This article aims to review the standard objections to dualism and to argue that will either fail to convince someone committed to dualism or are flawed on independent grounds. I begin by presenting the taxonomy of metaphysical positions on concrete particulars as they relate to the dispute between materialists and dualists, and in particular substance dualism is defined. In the first section, several kinds of substance dualism are distinguished and the relevant varieties of this kind of dualism are selected. The (...) remaining sections are analyses of the standard objections to substance dualism : It is uninformative, has troubles accounting for soul individuation, causal pairing and interaction, violates laws of physics, is made implausible by the development of neuroscience and it postulates entities beyond necessity. I conclude that none of these objections is successful. (shrink)

The COVID-19 pandemic has brought significant challenges to healthcare systems worldwide, and in Africa, given the lack of resources, they are likely to be even more acute. The usefulness of Traditional African Healers in helping to mitigate the effects of pandemic has been neglected. We argue from an ethical perspective that these healers can and should have an important role in informing and guiding local communities in Africa on how to prevent the spread of COVID-19. Particularly, we argue not only (...) that much of the philosophy underlying Traditional African Medicine is adequate and compatible with preventive measures for COVID-19, but also that Traditional African Healers have some unique cultural capital for influencing and enforcing such preventive measures. The paper therefore suggests that not only given the cultural context of Africa where Traditional African Healers have a special role, but also because of the normative strength of the Afro-communitarian philosophy that informs it, there are good ethical reasons to endorse policies that involve Traditional Healers in the fight against COVID-19. We also maintain that concerns about Traditional African Healers objectionably violating patient confidentiality or being paternalistic are much weaker in the face of COVID-19. (shrink)

Each scientific study emerges in its own particular time and marks a new step in the development of human thought.1 Big History materialized to satisfy the human need for a unified vision of our existence. It came together in the waning decades of the twentieth century, in part, as a reaction to the specialization of scholarship and education that had taken hold around the world. While this specialization had great results, it created barriers that stood in contrast to a growing (...) unity among our global communities. These barriers were increasingly awkward to bridge, and, thus, Big History emerged as a successful new framework. (shrink)

In this paper, we present a formalism for handling polysemy in spatial expressions based on supervaluation semantics called standpoint semantics for polysemy (SSP). The goal of this formalism is, given a prepositional phrase, to define its possible spatial interpretations. For this, we propose to characterize spatial prepositions by means of a triplet ⟨ image schema, semantic feature, spatial axis⟩⁠. The core of SSP is predicate grounding theories, which are formulas of a first-order language that define a spatial preposition through the (...) semantic features of its trajector and landmark. Precisifications are also established, which are a set of formulae of a qualitative spatial reasoning formalism that aims to provide the spatial characterization of the trajector with respect to the landmark. In addition to the theoretical model, we also present results of a computational implementation of SSP for the preposition ‘in’. (shrink)

Resumo: No livro When is Knowledge True Belief? (2012), Richard Foley apresenta uma teoria do conhecimento bastante simples e original, que pretende desbancar as rivais e reorientar a teoria do conhecimento: um sujeito S sabe alguma proposição p se e somente se S verdadeiramente crê que p e não lhe falta nenhuma informação importante. Michael Hannon, em seu artigo “Is Knowledge True Belief Plus Adequate Information?” (2013), faz uma objeção à visão de Foley, acusando-o de oferecer um argumento circular que, (...) ao não diferenciar informação importante de informação não importante, acaba, em última instância, por fazer referência à própria noção de conhecimento. Acredito que a teoria apresentada por Foley está no caminho certo; porém, apresenta- se de forma incompleta. Neste artigo, apresento uma interpretação subjetivista de relevância epistêmica, proposta originalmente por Floridi, que complementa a visão proposta por Foley e rechaça as objeções levantadas por Hannon. Palavras-chave: Conhecimento. Informação. Relevância. -/- Abstract: In When is Knowledge True Belief? (2012), Richard Foley offers an original and extraordinarily simple theory of knowledge which intends to overcome its rivals and reorient the theory of knowledge: a subject S knows some proposition p if and only if S truly believes that p and does not lack any important information. Michael Hannon, in his article “Is True Belief Knowledge Plus Adequate Information?” (2013), puts forward an objection to Foley’s view which charges him of offering a circular argument that fails to distinguish important information from unimportant information without ultimately making reference to knowledge. I believe the theory presented by Foley is on the right . (shrink)

