The Nobel Prize in Literature laureate Mario Vargas Llosa (2020) praises the legal protection of bullfighting by a Peruvian law that prohibits the torture of animals except in case of cultural traditions, such as bullfighting and cockfighting. He claims that his defense of bullfighting follows from his liberal point of view, and advances three reasons in favor of its preservation: It is a tradition, it is a fine art, and the individuals should be constitutionally free to choose what to (...) see and where to go. I argue that his arguments are morally irrelevant and logically unsound. (shrink)

En The paradox of Addition and its dissolution (1969), Mario Bunge presenta algunos argumentos para mostrar que la Regla de Adición puede ocasionar paradojas o problemas semánticos. Posteriormente, Margáin (1972) y Robles (1976) mostraron que las afirmaciones de Bunge son insostenibles, al menos desde el punto de vista de la lógica clásica. Aunque estamos de acuerdo con las críticas de Margáin y Robles, no estamos de acuerdo en el diagnóstico del origen del problema y tampoco con la manera en (...) la que se proponen solucionarlo. En esta medida, en este texto mostraremos cómo la Regla de Adición sí trae problemas semánticos que pueden ser planteados desde diferentes perspectivas contemporáneas, como la extensionalidad del condicional, los principios proscriptivos y la validez conexiva. (shrink)

En The paradox of Addition and its dissolution (1969), Mario Bunge presenta algunos argumentos para mostrar que la Regla de Adición puede ocasionar paradojas o problemas semánticos. Posteriormente, Margáin (1972) y Robles (1976) mostraron que las afirmaciones de Bunge son insostenibles, al menos desde el punto de vista de la lógica clásica. Aunque estamos de acuerdo con las críticas de Margáin y Robles, no estamos de acuerdo en el diagnóstico del origen del problema y tampoco con la manera en (...) la que se proponen solucionarlo. En esta medida, en este texto mostraremos cómo la Regla de Adición sí trae problemas semánticos que pueden ser planteados desde diferentes perspectivas contemporáneas, como la extensionalidad del condicional, los principios proscriptivos y la validez conexiva. (shrink)

Cognitive modules are internal mental structures. Some theorists and empirical researchers hypothesise that the human mind is either partially or massively comprised of structures that are modular in nature. Is the massive modularity of mind hypothesis a cogent view about the ontological nature of human mind or is it, rather, an effective/ineffective adaptationist discovery heuristic for generating predictively successful hypotheses about both heretofore unknown psychological traits and unknown properties of already identified psychological traits? Considering the inadequacies of the case in (...) favour of massive modularity as an ontological hypothesis, I suggest approaching and valuing massive modularity as an adaptationist discovery heuristic. (shrink)

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)

In the Preface to Why We Hate, its author, the prolific philosopher of biology Michael Ruse, notes that there is a paradox that has never left him since he was.

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 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)

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)

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)

Recent breakthroughs in stem cell differentiation and reprogramming suggest that functional human gametes could soon be created in vitro. While the ethical debate on the uses of in vitro generated gametes (IVG) was originally constrained by the fact that they could be derived only from embryonic stem cell lines, the advent of somatic cell reprogramming, with the possibility to easily derive human induced pluripotent stem cells from any individual, affords now a major leap in the feasibility of IVG derivation and (...) in the scope of their potential applications. In this paper we develop an ethical framework, rooted in recent scientific evidence, to support a robust experimental pipeline that could enable the first-in-human use of IVG. We then apply this framework to the following objectives: (1) a clarification of the genetic parenting options afforded by IVG, along with their ethical underpinnings; (2) a defence of the use of IVG to remedy infertility, broadening their scope to same-sex couples; (3) an assessment of the most far-reaching implications of IVG for multiplex parenting. These include, first, the liberation of parenting roles from the constraints of biological generations in vivo, allowing multiple individuals to engage in genetic parenting together, thus blurring the distinction between biological and social generations. Second, we discuss the conflation of IVG with sequencing technology and its implications for the possibility that prospective parents may choose among a hitherto unprecedented number of potential children. In view of these perspectives, we argue that, contrary to the exhausted paradigm according to which society lags behind science, IVG may represent instead a salient and most visible instance where biotechnological ingenuity could be used in pursuit of social experimentation. (shrink)

