la Red de Investigación Cuerpo Danza Movimiento, esta publicación es un logro investigativo colectivo que ofrece una visión del conjunto de esfuerzos y perspectivas actuales sobre la danza en Colombia y en otras latitudes en donde este arte se ha ido convirtiendo en un objeto de estudio específico. En (...) este volumen se encuentran textos sobre la relación danza y filosofía, de Carlos Eduardo Sanabria (Universidad Jorge Tadeo Lozano); la relación danza y antropología, de Andrea Ceballos Flórez y la danza contemporánea como campo de investigación de la antropología (Pontificia Universidad Javeriana); un estudio etnográfico de la salsa en Bogotá, de el de Ángela R. Leguizamón (Universidad Nacional, Universidad Distrital FJC); la política cultural y la participación del sector en la políticas distritales, de el de Laura de la Rosa, Diana C. Varón y Aidaluz Sánchez A. (Universidad Santo Tomás). Sobre estudios historiográficos, Juliana Congote se centra en los procesos editoriales y la consolidación de las comunidades de interpretación de la danza contemporánea en el país (Universidad de Antioquia ); y en estudios sociales Liliana Echeverri, sobre la relación del baile social con los espacios sociales que aparecen en Manrique, Medellín (Universidad Andina Simón Bolívar, Ecuador) y el texto de Patricio Juárez F., sobre la práctica artística de la danza y su relevancia como fenómeno sociocultural (Universidad Autónoma de Nuevo León, México); igualmente encontramos sobre filosofía el texto propuesto por Paola V. Pita Gaona, quien analiza la teoría de la acción poética y la danza en Paul Valéry (Pontificia Universidad Javeriana ); y sobre medios interactivos de Gloria S. Sáenz, en la exploración investigativa realizada en la Escuela tecnológica del Instituto Técnico Central, sobre la utilización del Smartphone (como videocámara) para la producción discursiva, creando nuevas aproximaciones al mundo (Escuela Tecnológica ITC), y finalmente, el texto de Rebeca Sánchez A., sobre la transformación en la creación, la contemplación y la participación, de la experiencia dancística cuando son utilizados recursos tecnológicos (UNAM, México). (shrink)

Which political principles should govern global politics? In his new book, Simon Caney engages with the work of philosophers, political theorists, and international relations scholars in order to examine some of the most pressing global issues of our time. Are there universal civil, political, and economic human rights? Should there be a system of supra- state institutions? Can humanitarian intervention be justified?

It is generally argued that if the wave-function in the de Broglie–Bohm theory is a physical field, it must be a field in configuration space. Nevertheless, it is possible to interpret the wave-function as a multi-field in three-dimensional space. This approach hasn’t received the attention yet it really deserves. The aim of this paper is threefold: first, we show that the wave-function is naturally and straightforwardly construed as a multi-field; second, we show why this interpretation is superior to other interpretations (...) discussed in the literature; third, we clarify common misconceptions. (shrink)

The empirical phenomenon at the center of this paper is projection, which we define (uncontroversially) as follows: (1) Definition of projection An implication projects if and only if it survives as an utterance implication when the expression that triggers the implication occurs under the syntactic scope of an entailment-cancelling operator. Projection is observed, for example, with utterances containing aspectual verbs like stop, as shown in (2) and (3) with examples from English and Paraguayan Guaraní (Paraguay, Tupí-Guaraní).1 The Guaraní example in (...) (2) and its English translation have at least the following implications: (i) Carla has previously smoked, and (ii) Carla stopped smoking. The first but not the second of these implications is also conveyed by the question version of sentence (2), as in (3a), or when (2) is embedded under entailment-cancelling sentential operators, such as negation, as in (3b), the antecedent of a conditional, as in (3c), or an epistemic modal, as in (3d). Hence, by the definition in (14), the first but not the second implication of (2) projects. (shrink)

Esta obra colectiva expone diversas concepciones teóricas, ontológicas, epistemológicas, axiológicas y prácticas sobre el origen, sentido, problemáticas, ventajas, detrimentos, alternativas y desafías de la filosofía de la innovación y su incidencia en la educación; reflexiona sobre las contribuciones de la tecnología y responde a interrogantes como: ¿Cuáles son los aporte de la tradición filosófica, del pensamiento ilustrado, de la postmodernidad y de la teoría crítica para la filosofía de la innovación educativa?; ¿Cuál es la función de la filosofía para la (...) comprensión de la innovación?; ¿Cómo se explica el progreso tecno-científico desde la epistemología contemporánea?; ¿Cuál es el componente pedagógico de la innovación?; ¿Cuáles son las aportaciones del Laudato Si para la innovación educativa?. Además, plantea la necesidad de repensar algunos aspectos relacionados con la educación, el Estado y la identidad latinoamericana para determinar las posibilidades, las limitaciones y los retos de la innovación, entendida como un fenómeno en permanente construcción. Este tomo se encuentra conformado por ocho capítulos en los que los autores formulan un conjunto de contribuciones para la generación de nuevas investigaciones. Además, evidencia a la innovación como un procesos que exige reformulaciones. La innovación sigue siendo una de las tareas pendientes de la filosofía. (shrink)