Resumo: Neste texto, introduzo algumas questões importantes que fazem parte do debate sobre infiltração pragmática. Além de apresentar e problematizar as principais alegações oferecidas pelos proponentes da infiltração pragmática eu irei contrasta-la com algumas teses mais tradicionais, como a Tese Tradicional sobre o Conhecimento e o Contextualismo Epistêmico. Por fim, apresento uma crítica aos proponentes da infiltração pragmática que parece ainda não ter sido tratada. Concluo que embora controversa, tal tese está longe de ser refutada completamente. Palavras-chave: Conhecimento; Contexto; Justificação; (...) Padrões; Infiltração prática. -/- Abstract: In this paper I introduce some central aspects concerning the debate on pragmatic encroachment. After introducing and discussing the main arguments offered by the pragmatic encroachers advocates I will contrast it with more traditional theses such as the Traditional Analysis of Knowledge and Epistemic Contextualism. Finally, I present an objection to the pragmatic encroachment approach that haven't been treated yet. I conclude that despite its difficulties, the pragmatic encroachment view is far from being refuted. Keywords: Knowledge; Context; Justification; Standards; Pragmatic encroachment. (shrink)

Resumo Embora controversa, o contextualismo epistêmico alega oferecer a melhor explicação para alguns fenômenos analisados em epistemologia contemporânea, por exemplo: alega responder ou explicar o apelo de certos paradoxos e, ao mesmo tempo, manter a verdade de nossas alegações ordinárias de conhecimento. Conforme alegado por contextualistas, a vantagem de sua teoria ao explicar o apelo de certos paradoxos reside no fato de que nenhum princípio lógico precisa ser rejeitado. O paradoxo do prefácio – que consiste na aparente incoerência lógica que (...) ocorre quando o autor de um livro declara em seu prefácio que, apesar de acreditar que é altamente provável que tudo o que o livro afirma seja verdadeiro, também é altamente provável que o livro contenha, pelo menos, algum erro – parece não ter sido explorado o suficiente pelos contextualistas. Portanto, pretendemos sugerir uma versão do paradoxo do prefácio apresentando um argumento análogo ao argumento que os contextualistas costumam apresentar para explicar o paradoxo cético. Desta maneira, pretendemos oferecer, por meio de uma análise contextualista, uma explicação para o paradoxo do prefácio. Se a resposta contextualista é ou não adequada para esse paradoxo, isso será questão de disputa e não nos caberá discuti-la aqui. Meu objetivo é apenas sugerir que uma análise contextualista semelhante à aplicada ao paradoxo cético pode ser construída para explicar o paradoxo do prefácio. Palavras-chave: Contextualismo; Paradoxo do prefácio; Paradoxo cético. (shrink)

Objective of the study: To analyze the costs and profits of sugarcane production regarding the cultural practices of sugarcane suppliers. Methodology/approach: This study positions itself in this gap by comparatively analyzing 6 types of cultural practices: unraveling, windrowing, application of correctives, herbicides, insecticides and fertilizers, with the option of two systems Fixed rate (TF) and Variable rate (TV). Originality/Relevance: Brazil is a world reference in sugarcane production, with the State of São Paulo being the largest Brazilian producer. However, for sugarcane (...) suppliers to maintain this activity there is a need to reduce production costs and increase profitability/ha. However, there is a theoretical-practical gap in the financial assessment (costs and profits) of different cultural practices inherent to sugarcane production. Main results: The results demonstrated that the costs of cultural practices represent more than 30% of the total sugarcane production costs. The TF system proved to be more cost-efficient in the following operations: correctives, herbicides and insecticides. In the application of fertilizers, the TV system, in broadcast mode, had the best result. Finally, the profit/ton was R$1.70, demonstrating a very low profit margin/ha given the risk of the activity. Theoretical/methodological contributions: The sample for this research comprised 55 sugarcane suppliers from the State of São Paulo, whose data were obtained through a survey. The comparative analysis was based on the difference in costs of cultural practices and the estimation of the level of certainty (profit/costs), analyzed through the cumulative frequency carried out through the Monte Carlo Simulation (SMC). (shrink)

In his Lectures on Fine Art (1835), Hegel emphasizes the grotesque character of Indian art. Grotesqueness results, in his view, from a contradiction between meaning and shape due to the incongruous combination of spiritual and material elements. Since Hegel's history of art is teeming with examples of inadequacy between meaning and shape, this paper aims to distinguish the grotesque from other types of artistic dissonance and to problematize Hegel's ascriptions of grotesqueness to ancient Indian art. In the first part of (...) the paper, I characterize the grotesque by the unnatural distortion of natural shapes with the purpose of achieving a direct sensuous manifestation of an indeterminate and impersonal divinity, Brahman. Such an attempt is, in Hegel's view, self-contradictory and self-defeating, leading to an exaggeration of the conflict between nature and spirit instead of the intended reconciliation between the two parts. In the second part of the paper, I compare Hegel's account of Indian art to the ‘monstrous myths’ of early modern Europe. Unlike his predecessors, Hegel legitimizes the grotesque representations of Hindu gods as endowed with profound meaning and the result of a universal human need, yet he describes them as ultimately irrational and repulsive based on a prejudiced view of the Indian people(s). In this sense, Hegel's assessment of Indian art functions as a reflection of modern European culture, its fascination and horror in the face of what Enlightenment could not entirely purge, rather than as a truthful and objective account of Indian art and culture. By questioning Hegel's characterization of Hindu iconography and mythology, this paper contributes to underexplored areas of Hegelian aesthetics, namely Hegel's account of symbolic art, especially Indian art, as well as his views on negative aesthetic experiences and values. (shrink)