In this paper I argue that some human reproductive genome editing interventions can be therapeutic in nature, and thus that it is false that all such interventions just create healthy individuals. I do this by showing that the conditions established by a therapy definition are met by certain reproductive genome editing interventions. I then defend this position against two objections: (a) reproductive genome editing interventions do not attain one of the two conditions for something to be a therapy, and (b) (...) some reproductive genome editing interventions are therapeutic but in a nonstandard way. In the Conclusion I call for a more nuanced discussion of the nature of reproductive genome editing interventions. (shrink)

News about the first baby born after a mitochondrial replacement technique (MRT; specifically maternal spindle transfer) broke on September 27, 2016 and, in a matter of hours, went global. Of special interest was the fact that the mitochondrial replacement procedure happened in Mexico. One of the scientists behind this world first was quoted as having said that he and his team went to Mexico to carry out the procedure because, in Mexico, there are no rules. In this paper, we explore (...) Mexico's rule of law in relation to mitochondrial replacement techniques and show that, in fact, certain instances of MRTs are prohibited at the federal level and others are prohibited at the state level. According to our interpretation of the law, the scientists behind this first successful MRT procedure broke federal regulations regarding assisted fertilization research. (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)

The republican case for workplace democracy is presented and defended from two alternative means of ensuring freedom from arbitrary interference in the firm—namely, the right to freely exit the firm and workplace regulation. This paper shows, respectively, that costless exit is neither possible nor desirable in either perfect or imperfect labor markets, and that managerial discretion is both desirable and inevitable due to the incompleteness of employment contracts and labor legislation. The paper then shows that WD is necessary, from a (...) republican standpoint, if workers’ interests are to be adequately tracked in the exercise of managerial authority. Three important objections are finally addressed— that WD is redundant, that it is unnecessary provided that litigation and unionism can produce similar outcomes, and that it falls short of ensuring republican freedom compared to self-employment. (shrink)

In response to the COVID‐19 pandemic philosophers and governments have proposed scarce resource allocation guidelines. Their purpose is to advise healthcare professionals on how to ethically allocate scarce medical resources. One challenging feature of the pandemic has been the large numbers of patients needing mechanical ventilatory support. Guidelines have paradigmatically focused on the question of what doctors should do if they have fewer ventilators than patients who need respiratory support: which patient should get the ventilator? There is, however, an important (...) higher level allocation problem. Namely, how are we to ethically distribute newly obtained ventilators across hospitals: which hospital should get the ventilator(s)? In this paper, we identify a set of principles for allocating newly obtained ventilators across hospitals. We focus particularly on low and middle income countries, who frequently have limited pre‐existing intensive care capacity, and have needed to source additional ventilators. We first provide some background. Second, we argue that the main population healthcare aim during the COVID‐19 pandemic should be to save the most lives. Next, we assess a series of potential heuristics or principles that could be used to guide allocation: allocation to the most densely populated cities, random allocation, allocation based on the ratio of patients to ICU personnel, prioritisation in terms of intrahospital mortality, prioritisation of younger populations, and prioritisation in terms of population mortality. We conclude by providing a plausible ranking of the principles, while noting a number of epistemological challenges, in terms of how they best further the aim of increasing the probability of saving the most lives. (shrink)

In a recent publication Tom Douglas and Katrien Devolder have proposed a new account of genetic parenthood, building on the work of Heidi Mertes. Douglas and Devolder’s account aims to solve, among other things, the question of who are the genetic parents of an individual created through somatic cell nuclear transfer (i.e. cloning): (a) the nuclear DNA provider or (b) the progenitors of the nuclear DNA provider. Such a question cannot be answered by simply appealing to the folk account of (...) genetic parenthood, according to which the genetic parents of an individual are those individuals who produced the egg and sperm, respectively, which fused to create the embryo. It cannot be so as in cloning there is no fertilization as such. In this article I critically examine Douglas and Devolder’s new account of genetic parenthood and demonstrate that it is vulnerable to counterexamples that exploit the lack of a condition specifying that genetic parents should cause a child’s coming into existence. (shrink)

Despite growing interest in workplace democracy, the question whether nonworker stakeholders, like suppliers and local communities, warrant inclusion in the governance of democratic companies, as workers do, has been largely neglected. We inspect this question by leaning on the boundary problem in democratic theory. We first argue that the question of who warrants inclusion in democratic workplaces is best addressed by examining why workplace democracy is warranted in the first place, and offer a twofold normative benchmark—addressing objectionable corporate power and (...) upholding efficiency—to assess the principles of democratic inclusion on offer. Against this benchmark, we next argue that the All-Affected Principle is unfit due to its over- and underinclusive extensional results, and that the All-Subjected Principle, whose variants we examine alongside their extensional results, holds more promise when coupled with independent considerations of justice or a constrained variant of the All-Affected Principle. These combinations need not entirely preclude, but speak against, nonworker stakeholder inclusion. (shrink)

Human and Animal Minds: The Consciousness Questions Laid to Rest.

