Se trata de la Presentación al libro Coordenadas Epistemológicas para una estética en construcción, obra publicada por la Colección La Fuente y coeditada entre el Cuerpo Académico de Estética y Arte de la BUAP y el Instituto de Filosofía de Cuba. En la presentación se describen los contenidos básicos de las tres partes que componen el libro: Parte I. Una estética en construcción; Parte II: El arte en el discurso de la estética; Parte III: Espectacularidad y seducción. Miradas estéticas a (...) la socialidad contemporánea. También se hace referencia al papel jugado por la Dra. Alicia Pino en la concepción, contenido y estructura de este libro, a cuya memoria se dedica. (shrink)

Desde la certidumbre del sentido necesariamente inacabado, nómada y abierto de sus propuestas, el presente volumen de la Colección La Fuente da cuentas del esfuerzo de un grupo de investigadores del Instituto de Filosofía de La Habana (IF) y de la Universidad Autónoma de Puebla (BUAP) por esbozar, más que respuestas, aquellas interrogantes sociales, culturales y artísticas que, desde constelaciones cambiantes de conceptos y reflexiones estéticas, puedan ser emplazadas en sus respectivas realidades. El presente libro es el tercero de la (...) serie Redes, dedicada a plasmar los principales resultados del trabajo de colaboración del Cuerpo Académico de Estética y Arte de la BUAP con otros grupos de investigación. La coordinación de esta entrega contó con la sapiencia y laboriosidad académica de la doctora Alicia Pino Rodríguez (1954-2017), investigadora del IF, integrante del Consejo de la Colección, coordinadora de su segundo volumen y parte esencial de este, dedicado a su memoria. (shrink)

Anydomainofscientificresearchhasitssustainingorthodoxy. Thatis, research on a problem, whether in astronomy, physics, or biology, is con- ducted against a backdrop of broadly shared assumptions. It is these as- sumptionsthatguideinquiryandprovidethecanonofwhatisreasonable-- of what "makes sense." And it is these shared assumptions that constitute a framework for the interpretation of research results. Research on the problem of how we see is likewise sustained by broadly shared assump- tions, where the current orthodoxy embraces the very general idea that the business of the visual system is to (...) create a detailed replica of the visual world, and that it accomplishes its business via hierarchical organization and by operatingessentiallyindependently of other sensorymodalitiesas well as independently of previous learning, goals, motor planning, and motor execution. (shrink)

From our perspective, we believe that it is necessary to abandon the idea that all those who suffer from SI or SA are mentally ill, which causes them to be stigmatized and subjected to psychiatric treatment, when what they need is a different vision of life as well as adaptive strategies to employ a new philosophy. Public policies should consider implementing programs that reinforce cognitive flexibility in addition to character strengths.

Addressing the debate inspired by John Rawls's restrictive idea of the political role of religion, Jürgen Habermas proposes the institutional translation proviso as an alternative that corrects an overly secularist notion of the state. Maeve Cooke has suggested that religious arguments can be allowed without translation in the institutional level as long as they are non-authoritarian. However, her definition of non-authoritarianism requires an acceptance of the fallibility of the truths acquired by faith, which I argue is unnecessary. Instead, I propose (...) that non-authoritarianism is realized in the recognition of the reconcilability of religious and secular reasons. I demonstrate the viability of this form of non-authoritarianism using particular examples from the Philippine context. I conclude that these attempts constitute an alternative form of epistemic openness to the more stringent forms that Habermas and Cooke have proposed. (shrink)

A qualitative phenomenological approach was used in this study to describe the lived experiences of Tagumpay National High School (TNHS) teachers on Online Learning Action Cell (LAC) session. LAC is a school-based professional development for teachers implemented by the Philippine Department of Education (DepEd). Due to teacher’s lack of participation on classroom LAC, a fully-online mode option is explored by offering TNHS teachers Online LAC session using Facebook as a Learning Management System (LMS). To capture the lived experience of teachers, (...) an in-depth interview with a purposive sample of one TNHS teacher is done in the process. The data gathered went through “Hycner’s Explicitation Process” (1999, in Groenewald, 2004) which includes bracketing, delineating, clustering, summarizing and extracting unique themes. Validity and Credibility were accomplished through an intercoder agreement between researchers, Facebook chat records, bracketing, and member checking. Results identified three themes in relation to teacher’s experience of Online LAC session including usefulness, barriers, and preference. Findings revealed the major role of TNHS teacher’s context on how Online LAC is utilized. Recommendations include administrator and expert teacher working with classroom teachers and the inclusion of teachers’ voices as input in the program design, implementation and evaluation stages of Online LAC to better address curriculum needs and facilitate the delivery of high-quality professional development for teachers’ professional growth. (shrink)