Para solucionar a questão “sobre o que há” levantada por Quine, e realizar a tarefa de compreender de forma exauriente as muitas unidades ontológicas que povoam a grande província do Ser, propomos como alternativa à ontologia punteliana, uma nova ontologia designada de “Ontologia Estrutural” (OE). Tal ontologia parte de bases teóricas sistemático-estruturais, mas desemboca em uma visão diversa em que co-subsistem unidades factuais estruturadas, configurações estruturais (dinâmicas), bem como unidades ontológicas aparentes (objetos), todas englobadas pela subdimensão temporal que as interconexiona, (...) compreendida esta como uma subdimensão (interna) da macrodimensão do Ser. Nesse sentido, começamos situando a temática ontológica na discussão filosófica atual a partir de uma chave quineana; prosseguimos apresentando um conceito de verdade derivado de nossa leitura da filosofia punteliana, o qual constituirá o ponto de ligação entre linguagem e mundo. Na sequência, mostramos como do conceito de verdade trazido à lume, após uma breve incursão na semântica filosófica, chegamos ao campo ontológico a partir das categorias ontológicas de estrutura e estado ontológico. Ao final, delineamos, em seus caracteres gerais, a nossa ontologia estrutural, compreensiva de noções ontológicas próprias que dão novos rumos à compreensão filosófica desta grande temática. (shrink)

Entende-se que os experimentos mentais são dispositivos da imaginação que podem nos fornecer crenças que constituem conhecimento. John D. Norton apresentou uma abordagem que se tornou influente para explicar como os experimentos mentais científicos podem produzir novos conhecimentos so- bre o mundo. Ele afirma que não há nada distintivo nos experimentos men- tais, uma vez que sustenta que eles funcionam exatamente como argumen- tos. Neste artigo, contestamos sua abordagem. Examinamos aspectos essen- ciais de sua abordagem, que envolvem as noções de (...) “argumento” e “inferên- cia” para mostrar que um sujeito que chega a saber algo através da execução ou condução de um experimento mental dificilmente será considerado como tendo efetivamente executado um argumento ou um processo de raciocínio inferencial. (shrink)

n the first part of the paper I will present Pritchard’s approach to Wittgenstein’s notion of hinge commitments, which is essential to his solution to the closure-based sceptical arguments. And, in the second par of the paper, I will raise some concerns that I have regarding Pritchard’s non-belief reading of the hinge commitments. In the third and final part, I make some concluding remarks regarding Pritchard’s overall strategy to solve the closure-based sceptical paradox.

Psychiatric research is in crisis because of repeated failures to discover new drugs for mental disorders. Lack of measurement validity could partly account for these failures. If researchers do not actually measure the effects of drugs on the disorders they aim to investigate, one should expect suboptimal treatment outcomes. I argue that this is the case, focusing on depression, and fear & anxiety disorders. In doing so, I show how psychiatric research illustrates a more general phenomenon that I call “validity (...) drift.” A validity drift occurs when, in the course of developing new measurement procedures, researchers end up studying something different from what they originally aimed to study. I analyze the different ways in which scientists attempt to validate procedures for measuring mental disorders for the purpose of testing drugs in animal models. I show how those validation efforts might fail, thereby leading to validity drifts. Overall, this analysis highlights the complex interplay between the development of new measurement procedures, their calibration, and scientific theories of the target phenomena. (shrink)

There is a tendency to take mounted dinosaur skeletons at face value, as the raw data on which the science of paleontology is founded. But the truth is that mounted dinosaur skeletons are substantially intention-dependent—they are artifacts. More importantly, I argue, they are also substantially imagination-dependent: their production is substantially causally reliant on preparators’ creative imaginations, and their proper reception is predicated on audiences’ recreative imaginations. My main goal here is to show that dinosaur skeletal mounts are plausible candidates for (...) art-status. But, what is more, I think they are artworks—specifically, sculptures. (shrink)

This piece replies to a recently published article in the European Journal for Philosophy of Religion by J. L. Schellenberg and Paul Draper. They contend that the field of African philosophy of religion needs renewal, and they make several recommendations on how to achieve this. I agree with their recommendations, but I argue they have omitted a crucial problem and solution to renew the field; namely, a fundamental problem of the field is that it systemically excludes non-Western philosophies and scholars (...) and, therefore, the field needs to be decolonised. (shrink)