This paper examines the link between political liberties and social equality, and contends that the former are constitutive of, i.e. necessary to secure, the latter. Although this constitutive link is often assumed in the literature on political liberties, the reasons why it holds true remain largely unexplored. Three such reasons are examined here. First, political liberties are constitutive of social equality because they bestow political power on their holders, leaving disenfranchised individuals excluded from decisions that are particularly pervasive, coercively enforced, (...) hard to avoid, monopolistic, and final. Second, they are constitutive of social equality due to their positional value, such that those who are denied such liberties are socially downgraded because and to the extent that others enjoy them. Third, they are constitutive of social equality due to their expressive value, in the sense that, by disenfranchising some individuals, the state publicly fails to recognize their equal moral agency. While unpacking these reasons, we address some criticisms of this constitutive link recently raised by Steven Wall and Jason Brennan. (shrink)

This is the BJPS Short Read version of the article When Fields Are Not Degrees of Freedom. In our article, Vera Hartenstein and I show that the world of classical electromagnetism might differ radically from the one we see in physics textbooks and experience day-to-day. First, light may not exist; second, the laws of electromagnetism are either incomplete or completely different; and, third, the mathematics needed to make exact calculations with these novel laws is in early development and not part (...) of the general mathematics curriculum at colleges and universities. (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)

Are norms of inquiry in tension with epistemic norms? I provide a (largely) negative answer, turning to a picture of epistemic practices as rule-governed games. The idea is that, while epistemic norms are correctness standards for the attitudes involved in epistemic games, norms of inquiry derive from the aims of those games. Attitudes that, despite being epistemically correct, are inadvisable regarding the goals of some inquiry are just like bad (but legal) moves in basketball or chess. I further consider cases (...) in which the aims of inquiry recommend breaking epistemic norms. I compare them to strategic infractions, which are common in many coherent games. Finally, I explore the connections between rules and aims in games and in inquiry. I show that in both cases respecting the rules is constitutively required for satisfying the aims of the practice. (shrink)

Workplace democracy is often advocated on two intertwined views. The first is that the authority relation of employee to firm is akin to that of subject to state, such that reasons favoring democracy in the state may likewise apply to the firm. The second is that, when democratic controls are absent in the workplace, employees are liable to objectionable forms of subordination by their bosses, who may then issue arbitrary directives on matters ranging from pay to the allocation of overtime (...) and to relocation and promotion. Daniel Jacob and Christian Neuhäuser have recently submitted these views to careful criticism. They argue that the parallel between firms and states is unwarranted. For, unlike managerial authority, state authority is final. The state grants firms their legal status and subjects their authority to its regulations, which citizens in democracies already control. And they also argue that suitable workplace regulation alongside meaningful exit options may suffice to prevent, with no need for democratization, objectionable forms of workplace subjection. Neither view offers, they resolve, compelling reasons to believe that justice requires that firms be democratic. I here inspect these criticisms in turn, and offer reasons for skepticism. (shrink)

Workplace democracy is often defined, and has recently been defended, as a form of intra-firm governance in which workers have control rights over management with no ownership requirement on their part. Using the normative tools of republican political theory, the paper examines bargaining power disparities and moral hazard problems resulting from the allocation of control rights and ownership to different groups within democratic firms, with a particular reference to the European codetermination system. With various qualifications related to potentially mitigating factors, (...) such as workforce and shareholder composition or risk aversion and reallocation, the paper contends that forms of workplace democracy in which workers control and own the firm, such as cooperativism, are preferable to other forms, such as codetermination, in which ownership and control rights are formally separated. (shrink)