In this paper we will demonstrate that a computational system can meet the criteria for autonomy laid down by classical enactivism. The two criteria that we will focus on are operational closure and structural determinism, and we will show that both can be applied to a basic example of a physically instantiated Turing machine. We will also address the question of precariousness, and briefly suggest that a precarious Turing machine could be designed. Our aim in this paper is to challenge (...) the assumption that computational systems are necessarily heteronomous systems, to try and motivate in enactivism a more nuanced and less rigid conception of computational systems, and to demonstrate to computational theorists that they might find some interesting material within the enactivist tradition, despite its historical hostility towards computationalism. (shrink)

I want to combine two hitherto largely independent research projects, scientific understanding and mechanistic explanations. Understanding is not only achieved by answering why-questions, that is, by providing scientific explanations, but also by answering what-questions, that is, by providing what I call scientific descriptions. Based on this distinction, I develop three forms of understanding: understanding-what, understanding-why, and understanding-how. I argue that understanding-how is a particularly deep form of understanding, because it is based on mechanistic explanations, which answer why something happens in (...) virtue of what it is made of. I apply the three forms of understanding to two case studies: first, to the historical development of thermodynamics and, second, to the differences between the Clausius and the Boltzmann entropy in explaining thermodynamic processes. (shrink)

Philosophers now seem to agree that frequentism is an untenable strategy to explain the meaning of probabilities. Nevertheless, I want to revive frequentism, and I will do so by grounding probabilities on typicality in the same way as the thermodynamic arrow of time can be grounded on typicality within statistical mechanics. This account, which I will call typicality frequentism, will evade the major criticisms raised against previous forms of frequentism. In this theory, probabilities arise within a physical theory from statistical (...) behavior of almost all initial conditions. The main advantage of typicality frequentism is that it shows which kinds of probabilities (that also have empirical relevance) can be derived from physics. Although one cannot recover all probability talk in this account, this is rather a virtue than a vice, because it shows which types of probabilities can in fact arise from physics and which types need to be explained in different ways, thereby opening the path for a pluralistic account of probabilities. (shrink)

I analyze the meaning of mass in Newtonian mechanics. First, I explain the notion of primitive ontology, which was originally introduced in the philosophy of quantum mechanics. Then I examine the two common interpretations of mass: mass as a measure of the quantity of matter and mass as a dynamical property. I claim that the former is ill-defined, and the latter is only plausible with respect to a metaphysical interpretation of laws of nature. I explore the following options for the (...) status of laws: Humeanism, primitivism about laws, dispositionalism, and ontic structural realism. (shrink)

This paper challenges premises regarding the ‘Kuhn vs Popper debate’ which is often introduced to students at a university level. Though I acknowledge the disagreements between Kuhn and Popper, I argue that their models of science are greatly similar. To begin, some preliminary context is given to point out conceptual and terminological barriers within this debate. The remainder of paper illuminates consistencies between the influential books The Logic of Scientific Discoveries (by Popper, abbreviated as Logic) and The Structure of Scientific (...) Revolutions (by Kuhn, abbreviated as Structure). The central purpose of this comparison is to synthesize a shared model of scientific change. The broader implication of this approach is appreciating common ground in discussions that are defined by their disagreements (particularly in philosophy of science). (shrink)

This paper develops an information-sensitive theory of the semantics and probability of conditionals and statements involving epistemic modals. The theory validates a number of principles linking probability and modality, including the principle that the probability of a conditional If A, then C equals the probability of C, updated with A. The theory avoids so-called triviality results, which are standardly taken to show that principles of this sort cannot be validated. To achieve this, we deny that rational agents update their credences (...) via conditionalization. We offer a new rule of update, Hyperconditionalization, which agrees with Conditionalization whenever nonmodal statements are at stake but differs for modal and conditional sentences. (shrink)

This paper explores the principle that knowledge is fragile, in that whenever S knows that S doesn’t know that S knows that p, S thereby fails to know p. Fragility is motivated by the infelicity of dubious assertions, utterances which assert p while acknowledging higher-order ignorance whether p. Fragility is interestingly weaker than KK, the principle that if S knows p, then S knows that S knows p. Existing theories of knowledge which deny KK by accepting a Margin for Error (...) principle can be conservatively extended with Fragility. (shrink)