I present a puzzle about inquiry and discuss two potential solutions. The puzzle stems from two equally compelling sets of data suggesting that, on the one hand, there’s something epistemically defective with inquiring into questions that don’t have true answers. On the other hand, however, there can be scenarios in which we are epistemically permitted to inquire into questions that don’t have true answers. How is it that inquiries into questions that don’t have true answers can both be defective and (...) permissible from an epistemic point of view? The first solution I consider maintains that inquiries into questions that don’t have true answers are always impermissible but can be excusable. The second solution maintains that inquiries into questions that don’t have true answers are bad inquiries that can be conducted by inquirers we can legitimately trust. I argue against the former and in favor of the latter. (shrink)

In this paper we present a philosophical motivation for the logics of formal inconsistency, a family of paraconsistent logics whose distinctive feature is that of having resources for expressing the notion of consistency within the object language in such a way that consistency may be logically independent of non-contradiction. We defend the view according to which logics of formal inconsistency may be interpreted as theories of logical consequence of an epistemological character. We also argue that in order to philosophically justify (...) paraconsistency there is no need to endorse dialetheism, the thesis that there are true contradictions. Furthermore, we show that mbC, a logic of formal inconsistency based on classical logic, may be enhanced in order to express the basic ideas of an intuitive interpretation of contradictions as conflicting evidence. (shrink)

There are scenarios in which letting one’s own views on the question whether p direct one’s inquiry into that question brings about individual and collective epistemic benefits. However, these scenarios are also such that one’s evidence doesn’t support believing one’s own views. So, how to vindicate the epistemic benefits of directing one’s inquiry in such an asymmetric way, without asking one to hold a seemingly irrational doxastic attitude? To answer this question, the paper understands asymmetric inquiry direction in terms of (...) having one’s inquiry be guided by a doxastic attitude, which I call hypothesis, that’s governed by the following norm: One’s hypothesis that p is rational just in case it is a manifestation of the best feasible way to form a doxastic attitude regarding p that promotes the best feasible ways to advance towards settling the question of p’s (or of any other suitably related proposition’s) truth-value. (shrink)

As part of recent epistemic challenges to democracy, some have endorsed the implementation of epistemic constraints on voting, institutional mechanisms that bar incompetent voters from participating in public decision-making procedures. This proposal is often considered incompatible with a commitment to political equality. In this paper, I aim to dispute the strength of this latter claim by offering a theoretical justification for epistemic constraints on voting that does not rest on antiegalitarian commitments. Call this the civic accountability justification for epistemic constraints (...) on voting. On this view, voters stand to one another in a normative relation of reciprocal accountability that requires them to uphold an epistemically responsible conduct. Modest epistemic constraints on voting are justifiable because they secure that participation in voting is conforming to this normative requirement. Thanks to its distinctive features, the civic accountability justification can overcome two problems that egalitarians commonly associate with the idea of epistemic constraints on voting: the disrespect problem and the hierarchy problem. (shrink)

Francis Sparshott introduced the term ‘remote art’ in his 1982 presidential address to the American Society for Aesthetics. The concept has not drawn much notice since—although individual remote arts, such as palaeolithic art and the artistic practices of subaltern cultures, have enjoyed their fair share of attention from aestheticians. This paper explores what unites some artistic practices under the banner of remote art, arguing that remoteness is primarily a matter of some audience’s epistemic distance from a work’s context of creation. (...) I introduce palaeoart—the depiction of extinct prehistoric fauna and flora, especially from the Mesozoic—as a paradigmatic case of remote art, showing that its remoteness is secured both by the deceptively rich cognitive load required for its creation and appreciation, and by its existence at the margins of the institutional artworld, which ensures that this cognitive loading is largely obscured. Too often, remote art is not just inscrutable, it is invisible to us. (shrink)

Emotion terms such as “sad”, “happy” and “joyful” apply to a wide range of entities. We use them to refer to mental states of sentient beings, and also to describe features of non-mental things such as comportment, nature, events, artworks and so on. Drawing on the literature on polysemy, this paper provides an in-depth analysis of emotion descriptions. It argues that emotion terms are polysemous and distinguishes seven related senses. In addition, the paper applies the analysis to shed light on (...) a long-standing debate in philosophy of music concerning emotion descriptions of music. (shrink)

The diversity in agronomic practices being used by sugarcane producers in Brazil determines differences in economic performance and cost structure. The purpose of this study is to evaluate the cost of six systems of agronomic practices using fixed or variable rates for soil amendment, fertilizer, and defensive applications and assess the profitability of these systems at three scales of sugarcane production. We then describe the data sample related to the 2019–2020 harvest season and collected from fifty-five sugarcane producers in the (...) central-south region of Brazil. Thereafter, using a quantitative approach, a cost analysis was performed, and the cumulative frequency of the net revenue for the three scales of production (small, medium, and large), was calculated using a Monte Carlo simulation. The cost analysis indicated that fertilizer had the highest cost considering the agronomic practices adopted at the three scales of production analyzed. The cumulative frequency analysis results from the Monte Carlo simulation showed the highest net revenue per hectare for medium sugarcane producers. In addition, the presence of economies of scale was not confirmed because the lowest cost was found in small-scale sugarcane producers and the highest net revenue was obtained by medium-scale sugarcane producers. (shrink)