Human eggs for basic, fertility and stem-cell research are in short supply. Many experiments that require their use cannot be carried out at present, and, therefore, the benefits that could emerge from these are either delayed or never materialise. This state of affairs is problematic for scientists and patients worldwide, and it is a matter that needs our attention. Recent advances in chimera research have opened the possibility of creating human/non-human animal chimeras intended for human gamete production (chimeras-IHGP). In this (...) paper, I examine four arguments against the creation of such chimeras and prove that all of them are found wanting. I conclude by showing that there is a strong moral reason for scientists to pursue this research avenue. (shrink)

Our goal in this paper is to articulate a precise concept of at least a certain kind of disease-mongering, showing how pharmaceutical marketing can commercially exploit certain diseases when their best definition is given through the success of a treatment in a clinical trial. We distinguish two types of disease-mongering according to the way they exploit the definition of the trial population for marketing purposes. We argue that behind these two forms of disease-mongering there are two well-known problems in the (...) statistical methodology of clinical trials (the reference class problem and the distinction between statistical and clinical significance). Overcoming them is far from simple. (shrink)

En este artículo argumento que, pese al llamado “escepticismo cartesiano”, el significado y alcance de la refutación cartesiana del escéptico y del ateo pueden comprenderse a la luz de tres hitos metafísicos. En la primera sección examino de qué forma este filósofo emplea argumentos escépticos como método, no como fin. Tal como enfatizo, el cogito es el punto en que la duda hiperbólica debe detenerse. Luego, en la segunda sección, discuto por qué Descartes es contrario al fideísmo. Debido a que (...) este se relaciona con el escepticismo, y con la imposibilidad de probar la existencia de Dios, Descartes prueba que Él existe. Sostengo, en la sección final, que Dios es garante de la certeza epistemológica, incluso en el caso de las ideas claras y distintas, cuya confiabilidad pareciera en peligro debido a la hipótesis escéptica del genio maligno. Según el francés, entonces, probar que Dios existe es necesario para garantizar el conocimiento cierto, y es base para inferir la existencia del mundo externo. Los tres hitos, entonces, parecen suficientes para delimitar el sentido y alcance del llamado escepticismo cartesiano. (shrink)

The paper makes a twofold contribution. Firstly, it advances a preliminary account of the conditions that need to obtain for constitutional rights to be democratic. Secondly, in so doing, it defends precommitment-based theories from a criticism raised by Jeremy Waldron—namely, that constitutional rights do not become any more democratic when they are democratically adopted, for the people could adopt undemocratic policies without such policies becoming democratic as a result. The paper shows that the reductio applies to political rights, yet not (...) to non-political rights, such as reproductive, environmental, or privacy rights. The democratic status of the former is process-independent. The latter, by contrast, are democratic precisely when they are adopted by democratic means. (shrink)

It is widely held that there is a distinctive norm of assertion. A plausible idea is that there is an analogous, perhaps weaker, norm for indirect communication via implicatures. I argue against this type of proposal. My claim is that the norm of assertion is a social norm governing public updates to the conversational record. Off the record implicatures are not subject to social norms of this type. I grant that, as happens in general with intentional actions, off the record (...) communicative acts may be subject to normative assessments on different levels (for instance, regarding their moral or prudential appropriateness). However, such assessments do not generate distinctive norms that apply to all cases of implicature. (shrink)

Some Comments on de Melo-Martin and Harris.

This article proposes a teleological ethical approach for the analysis of the conflict between the right to the city and the right to tourism. Unlike the understanding of this conflict through a deontological lens, which is based on universal and unconditioned moral duties, a teleological perspective allows us to observe much more underlying and intricate problems that can arise in any cultural and socio-historical context of each tourist city. By taking the teleological model of the philosopher Alasdair MacIntyre as a (...) starting point, the article suggests the basis of a framework for an ethical understanding of the complexity of teleological conflicts that can appear in the pursuit of situated internal goods —sought cooperatively— and external goods —sought competitively— within and between social practices related to both rights. (shrink)

Self-employment merits protection and promotion, we often hear, because it confers independence from a boss. But what, if anything, is wrong with having a boss? On one of the two views that this chapter inspects, being under the power of a boss is objectionable as such, no matter how suitably checked this power may be, for it undermines workers’ agency. On a second view, which republican theorists favor, what is objectionable is subjection not to the power of a boss as (...) such but to their arbitrary power. The first view is unconvincing, I argue, as it entails (implausibly) that being under the power of others in realms like the family or the state is likewise objectionable as such. And although the second view yields compelling reasons for self-employment, it only does so when employers’ power is not suitably checked. When it is, such reasons are more easily outweighed by competing considerations, like those stemming from the further forms of dependence—on suppliers and purchasers—that self-employment may prompt. (shrink)