Deployment Realism resists Laudan’s and Lyons’ objections to the “No Miracle Argument” by arguing that a hypothesis is most probably true when it is deployed essentially in a novel prediction. However, Lyons criticized Psillos’ criterion of essentiality, maintaining that Deployment Realism should be committed to all the actually deployed assumptions. But since many actually deployed assumptions proved false, he concludes that the No Miracle Argument and Deployment Realism fail. I reply that the essentiality condition is required by Occam’s razor. In (...) fact, there is a simpler formulation of essentiality which escapes Lyons’ criticisms and rescues the No Miracle Argument and Deployment Realism from their purported historical counterexamples: a hypothesis is essential when it has no proper parts (in Yablo’s sense) sufficient to derive the same prediction. Although essentiality so conceived cannot be detected prospectively, this is just natural, and it is not a problem but an advantage for Deployment Realism. (shrink)

The ontological models framework distinguishes ψ-ontic from ψ-epistemic wave- functions. It is, in general, quite straightforward to categorize the wave-function of a certain quantum theory. Nevertheless, there has been a debate about the ontological status of the wave-function in the statistical interpretation of quantum mechanics: is it ψ-epistemic and incomplete or ψ-ontic and complete? I will argue that the wave- function in this interpretation is best regarded as ψ-ontic and incomplete.

Recent advances in natural language processing have given rise to a new kind of AI architecture: the language agent. By repeatedly calling an LLM to perform a variety of cognitive tasks, language agents are able to function autonomously to pursue goals specified in natural language and stored in a human-readable format. Because of their architecture, language agents exhibit behavior that is predictable according to the laws of folk psychology: they function as though they have desires and beliefs, and then make (...) and update plans to pursue their desires given their beliefs. We argue that the rise of language agents significantly reduces the probability of an existential catastrophe due to loss of control over an AGI. This is because the probability of such an existential catastrophe is proportional to the difficulty of aligning AGI systems, and language agents significantly reduce that difficulty. In particular, language agents help to resolve three important issues related to aligning AIs: reward misspecification, goal misgeneralization, and uninterpretability. (shrink)

What does it take to understand a phenomenon ideally, or to the highest conceivable extent? In this paper, we answer this question by arguing for five necessary conditions for ideal understanding: (i) representational accuracy, (ii) intelligibility, (iii) truth, (iv) reasonable endorsement, and (v) fitting. Even if one disagrees that there is some form of ideal understanding, these five conditions can be regarded as sufficient conditions for a particularly deep level of understanding. We then argue that grasping, novel predictions, and transparency (...) are not reasonable conditions for ideal understanding. (shrink)

El desarrollo del pensamiento crítico en la educación superior se inscribe en un contexto de transición de paradigmas. El paso de la modernidad a la postmodernidad y lo que esto significa en términos de modificación de parámetros de comprensión, de transformaciones en los ámbitos político, económico, social y cultural genera cambios en el sujeto. Desde experiencia docente se hace evidente la ausencia de pensamiento crítico en los estudiantes de los primeros niveles de educación superior, y por ello, la necesidad de (...) implementaciones didácticas innovadoras en el proceso de enseñanza. El presente documento tiene como objetivo presentar los aportes de la didáctica al desarrollo del pensamiento crítico en estudiantes de educación superior. Se trata de una revisión de tipo exploratoria-descriptiva; de carácter bibliográfico y con enfoque cualitativo. Se concluye que, la didáctica permite a los docentes orientar de manera consciente y creativa el proceso de enseñanza aprendizaje, ya que, al ser selectivos en los distintos métodos y técnicas aplicados en el proceso educativo contribuyen para potenciar el desarrollo del pensamiento crítico y para el desarrollo de capacidades cognoscitivas, sociales y afectivas integradoras de análisis, puntos de vista, problemas, decisiones y posturas que permiten en mejor desenvolvimiento del sujeto en el contexto. (shrink)

The mobility experience is an important life event for international students, and achieving successful psychological and sociocultural adaptation is crucial for this experience to be positive. Through a three-wave longitudinal study among international students enrolled at universities in Spain, Portugal, and Poland (n = 233), we examined the relationships between social media use, social identification, and (sociocultural and psychological) adaptation across time. Results of cross lagged panel modeling (CLPM) showed that social media contact with home nationals predicted greater identification with (...) this group. Social media contact with host country nationals predicted poorer adaptation. Social media contact with other international students did not show any effects, while identification with this group predicted better adaptation. Our results point to the dynamic nature of the adaptation process, showing that the role of social media use and identification targeted at different social groups may play different roles than was previously found in cross-sectional research. (shrink)

We put forth an account for when to believe causal and evidential conditionals. The basic idea is to embed a causal model in an agent’s belief state. For the evaluation of conditionals seems to be relative to beliefs about both particular facts and causal relations. Unlike other attempts using causal models, we show that ours can account rather well not only for various causal but also evidential conditionals.