It has recently been argued that metal’s ‘heaviness’ is conceptually inarticulable. I argue, on the contrary, that ‘heaviness’ is a matter of inaccessibility—the ‘something more’ that makes metal ‘heavy’ is actually something less: less auditory processing fluency. Like profound literature, metal resists, but also invites and rewards, interpretation. I argue that understanding ‘heaviness’ in terms of auditory processing fluency allows us to make sense of a number of otherwise puzzling features of the music, and to articulate a unifying gestalt for (...) the genre. (shrink)

Background: Despite being often taken as the benchmark of quality for diagnostic and classificatory tools, 'validity' is admitted as a poorly worked out notion in psychiatric nosology. Objective: Here we aim at presenting a view that we believe to do better justice to the significance of the notion of validity, as well as at explaining away some misconceptions and inappropriate expectations regarding this attribute in the aforementioned context. Method: The notion of validity is addressed taking into account its role, the (...) framework according to which it should be assessed and the specific contents to which it refers within psychiatric nosology. Results and Conclusions: The notion of validity has an epistemological thrust and its foremost role is distinguishing correct reasoning and truth from what is irrational or false. From it follows not only that 'validity' always refers to elements of knowledge and rationality such as arguments, inferences and propositions, but also that the appropriate frameworks to assess 'validity' are logics and scientific methodology. When the validity of a psychiatric diagnostic category is at stake, the contents to which it refers are those relevantly related to the notion of 'diagnostic concept'. The consequences of our reading on the notion of 'validity' are discussed vis-à-vis the challenges faced by psychiatric nosology in order to have its diagnostic categories validated. (shrink)

Tradition has it that first-person thought is somehow special. It is also commonplace to maintain that the first-person concept obeys a rule of reference to the effect that any token first-person thought is about the thinker of that thought. Following Annalisa Coliva and, more recently, Santiago Echeverri, I take the specialness claim to be the claim that thinking a first-person thought comes with a certain guarantee of its pattern of reference. Echeverri maintains that such a guarantee is explained by a (...) fairly flatfooted interpretation of the thinker-reflexive rule. I argue, however, that the explanatory aspirations of the thinker-reflexive rule are fulfilled only if we accept an epistemically loaded gloss on the notion of a thinker of a thought featuring the rule. That gloss is unpacked in terms of the subject’s ability to be acquainted with the phenomenal character of their thoughts. (shrink)

: To address the question “on what there is” raised by Quine, and to accomplish the task of comprehending exhaustively the many ontological units that populate the great province of Being, we propose as an alternative to Puntel’s ontology a new ontology designated as “Structural Ontology” (SO). Such ontology is based on systematic-structural theoretical foundations, but leads to a diverse view in which structured factual units, structural configurations (dynamics), as well as apparent ontological units (objects), all encompassed by the temporal (...) sub-dimension that interconnects them, understood as an internal sub-dimension of the macro-dimension of Being, co-subsist. In this sense, we begin by situating the ontological theme in current philosophical discussion from a Quinean perspective. We then present a concept of truth derived from our reading of puntelian philosophy, which will be the point of connection between language and the world. Subsequently, we show how from the concept of truth, after a brief foray into philosophical semantics, we arrive at the ontological field from the ontological categories of structure and ontological state. Finally, we outline, in its general features, our structural ontology, which includes its own ontological notions that give new directions to philosophical understanding of this great theme. (shrink)

Studying consciousness requires contrasting conscious and unconscious perception. While many studies have reported unconscious perceptual effects, recent work has questioned whether such effects are genuinely unconscious, or whether they are due to weak conscious perception. Some philosophers and psychologists have reacted by denying that there is such a thing as unconscious perception, or by holding that unconscious perception has been previously overestimated. This article has two parts. In the first part, I argue that the most significant attack on unconscious perception (...) commits the criterion content fallacy: the fallacy of interpreting evidence that observers were conscious of something as evidence that they were conscious of the task-relevant features of the stimuli. In the second part, I contend that the criterion content fallacy is prevalent in consciousness research. For this reason, I hold that if unconscious perception exists, scientists studying consciousness could routinely underestimate it. I conclude with methodological recommendations for moving the debate forward. (shrink)

In this paper I take up the question of the nature of the doxastic attitudes we entertain while inquiring into some matter. Relying on a distinction between two stages of open inquiry, I urge to acknowledge the existence of a distinctive attitude of cognitive inclination towards a proposition qua answer to the question one is inquiring into. I call this attitude “hypothesis”. Hypothesis, I argue, is a sui generis doxastic attitude which differs, both functionally and normatively, from suspended judgement, full (...) belief, credences, and acceptance. In closing, I point to the epistemological significance of hypothesis. More specifically, I contend that holding an attitude of hypothesis enables us to respond rationally to peer disagreement, and I suggest that such an attitude offers a suitable articulation of the view, originally put forward by Philip Kitcher, that cognitive diversity in inquiry has epistemic benefits. (shrink)