El Realismo Especulativo, Nuevo Realismo o Realismo Postcontinental es una corriente ecléctica que viene a superar las aporías e insuficiencias de la filosofía continental desde una perspectiva a la que se le podrían achacar los mismos problemas que la perspectiva idealista y constructivista de los filósofos continentales. Para el desarrollo de la filosofía es importante entablar conversación los autores de este movimiento. En el presente artículo se presenta una aproximación a los aciertos e insuficiencias de las ontologías de dos autores (...) de la corriente como son Markus Gabriel y Graham Harman. Se presentan los aciertos e insuficiencias del realismo neutro de Markus Gabriel y de la Ontología Orientada a los Objetos, en este orden. En el último epígrafe, a modo de conclusiones, se señalan los puntos en común de las ontologías y se aporta la idea de acontecimiento como línea de investigación que supere las aporías que emergen de la contraposición entre el idealismo y realismo. (shrink)

Abstract Background The first live birth following the use of a new reproductive technique, maternal spindle transfer (MST), which is a mitochondrial replacement technique (MRT), was accomplished by dividing the execution of the MST procedure between two countries, the USA and Mexico. This was done in order to avoid US legal restrictions on this technique. -/- Sources of data Academic articles, news articles, documents obtained through freedom of information requests, laws, regulations and national reports. -/- Areas of agreement MRTs are (...) new reproductive techniques that present novel ethical and legal challenges, since genetic material from three people is employed to create a child. -/- Areas of controversy Could the first MST procedure that culminated in a live birth negatively impact reproductive medicine in Mexico? -/- Growing points The USA and Mexico need specific and clear legislation on MRTs, in order for such techniques not to be governed by prior existing legislation on assisted reproduction that is inadequate for dealing with the new challenges that these techniques present. -/- Areas timely for developing research There is a pressing need for work to be done on the international governance of new reproductive techniques. (shrink)

In 2015 the United Kingdom (UK) became the first nation to legalize egg and zygotic nuclear transfer procedures using mitochondrial replacement techniques (MRTs) to prevent the maternal transmission of serious mitochondrial DNA diseases to offspring. These techniques are a form of human germline genetic modification and can happen intentionally if female embryos are selected during the MRT clinical process, either through sperm selection or preimplantation genetic diagnosis (PGD). In the same year, an MRT was performed by a United States (U.S.)-based (...) physician team. This experiment involved a cross-border effort: the MRT procedure per se was carried out in the US, and the embryo transfer in Mexico. The authors examine the ethics of MRTs from the standpoint of genetic relatedness and gender implications, in places that lack adequate laws and regulation regarding assisted reproduction. Then, we briefly examine whether MRTs can be justified as a reproductive option in the US and Mexico, after reassessing their legalization in the UK. We contend that morally inadequate and ineffective regulations regarding egg donation, PGD, and germline genetic modifications jeopardize the ethical acceptability of the implementation of MRTs, suggesting that MRTs are currently difficult to justify in the US and Mexico. In addition to relevant regulation, the initiation and appropriate use of MRTs in a country require a child-centered follow-up policy and more evidence for its safety. (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)

Seen from the point of view of evaluation conditions, a usual way to obtain a connexive logic is to take a well-known negation, for example, Boolean negation or de Morgan negation, and then assign special properties to the conditional to validate Aristotle’s and Boethius’ Theses. Nonetheless, another theoretical possibility is to have the extensional or the material conditional and then assign special properties to the negation to validate the theses. In this paper we examine that possibility, not sufficiently explored in (...) the connexive literature yet.We offer a characterization of connexive negation disentangled from the cancellation account of negation, a previous attempt to define connexivity on top of a distinctive negation. We also discuss an ancient view on connexive logics, according to which a valid implication is one where the negation of the consequent is incompatible with the antecedent, and discuss the role of our idea of connexive negation for this kind of view. (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)

This paper is divided into three sections. It aims to give some resources for making possible a straightforward debate on the mind-body problem as well as some serious researches in it. Having these goals into account, the first section offers an introduction to the mind-body problem and the second section explains briefly some of the most influential answers to this problem. The third section is devoted to eliminative materialism.

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.

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.