Imagine that you are a farmer living in Kenya. Though you work hard to sell your produce to foreign markets you find yourself unable to do so because affluent countries subsidize their own farmers and erect barriers to trade, like tariffs, thereby undercutting you in the marketplace. As a consequence of their actions you languish in poverty despite your very best efforts. Or, imagine that you are a peasant whose livelihood depends on working in the fields in Indonesia and you (...) are forcibly displaced from your land by a biofuels company because corrupt government officials have stolen the land and sold it to the company. Or, suppose that you work on the coast of Bangladesh but find that increasingly you are unable to cope with salination resulting from sealevel rise – a product of anthropogenic climate change. These, I believe, are cases of global injustice. My question is: What are those who bear the brunt of global injustice entitled to do to secure their, and other people’s, entitlements? Often people focus on the duties of the affluent to respect and uphold the rights of the disadvantaged. This is understandable. But there is a striking omission. Rarely do people analyze, or even mention, what those who lack their entitlements are entitled to do to secure their own rights. This is my focus in this paper. More specifically, I examine what agents are entitled to do to change the underlying social, economic and political practices and structures in a more just direction. (shrink)

Of all twentieth century philosophers, it is Gilles Deleuze whose work agitates most forcefully for a worldview privileging becoming over being, difference over sameness; the world as a complex, open set of multiplicities. Nevertheless, Deleuze remains singular in enlisting mathematical resources to underpin and inform such a position, refusing the hackneyed opposition between ‘static’ mathematical logic versus ‘dynamic’ physical world. This is an international collection of work commissioned from foremost philosophers, mathematicians and philosophers of science, to address the wide range (...) of problematics and influences in this most important strand of Deleuze’s thinking. Contributors are Charles Alunni, Alain Badiou, Gilles Châtelet, Manuel DeLanda, Simon Duffy, Robin Durie, Aden Evens, Arkady Plotnitsky, Jean-Michel Salanskis, Daniel Smith and David Webb. (shrink)

La lógica del mercado y la tendencia consumista de los últimos tiempos ha traído consigo prácticas alejadas de los principios y valores ético-morales en los seres humanos. En las instituciones universitarias cada vez es más frecuente el egoísmo, la tendencia a cumplir fines sin importar los medios empleados, la corrupción, la falta de ética en los procesos investigativos, en la gestión y en las diversas áreas del quehacer institucional. El documento presenta una serie de perspectivas de docentes universitarios en relación (...) al dinamismo existente entre educación universitaria-ética y sociedad; determina las principales problemáticas en el quehacer universitario; plantea algunos desafíos y pretensiones de la ética para la educación universitaria. Toda formación profesional debe generar actitudes éticas que devienen en una sociedad de calidad, por ello es preciso repensar en la praxis educativa con enfoque teleológico como una tarea moral que permite comprender el sentido y significado mismo de la vida. (shrink)

In the scientific communities most criticisms are constructive, while they are destructive in the humanistic circles. Indeed, scientists circulate their drafts among colleagues and students, hoping to elicit their comments and suggestions before submitting their work to publication. In contrast, philosophers and political thinkers attack their rivals, without sparing arguments ad hominem or even insults. The reason for this difference is that scientists are after the truth, whereas most humanists fight for more or less noble causes, from swelling their own (...) curricula to joining crusades for or against rationality, realism, justice, or what have you. (shrink)

La Revista Sophia, se complace en presentar la publicación número 26 de su colección, en esta ocasión la reflexión centra su atención en Biología y Educación: la neuroeducación. Este volumen se propone vislumbrar los fundamentos filosóficos de la biología, su interdisciplinariedad con las ciencias de la educación, los enfoques y perspectivas de la biología de la educación, el valor y los límites de la sociobiología. En el abordaje filosófico de la biología y la educación surgen va-rias interrogantes como ¿Cuáles han (...) sido las consecuencias educativas del evolucionismo social en la actualidad? ¿Cómo sustentar los procesos edu-cativos en el desarrollo biológico sin caer en determinismo biologicista? ¿Es posible una plena libertad para el aprendizaje desde la biología de la educación? ¿Cómo ha influido las teoría de la epistemología evolucionis-ta/genética en el desarrollo de estrategias de enseñanza-aprendizaje?; ¿Es la educación un proceso de adaptación biológica? ¿Cuáles son los funda-mentos filosóficos de la neuroeducación? ¿Qué aportes y estrategias han surgido de la neuroeducación para mejorar los procesos de aprendizaje? ¿Cuáles son los problemas o límites de la neuroeducación? ¿Qué meca-nismos biológicos del aprendizaje vinculan mente y cerebro en la neuro-ciencia contemporánea?, entre otras. (shrink)