Como área interdisciplinar, as Ciências Cognitivas começam a se desenvolver em meados da década de 1950 a partir de uma concepção compartilhada sobre a mente, hoje chamada de cognitivista. Esses pesquisadores concebiam a mente com uma natureza representacional que opera por meio de computações simbólicas. Atualmente, há uma multiplicidade de abordagens e teorias sobre a mente. Nesse espectro de posições, há desde abordagens tradicionais, que concebem a mente como representacional, até abordagens bastante radicais, que negam qualquer natureza representacional para a (...) mente. Após introduzir este tema, apresentamos as críticas de William Ramsey à representação enquanto definidora das Ciências Cognitivas ou, em outros termos, à representação enquanto critério de demarcação do cognitivo. Desenvolveremos uma hipótese interpretativa para a crítica de Ramsey mobilizando o conceito de estratégia de pesquisa, de Hugh Lacey. Apresentaremos a distinção de Lacey entre adoção de uma estratégia e aceitação de uma teoria, discutindo a suposta independência avaliativa entre estratégia e teoria. Finalizaremos com a defesa de um pluralismo de estratégias nas Ciências Cognitivas. Diferente de concepções que buscam reduzir prematuramente as Ciências Cognitivas a uma única estratégia, o pluralismo que defendemos equilibra a eficiência na resolução de problemas com outros valores considerados importantes, como a abrangência empírica e a neutralidade no sentido de inclusividade e equitatividade de valores. No atual momento das ciências cognitivas, o pluralismo de estratégias constitui o caminho mais promissor. (shrink)

Opponents to consciousness in fish argue that fish do not feel pain because they do not have a neocortex, which is a necessary condition for feeling pain. A common counter-argument appeals to the multiple realizability of pain: while a neocortex might be necessary for feeling pain in humans, pain might be realized differently in fish. This paper argues, first, that it is impossible to find a criterion allowing us to demarcate between plausible and implausible cases of multiple realization of pain (...) without running into a circular argument. Second, opponents to consciousness in fish cannot be provided with reasons to believe in the multiple realizability of pain. I conclude that the debate on the existence of pain in fish is impossible to settle by relying on the multiple realization argument. (shrink)

Resumo O Contextualismo Epistêmico é conhecido por alegar oferecer a melhor resposta para alguns dos principais problemas epistemológicos, dentre eles o problema gerado pelos paradoxos céticos e, por conseguinte, por deter o conhecimento sobre muitas coisas que ordinariamente julgávamos já conhecidas. Da mesma forma, seria uma via capaz de manter a validade do princípio de fechamento dedutivo. O presente texto pretende analisar a teoria contextualista, conforme apresentada por Stewart Cohen, mostrando como o contextualismo resolve essas questões. Na primeira parte do (...) texto apresentaremos alguns problemas (e algumas características históricas) que culminaram no surgimento do contextualismo. Na segunda parte explanaremos a teoria contextualista de Cohen. Em seguida levantamos algumas objeções comumente endereçadas ao contextualismo. Por fim, concluímos que, embora não seja completamente refutada, a teoria contextualista deve dirimir dúvidas e explicar algumas dificuldades para manter a sua plausibilidade. Palavras-Chave: Contextualismo; Ceticismo; Conhecimento; Stewart Cohen. -/- Abstract Epistemic Contextualism is known by his allegation to possess the best answer to some of the major epistemological problems, among them, the problem created by the skeptical paradoxes and therefore the claim that we can know many things we ordinarily claim to know, and also maintains the validity of the closure principle. This paper seeks to examine Contextualism, as presented by Stewart Cohen, showing how Contextualism solves these problems. In the first section of the text I will present some problems (and some historic features) that originated Contextualism. In the second section I will present the Cohen`s Contextualism. Then, we consider some objections raised against the contextualista theory. Finally, we conclude that although these objections are not able to completely refute contextualism its proponents have to give better explanations in order to maintain its plausibility. Keywords: Contextualism; Skepticism; Knowledge; Stewart Cohen. (shrink)