This article deals with the most relevant philosophical side of Albert the Great’s analysis of alchemy, aimed at clarifying what alchemical transmutation consists in and whether this process can ultimately be accomplished by men. The Dominican master handles the problem differently in the earlier commentary on Lombardus’ Libri Sententiarum and in works like the De mineralibus, in which a more mature idea of the connection between art and nature is developed. In this respect, Albert’s interpretation intersects with Avicenna’s De congelatione, (...) a fundamental text for the Latin medieval debate on alchemy, whose reception has shaped his understanding of the alchemical art. The Dominican master gradually assumes a more lenient position towards the claims of the alchemical process of transmutation, which he explains by resorting to the similitudes between alchemy and medicine and the comparison of artificial transmutation with natural processes such as the generatio ex putrefactione and the natural formation of minerals. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to analyze time-asymmetric quantum mechanics with respect to the problems of irreversibility and of time's arrow. We begin with arguing that both problems are conceptually different. Then, we show that, contrary to a common opinion, the theory's ability to describe irreversible quantum processes is not a consequence of the semigroup evolution laws expressing the non-time-reversal invariance of the theory. Finally, we argue that time-asymmetric quantum mechanics, either in Prigogine's version or in Bohm's version, does (...) not solve the problem of the arrow of time because it does not supply a substantial and theoretically founded criterion for distinguishing between the two directions of time. (shrink)

This paper aims to contribute to the existing literature on normative cognition by providing a lineage explanation of human social norm psychology. This approach builds upon theories of goal-directed behavioral control in the reinforcement learning and control literature, arguing that this form of control defines an important class of intentional normative mental states that are instrumental in nature. I defend the view that great ape capacities for instrumental reasoning and our capacity (or family of capacities) for shared intentionality coadapted to (...) each other and argue that the evolution of this capacity has allowed the representation of social norms and the emergence of our capacity for normative guidance. (shrink)

This paper explores some aspects of the scientific study of creativity by focusing on intentional attempts to create instances of linguistic humour. We argue that this sort of creativity can be accounted for within an influential cognitive approach but that said framework is not a recipe for producing novel instances of humour and may even preclude them. We start by identifying three great puzzles that arise when trying to pin down the core traits of creativity, and some of the ways (...) taken by Cognitive Studies in this quest. We then consider what we call 'creative humour', which exhibits the core features of the aforesaid creativity. We then explore how a key cognitive approach to human communication can account for creative humour. We end by drawing lessons and highlighting limitations to cognitive approaches to creativity. (shrink)

This paper examines an insoluble Cartesian problem for classical AI, namely, how linguistic understanding involves knowledge and awareness of u’s meaning, a cognitive process that is irreducible to algorithms. As analyzed, Descartes’ view about reason and intelligence has paradoxically encouraged certain classical AI researchers to suppose that linguistic understanding suffices for machine intelligence. Several advocates of the Turing Test, for example, assume that linguistic understanding only comprises computational processes which can be recursively decomposed into algorithmic mechanisms. Against this background, in (...) the first section, I explain Descartes’ view about language and mind. To show that Turing bites the bullet with his imitation game, in the second section I analyze this method to assess intelligence. Then, in the third section, I elaborate on Schank and Abelsons’ Script Applier Mechanism (SAM, hereby), which supposedly casts doubt on Descartes’ denial that machines can think. Finally, in the fourth section, I explore a challenge that any algorithmic decomposition of linguistic understanding faces. This challenge, I argue, is the core of the Cartesian problem: knowledge and awareness of meaning require a first-person viewpoint which is irreducible to the decomposition of algorithmic mechanisms. (shrink)

Se explora cómo la ciencia ciudadana promueve una mejora epistémica tanto en las instituciones científicas como en la sociedad a gran escala. En este sentido, se ofrece una caracterización de la ciencia ciudadana y a partir de ella se muestra cómo la participación de no especialistas contribuye al fortalecimiento epistémico a través de la pluralidad. Además, se examina cómo la inclusión de miembros de la sociedad en la investigación científica es capaz de promover la mejora epistémica de individuos mediante la (...) formación de pensadores críticos. Las conclusiones indican que la ciencia ciudadana puede optimizar estos dos tipos de mejora epistémica por medio del diseño de proyectos que, aunado a la persecución de objetivos propiamente científicos, se dirijan a la obtención de estos bienes. (shrink)