El intento de estas páginas es el de seleccionar dentro de la semántica del miedo que contribuye a organizar la imagen moderna del orden político y jurídico el elemento específico del pánico, en la hipótesis de que este último constituya una diferencia que es asimismo un recurso epistémico. Dicho de un modo directo: si el miedo se presenta como una referencia constitutiva del orden, de su constitución como de su mantenimiento, el pánico parece, en cambio, cargado de un signo contrario; (...) nos habla de la disolución de un agregado dado por supuesto y es inclusivo en el perimetrar los límites y las condiciones de posibilidad. El objetivo es aquel de repasar algunos momentos de la historia del pánico buscando argumentar que el pánico es una pasión política, en el sentido de que se refiere a aquello de lo que la político está hecha, y al mismo tiempo es expresión de un límite "pasional" de la política, en tanto que define políticamente un límite interno. Respecto a tal objetivo, esta aportación no reivindica más que los caracteres de un hilvanado necesitante de un desarrollo ulterior por lo que se refiere no solo a aquello que no se incluye (y es obviamente mucho), sino también a los nudos que de forma conscientemente provisional se indican. Además, se limita a una periodizacion histórica que es de alguna manera preliminar, deteniéndose en el umbral de la fase en la cual el pánico es una palabra de un discurso disciplinar, es parte del objeto de un saber codificado (psicología, sociología, ciencia política), incluso si no desempeña necesariamente un rol apaciguador. (shrink)

One Stoic response to the skeptical indistinguishability argument is that it fails to account for expertise: the Stoics allow that while two similar objects create indistinguishable appearances in the amateur, this is not true of the expert, whose appearances succeed in discriminating the pair. This paper re-examines the motivations for this Stoic response, and argues that it reveals the Stoic claim that, in generating a kataleptic appearance, the perceiver’s mind is active, insofar as it applies concepts matching the perceptual stimulus. (...) I argue that this claim is reflected in the Stoic definition of the kataleptic appearance, and that it respects their more general account of mental representation. I further suggest that, in attributing some activity to the mind in creating each kataleptic appearance, and in claiming that the expert’s mind allows her to form more kataleptic appearances than the amateur, the Stoics draw inspiration from the wax tablet model in Plato’s Theaetetus (190e–196d), where Socrates distinguishes the wise from the ignorant on the basis of how well they match sensory input with its appropriate mental ‘seal’ (σφραγίς). (shrink)

Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Volume 115, Issue 3pt3, Page 211-233, December 2015.

El desarrollo del pensamiento crítico en la educación superior se inscribe en un contexto de transición de paradigmas. El paso de la modernidad a la postmodernidad y lo que esto significa en términos de modificación de parámetros de comprensión, de transformaciones en los ámbitos político, económico, social y cultural genera cambios en el sujeto. Desde experiencia docente se hace evidente la ausencia de pensamiento crítico en los estudiantes de los primeros niveles de educación superior, y por ello, la necesidad de (...) implementaciones didácticas innovadoras en el proceso de enseñanza. El presente documento tiene como objetivo presentar los aportes de la didáctica al desarrollo del pensamiento crítico en estudiantes de educación superior. Se trata de una revisión de tipo exploratoria-descriptiva; de carácter bibliográfico y con enfoque cualitativo. Se concluye que, la didáctica permite a los docentes orientar de manera consciente y creativa el proceso de enseñanza aprendizaje, ya que, al ser selectivos en los distintos métodos y técnicas aplicados en el proceso educativo contribuyen para potenciar el desarrollo del pensamiento crítico y para el desarrollo de capacidades cognoscitivas, sociales y afectivas integradoras de análisis, puntos de vista, problemas, decisiones y posturas que permiten en mejor desenvolvimiento del sujeto en el contexto. (shrink)

Saying ┌ that ψ is F ┐ when one should have said ┌ that φ is F ┐ involves making one of two different kinds of error. Either the wrong nominal term (┌ ψ ┐ instead of ┌ φ ┐) is ascribed to the right object or the right nominal term is ascribed to the wrong object. Judgments susceptible to one kind of error are immune to the other. Indexical terms such as ‘here’ and ‘now’ exhibit a corresponding pattern of (...) immunity and susceptibility to error, which suggests that they are complex demonstratives. This should also apply to ‘I’. (shrink)