Resumo: Neste artigo, apresentamos uma versão de uma teoria que eu chamarei de Contextualismo Epistêmico ‒ a visão de que o contexto e os padrões determinados por ele desempenham um papel central na avaliação de se um agente epistêmico tem, ou não, justificação e, portanto, conhecimento ‒ para tentar resolver um dos problemas mais influentes em epistemologia, a saber, o Problema do Regresso epistêmico. O primeiro passo será o de caracterizar o problema do regresso epistêmico. Em seguida, apresentaremos uma importante (...) distinção que é útil para um melhor entendimento da nossa tese, isto é, a distinção entre justificação proposicional e doxástica. Então, abordaremos as visões tradicionais que supostamente alegam resolver este problema, mostrando que todas são problemáticas. Por fim, apresentaremos a visão que pretendemos defender, mostrando como ela pode oferecer uma resposta ao problema do regresso epistêmico, de uma maneira que as outras visões não podem. Palavras-chave: Regresso Epistêmico, Justificação, Conhecimento, Contextualismo Epistêmico. Abstract: In this paper we present a version of a theory that we will call Epistemic Contextualism - the view that the context and the standards that it determines, play a central role in evaluating whether, or not, a subject has justification, and therefore knowledge - to try to solve one of the most influential problems in epistemology, namely, the Epistemic Regress Problem. The first step will be to characterize the epistemic regress problem. Next, we present an important distinction that is useful to a better understanding of our view, that is, the distinction between propositional and doxastic justification. Then, we present traditional views that allegedly claim to solve this problem showing that all are problematic. The final step concerns the exposition of the view we want to defend, showing how it can solve the epistemic regress problem in a way that the other views cannot. Keywords: Epistemic Regress, Justification, Knowledge, Epistemic Contextualism. (shrink)

Philosophers disagree about what the folk concept of pain is. This paper criticises existing theories of the folk concept of pain, i.e. the mental view, the bodily view, and the recently proposed polyeidic view. It puts forward an alternative proposal – the polysemy view – according to which pain terms like “sore,” “ache” and “hurt” are polysemous, where one sense refers to a mental state and another a bodily state, and the type of polysemy at issue reflects two distinct but (...) related concepts of pain. Implications with respect to issues in philosophy of pain are also drawn. (shrink)

Permissivism is the view that, sometimes, there is more than one doxastic attitude that is perfectly rationalised by the evidence. Impermissivism is the denial of Permissivism. Several philosophers, with the aim to defend either Impermissivism or Permissivism, have recently discussed the value of (im)permissive rationality. This paper focuses on one kind of value-conferring considerations, stemming from the so-called “truth-connection” enjoyed by rational doxastic attitudes. The paper vindicates the truth-connected value of permissive rationality by pursuing a novel strategy which rests on (...) two main planks: first, there is a distinction between a fine-grained and a coarse-grained type-individuation of belief-forming methods. Secondly, different kinds of decision-theoretic reasoning, i.e. expected-accuracy reasoning and accuracy-domination reasoning, must be paired with a fine-grained and a coarse-grained type-individuation of methods, respectively. I argue that while the first pair is wholly irrelevant to the question of the truth-connection, the second affords the means to a permissivist explanation of the truth-connected value of rationality. (shrink)

This paper focuses on extant approaches to counteract the consumption of fake news online. Proponents of structural approaches suggest that our proneness to consuming fake news could only be reduced by reshaping the architecture of online environments. Proponents of educational approaches suggest that fake news consumers should be empowered to improve their epistemic agency. In this paper, we address a question that is relevant to this debate: namely, whether fake news consumers commit mistakes for which they can be criticized and (...) that they could easily avoid by reforming their doxastic conduct. Proponents of structural approaches, like R. Rini and B. Millar, have defended in different ways a negative answer to this question. In this paper, we criticize their views and suggest that individual users could improve on their epistemic practice by widening their information diet. (shrink)

Alguns filósofos alegam que intuições são experiências não sensórias (BENGSON, 2015; CHUDNOFF, 2011, 2013; KOKSVIK, 2020). Há algo como sentir uma intuição e isso é particular e único a esse estado mental. No entanto, alguns questionam essa experiência a partir da perspectiva de primeira pessoa: eles alegam não ter nenhuma experiência do tipo. Como resolver isso? John Bengson, Elijah Chudnoff e Ole Koksvik alegam que esses que afirmam não terem a experiência intuicional estão a procurando de maneira errada no seu (...) fluxo de consciência. Bengson diz que não devemos confiar apenas na nossa introspecção, mas sim vermos o que nos “atinge” ao sermos apresentados com certas situações. Chudnoff diz que as intuições são experiências constituídas de outras experiências, então não se deve esperar que as intuições venham sem nenhuma outra experiência. Koksvik diz que as intuições possuem apenas a fenomenologia de atitude específica, mas não fenomenologia de conteúdo específico. Isto é, não há uma distinção fenomenológica entre intuir que p e intuir que q. O objetivo aqui não é fornecer uma resposta definitiva a essa questão, mas fornecer um apanhado crítico das respostas dadas na literatura sobre esse desafio. (shrink)

There is growing concern that decision-making informed by machine learning (ML) algorithms may unfairly discriminate based on personal demographic attributes, such as race and gender. Scholars have responded by introducing numerous mathematical definitions of fairness to test the algorithm, many of which are in conflict with one another. However, these reductionist representations of fairness often bear little resemblance to real-life fairness considerations, which in practice are highly contextual. Moreover, fairness metrics tend to be implemented in narrow and targeted toolkits that (...) are difficult to integrate into an algorithm’s broader ethical assessment. In this paper, we derive lessons from ethical philosophy and welfare economics as they relate to the contextual factors relevant for fairness. In particular we highlight the debate around acceptability of particular inequalities and the inextricable links between fairness, welfare and autonomy. We propose Key Ethics Indicators (KEIs) as a way towards providing a more holistic understanding of whether or not an algorithm is aligned to the decision-maker’s ethical values. (shrink)

Dear Editor, in a previous paper we have tried to delve into what validity means in the context of psychiatric nosology, arguing for a pragmatic view of it. Here we want to briefly reassert the basic points of our analysis, make a few clarifications and address some issues raised by commentators.