La dependencia epistemológica existente en los saberes que integran el quehacer académico, científico y socio-cultural actual hacía las diversas formas de conocer de occidente, han dado como resultado una fragmentación y discriminación epistémica entre el conocimiento científico experimental, las ciencias humanas y los saberes ancestrales y culturales. El presente artículo “diálogo de saberes en las ciencias humanas”, tiene como objetivo indagar acerca de los imaginarios sobre los distintos tipos de saberes que integran el quehacer académico, científico y sociocultural con la (...) finalidad de diagnosticar los estados actuales de la ciencia para su revalorización. Para cumplir con este propósito se aborda la problemática sobre la fragmentación de los saberes en el quehacer académico y científico contemporáneo, a través de un estudio bibliográfico y hermenéutico de textos de filósofos sobre el tema así como el análisis de los datos obtenidos de la encuesta elaborada especialmente para este trabajo. El problema que se aborda está relacionado con la tendencia academicista actual de considerar como conocimiento científico únicamente a aquello que puede ser comprobado experimentalmente; evidenciando con ello una clara fragmentación y discriminación epistémica entre conocimiento científico experimental, ciencias humanas y saberes ancestro culturales. (shrink)

Intentionalism is the view that the phenomenal character of a conscious experience is wholly determined by, or even reducible to, its representational content. In this essay I put forward a version of intentionalism that allows (though does not require) the reduction of phenomenal character to representational content. Unlike other reductionist theories, however, it does not require the acceptance of phenomenal externalism (the view that phenomenal character does not supervene on the internal state of the subject). According the view offered here, (...) phenomenal characters essentially represent subject-environment relations that are relevant to the possibilities for causal interaction between the subject and the environment; relations of the kind that J. J. Gibson dubbed affordances. I argue for this view chiefly through an examination of spatial perception, though other cases are also considered. The view assumes that a phenomenal character has an essential functional role; though it need not be assumed that a functional role is sufficient for a phenomenal character. (shrink)

It is generally assumed that existing artificial systems are not phenomenally conscious, and that the construction of phenomenally conscious artificial systems would require significant technological progress if it is possible at all. We challenge this assumption by arguing that if Global Workspace Theory (GWT) — a leading scientific theory of phenomenal consciousness — is correct, then instances of one widely implemented AI architecture, the artificial language agent, might easily be made phenomenally conscious if they are not already. Along the way, (...) we articulate an explicit methodology for thinking about how to apply scientific theories of consciousness to artificial systems and employ this methodology to arrive at a set of necessary and sufficient conditions for phenomenal consciousness according to GWT. (shrink)

In this paper we explore Ronald N. Giere’s contributions to the scientific realism debate. After outlining some of his general views on the philosophy of science, we locate his contributions within the traditional scientific realism debate. We argue that Giere’s scientific perspectivism is best seen as a form of carte blanche realism, that is: a view according to which science is a practice aiming at truth, and can warrantably claim to have attained it, to a certain degree; however, it does (...) not place our confidence invariably in some specific feature of scientific representations. (shrink)

Against certain positivistic and neopositivistic strictures still rooted in our society, Agazzi argues that knowing the invisible is possible, not just in science, but also in metaphysics, in morals, in aesthetics, and in other areas, including, in a sense, religion. The book also examines many examples of such knowledge, surveying not only the great classics of philosophy, but various immortal masterpieces of art, music and literature. It is not just a treatise in epistemology, but a book of philosophy in the (...) most complete and traditional sense, for it discusses knowledge not only for its own sake, but also as a guide to culture, morality, happiness and to the sense of life. Thus, it also provides some important suggestions on how to face our time of crisis and an uncertain future. Despite Agazzi’s proverbial rigor and clarity, his project is so momentous and demanding that I discuss certain points which might deserve further explication and argumentation. (shrink)

I explore the interrelations between the ontological and aesthetic issues raised by ready-mades such as Duchamp’s Fountain. I outline a hylomorphic metaphysics which has two central features. First, hylomorphically complex objects have matter to which they are not identical. Secondly, when such objects are artefacts (including artworks), it is essential to them that they are the products of creative work on their matter. Against this background, I suggest that ready-mades are of aesthetic interest because they pose a dilemma. Is there (...) really an object, a sculpture, that is distinct from its matter, a urinal, which object is created merely by the artist’s choice of the urinal? Or are we dealing with a case in which an artist passes off something, a urinal, as if it were a sculpture, even though it is not one? (shrink)

This is an expanded and revised discussion of the argument briefly put forward in my 'A New Problem for the A-Theory of Time', where it is claimed that it is impossible to experience real temporal passage and that no such phenomenon exists. In the first half of the paper the premises of the argument are discussed in more detail than before. In the second half responses are given to several possible objections, none of which were addressed in the earlier paper. (...) There is also some discussion of some related epistemic arguments against the passage of time given by Huw Price and David Braddon-Mitchell along with objections raised against them recently by Tim Maudlin and Peter Forrest respectively. (shrink)

Following recent arguments that cultural practices in wild animal populations have important conservation implications, we argue that recognizing captive animals as cultural has important welfare implications. Having a culture is of deep importance for cultural animals, wherever they live. Without understanding the cultural capacities of captive animals, we will be left with a deeply impoverished view of what they need to flourish. Best practices for welfare should therefore require concern for animals’ cultural needs, but the relationship between culture and welfare (...) is also extremely complex, requiring us to rethink standard assumptions about what constitutes and contributes to welfare. (shrink)

This paper considers the question of whether chimpanzees possess at least a primitive sense of normativity: i.e., some ability to internalize and enforce social norms—rules governing appropriate and inappropriate behaviour—within their social groups, and to make evaluations of others’ behaviour in light of such norms. A number of scientists and philosophers have argued that such a sense of normativity does exist in chimpanzees and in several other non-human primate and mammalian species. However, the dominant view in the scientific and philosophical (...) literature is that psychological capacities for social norms evolved uniquely in the human lineage, after our last common ancestor with chimpanzees and bonobos. After reviewing some of the existing evidence for normative capacity in chimpanzees, I defend the thesis of chimpanzee normativity against three key theoretical objections that have been presented in the literature, each of which have played a part in motivating the dominant sceptical position. I argue that, while we still have much to learn about the nature and extent of the normative capacities of other animals, there is strong prima facie evidence for social norms and normative evaluation in chimpanzees and the main theoretical objections to chimpanzee normativity are not at all compelling. (shrink)

If science fiction is a genre, then attempts to think about the nature of science fiction will be affected by one’s understanding of what genres are. I shall examine two approaches to genre, one dominant but inadequate, the other better, but only occasionally making itself seen. I shall then discuss several important, interrelated issues, focusing particularly on science fiction : what it is for a work to belong to a genre, the semantics of genre names, the validity of attempts to (...) define genres, and the connections between genre and normativity. One important but neglected clue to the nature of genres lies in the kinds of disagreements they generate over the assignment of works to genres. I conclude by explaining why these disagreements tell us something about the nature of genres, and discussing in some detail two famous cases of disagreement about whether some work or works are science fiction. (shrink)

This paper models knowledge in cases where an agent has multiple experiences over time. Using this model, we introduce a series of observations that undermine the pretheoretic idea that the evidential significance of experience depends on the extent to which that experience matches the world. On the basis of these observations, we model knowledge in terms of what is likely given the agent’s experience. An agent knows p when p is implied by her epistemic possibilities. A world is epistemically possible (...) when its probability given the agent’s experiences is not significantly lower than the probability of the actual world given that experience. (shrink)

Simon Cushing conducted the following interview with Elizabeth Anderson on 18 June 2014.

This paper examines the question of whether Large Language Models (LLMs) like ChatGPT possess minds, focusing specifically on whether they have a genuine folk psychology encompassing beliefs, desires, and intentions. We approach this question by investigating two key aspects: internal representations and dispositions to act. First, we survey various philosophical theories of representation, including informational, causal, structural, and teleosemantic accounts, arguing that LLMs satisfy key conditions proposed by each. We draw on recent interpretability research in machine learning to support these (...) claims. Second, we explore whether LLMs exhibit robust dispositions to perform actions, a necessary component of folk psychology. We consider two prominent philosophical traditions, interpretationism and representationalism, to assess LLM action dispositions. While we find evidence suggesting LLMs may satisfy some criteria for having a mind, particularly in game-theoretic environments, we conclude that the data remains inconclusive. Additionally, we reply to several skeptical challenges to LLM folk psychology, including issues of sensory grounding, the "stochastic parrots" argument, and concerns about memorization. Our paper has three main upshots. First, LLMs do have robust internal representations. Second, there is an open question to answer about whether LLMs have robust action dispositions. Third, existing skeptical challenges to LLM representation do not survive philosophical scrutiny. (shrink)