This paper takes issue with the exemplarist strategy of fostering virtue development with the specific goal of improving its applicability in the context of education. I argue that, for what matters educationally, we have good reasons to endorse a liberal account of moral exemplarity. Specifically, I challenge two key assumptions of Linda Zagzebski’s Exemplarist Moral Theory (2017), namely that moral exemplars are exceptionally virtuous agents and that imitating their behavior is the main strategy for acquiring the virtues. I will introduce (...) and discuss the notions of enkratic exemplars and injustice illuminators and show that we have good reasons to consider them moral exemplars although they fail to satisfy (either of) the key assumptions. (shrink)

Whether the prefrontal cortex is part of the neural substrates of consciousness is currently debated. Against prefrontal theories of consciousness, many have argued that neural activity in the prefrontal cortex does not correlate with consciousness but with subjective reports. We defend prefrontal theories of consciousness against this argument. We surmise that the requirement for reports is not a satisfying explanation of the difference in neural activity between conscious and unconscious trials, and that prefrontal theories of consciousness come out of this (...) debate unscathed. (shrink)

Notes prises par Jacques Lagrange lors du cours d'anthropologie donné par Michel Foucault en 1954-1955 à l'École Normale Supérieure.

As for most measurement procedures in the course of their development, measures of consciousness face the problem of coordination, i.e., the problem of knowing whether a measurement procedure actually measures what it is intended to measure. I focus on the case of the Perceptual Awareness Scale to illustrate how ignoring this problem leads to ambiguous interpretations of subjective reports in consciousness science. In turn, I show that empirical results based on this measurement procedure might be systematically misinterpreted.

This provocation critiques the notion of long-term thinking and the claims of its proponents that it will help address failures in dominant conceptions of time, particularly in regard to environmental crises. Drawing on analyses of the Clock of the Long Now and Kim Stanley Robinson’s The Ministry for the Future, the article suggests that we be more wary of the concept’s use in what we might call chronowashing. Like the more familiar greenwashing, where environmental issues are hidden by claims to (...) be addressing the problem, the article explores how these examples of long-term thinking distract from extractivism, racism, and environmental injustice, making it harder to address the complexities involved. In particular, the article discusses examples where long-term thinking provides a veneer of environmental concern that actually disconnects from the work of building more equitable forms of relation. As a contrast, the article’s author asks: What is lost when we diagnose a problem as arising due to short-term thinking and propose long-term thinking as the solution? Against chronowashed environmental time, the author argues for more complex approaches that explicitly take into account the temporalities of inequality, political organization, ethical responsibilities and much else. The article engages with approaches to time that foreground the work needed to create time and move ethically within it, including Charles W. Mills’s white time and Kyle Powys Whyte’s kinship time. The author suggests that a stronger emphasis on the temporality of community, solidarity, and coalition—versus what James Hatley and Deborah Bird Rose have described as temporal narcissism—can better foreground the kinds of work that needs to be done, particularly by those with privilege. (shrink)

This paper tackles the problem of defining what a cognitive expert is. Starting from a shared intuition that the definition of an expert depends upon the conceptual function of expertise, I shed light on two main approaches to the notion of an expert: according to novice-oriented accounts of expertise, experts need to provide laypeople with information they lack in some domain; whereas, according to research-oriented accounts, experts need to contribute to the epistemic progress of their discipline. In this paper, I (...) defend the thesis that cognitive experts should be identified by their ability to perform the latter function rather than the former, as novice-oriented accounts, unlike research-oriented ones, fail to comply with the rules of a functionalist approach to expertise. (shrink)

The paradox of pain refers to the idea that the folk concept of pain is paradoxical, treating pains as simultaneously mental states and bodily states. By taking a close look at our pain terms, this paper argues that there is no paradox of pain. The air of paradox dissolves once we recognize that pain terms are polysemous and that there are two separate but related concepts of pain rather than one.

This article introduces an account of moral education grounded in Zagzebski’s recent Exemplarist Moral Theory and discusses two problems that have to be solved for the account to become a realistic alternative to other educational models on the market, namely the limited-applicability problem and the problem of indoctrination. The first problem raises worries about the viability of the account in ordinary circumstances. The second charges the proposed educational model with indoctrinating students. The main goal of this article is to show (...) how an exemplar-based account of moral education can handle both problems without compromising its structure and upshot. (shrink)