I confront Feyerabend's position and critical rationalism in order to have a foundation or starting point for my (historical) investigation. The main difference of his position towards falsificationism is the belief that different theories cannot be discussed rationally. Feyerabend is convinced that Galilei's observations with the telescope in the historical context of the Copernican revolution supports his criticism. In particular, he argues that the Copernican theory was supported by deficient hypotheses, and falsifications were disposed by ad hoc hypotheses and propaganda. (...) Furthermore, he claims that his philosophy of science reconstructs Galilei's defence of the Copernican theory. He introduces a central principle of his position (the principle of tenacity) in order to justify a research strategy of not eliminating falsified theories. He tries to show that the tenacious defence of a theory corresponds to Galilei's defence of the Copernican theory. Remarkably, Feyerabend's approach to explain the development of science earns an important support from his interpretation of Galilei's observations. On this basis I give a falsificationist interpretation of Galilei's observations with the telescope, and oppose this interpretation to Feyerabend's. From a falsificationist perspective, auxiliary hypotheses compete during the Copernican revolution which can (with some effort) be critically discussed. Then I analyse the historical case in order to test Feyerabend's interpretation of the Copernican revolution. Inter alias I investigate thoroughly whether Galilei, as Feyerabend claims, immunised falsifications of the Copernican theory by the introduction of ad hoc hypotheses. The investigation considers Galilei's explanation of Venus' phases, his establishment of the irradiation hypothesis, the explanation of the telescope's functionality, and the role of the reproducibility of the observations with the telescope. Finally I provide a rational reconstruction of Galilei's falsification of the Ptolemaic theory. The formalisation shows that Galilei was not a cautious critical rationalist, but a very confident scientist using the method of falsification. (shrink)

What I plan to do in this paper is to provide a survey of the ways in which Spinoza’s philosophy has been deployed in relation to early modern thought, in the history of ideas and in a number of different domains of contemporary philosophy, and to offer an account of how some of this research has developed. The past decade of research in Spinoza studies has been characterized by a number of tendencies; however, it is possible to identify four main (...) domains that characterize these different lines of research: studies of Spinoza’s individual works, of its problematic concepts, from the point of view of the history of ideas, and comparative studies of Spinoza’s ideas. (shrink)

: I offer a new approach to the increasingly convoluted debate between the A- and B-theories of time, the ‘tensed’ and ‘tenseless’ theories. It is often assumed that the B-theory faces more difficulties than the A-theory in explaining the apparently tensed features of temporal experience. I argue that the A-theory cannot explain these features at all, because on any physicalist or supervenience theory of the mind, in which the nature of experience is fixed by the physical state of the world, (...) the tensed properties of time posited by the A-theory could play no role in shaping temporal experience. It follows that the A-theory is false; even a priori arguments for it fail, because they still require the tensed vocabulary which is used to describe temporal experience. (shrink)

Many defend the thesis that when someone knows p, they couldn’t easily have been wrong about p. But the notion of easy possibility in play is relatively undertheorized. One structural idea in the literature, the principle of Counterfactual Closure (CC), connects easy possibility with counterfactuals: if it easily could have happened that p, and if p were the case, then q would be the case, it follows that it easily could have happened that q. We first argue that while CC (...) is false, there is a true restriction of it to cases involving counterfactual dependence on a coin flip. The failure of CC falsifies a model where the easy possibilities are counterfactually similar to actuality. Next, we show that extant normality models, where the easy possibilities are the sufficiently normal ones, are incompatible with the restricted CC thesis involving coin flips. Next, we develop a new kind of normality theory that can accommodate the restricted version of CC. This new theory introduces a principle of Counterfactual Contamination, which says roughly that any world is fairly abnormal if at that world very abnormal events counterfactually depend on a coin flip. Finally, we explain why coin flips and other related events have a special status. A central take home lesson is that the correct principle in the vicinity of Safety is importantly normality-theoretic rather than (as it is usually conceived) similarity-theoretic. (shrink)

This paper considers John Doris, Stephen Stich, Alexandra Plakias, and colleagues’ recent attempts to utilize empirical studies of cross-cultural variation in moral judgment to support a version of the argument from disagreement against moral realism. Crucially, Doris et al. claim that the moral disagreements highlighted by these studies are not susceptible to the standard ‘diffusing’ explanations realists have developed in response to earlier versions of the argument. I argue that plausible hypotheses about the cognitive processes underlying ordinary moral judgment and (...) the acquisition of moral norms, when combined with a popular philosophical account of moral inquiry—the method of reflective equilibrium—undercut the anti-realist force of the moral disagreements that Doris et al. describe. I also show that Stich's recent attempt to provide further theoretical support for Doris et al.'s case is unsuccessful. (shrink)