This quantitative study explores the acceptability of Online Learning Action Cell (LAC) practice as a school-based professional development strategy for Tagumpay National High School (TNHS) teachers. The research was motivated by the Department of Education (DepEd) Order No. 35 s. 2016 which prompts public schools to comply with the implementation of LAC sessions because it has a positive impact on teachers’ beliefs and practices resulting in education reforms for learners’ benefit. However, in compliance with DepEd’s policy on maximizing Time-On-Task (DepEd (...) Order No. 9 s. 2005) and the teacher’s conflict of schedule and other ancillary and coordination functions, absences or non-participation in classroom LAC was noted. The viability of offering Online LAC sessions using appropriate media and technologies to provide more options and flexibility for the study is suggested and tested utilizing a conceptual framework drawn from DepEd Order No. 35 s. 2016, Simonson’s Equivalency Theory and Anderson’s Community of Inquiry (COI). A descriptive survey method was used in this study with purposive sampling identifying ten Technology and Livelihood Education (TLE) teachers to pilot the Online LAC based on the memorandum issued by the school head. The subjects went through a week of experience in a LAC session using Facebook (FB) as Learning Management System (LMS) while a researcher-designed survey tool in the form of a Likert-type scale questionnaire was administered via Google forms before and after the online session to measure teacher’s acceptability of Online LAC Session practice. In the analysis, a descriptive statistic shows that pre-post survey results on Online LAC session planning is from ‘moderately acceptable’ to ‘very highly acceptable’; implementation is from ‘acceptable’ to ‘very highly acceptable’, and evaluation is from ‘moderately acceptable’ to ‘very highly acceptable’. TNHS teachers' acceptability of Online LAC session practice increases after their participation in a fully-online learning environment. Limitations, recommendations, future research directions, and conclusions are also included in the study. -/- . (shrink)

A fundamental tension exists between Rawls's ideal Kantian conception of justice as fairness (JAF), which requires respecting people as ends, and his realistic non-Kantian consequentialist conception of a supreme emergency in a just war. By justifying the targeting of objectively innocent noncombatants during a supreme emergency exception, Rawls allows for treating them as means only. Hence, his appeal to a supreme emergency is insufficient to avoid this tension. First, since for him JAF is ideal but also practical, one might argue (...) that his fictional people in the original position must reflect on the justification for using force on behalf of JAF. And second, since Rawls justifies targeting objectively innocent people during a supreme emergency exemption, he justifies what one might conceive of as emergency terrorism. Emergency terrorism, however, treats people as means only. Therefore, Rawls's Kantian conception of JAF is in tension with his consequentialist justification of a supreme emergency in a just war and hence with emergency terrorism. (shrink)

Reformation commentators were well aware of the allegorical referents for Leviathan and Behemoth in the book of Job, representing the powerful states of Ancient Egypt and Assyria, but played them down. Hobbes did not.

This paper brings new work to bear on the perennial question about Hobbes's atheism to show that as a debate about scepticism it is falsely framed. Hobbes, like fellow members of the Mersenne circle, Descartes and Gassendi, was no sceptic, but rather concerned to rescue physics and metaphysics from radical scepticism by exploring corporealism. In his early letter of November 1640, Hobbes had issued a provocative challenge to Descartes to abandon metaphysical dualism and subscribe to a ?corporeal God?; a provocation (...) to which the Frenchman angrily responded, but was perhaps importantly influenced. Hobbes's minimal realism was consonant with atheism, to which Descartes felt he was being forced. Moreover, Hobbes was unrelenting in his battle against Cartesian dualism, for which he saw Robert Boyle's experimental science as a surrogate. (shrink)

In my replies to some of my critics I argue that while the practice of terrorism is never justified, I concede that it is rarely but sometimes excused. As result, those who engage in excusable terrorism has a substantial burden of proof. They need to offer a compelling argument to show that the harm caused by their terrorist violence is actually excused by the extenuating circumstances and the goal that they are trying to achieve, so they will not be morally (...) or legally blameworthy for bringing about such harm. I am assuming that they will need to demonstrate that the alleged harm is excusable because it is necessary to accomplish a worthy goal and there is no other reasonable way to obtain such a worthy goal without deliberately harming those who can be reasonably conceived of as impeccably or objectively innocent. That is, those who are innocent beyond reasonable doubt. (shrink)

Hegel’s interpretation of Sophocles’ play Antigone is central to an understanding of woman’s role in the Hegelian system. Hegel is fascinated by this play and uses it in both the Phenomenology and the Philosophy of Right to demonstrate that familial ethical life is woman’s unique responsibility. Antigone is revealed as the paradigmatic figure of womanhood and family life in both the pagan and modern worlds although there are fundamental differences between these two worlds for Hegel. In order to situate the (...) interpretation of this play within its wider context I shall begin with a brief outline of the pagan world described in the Phenomenology. I will then consider the interpretation of this play within the analysis of the modern world in the Philosophy of Right. Throughout, the focus will be on woman’s role in Hegel’s philosophy. (shrink)

Hobbes in Leviathan, chapter xv, 4, makes the startling claim: “The fool hath said in his heart, ‘there is no such thing as justice,’” paraphrasing Psalm 52:1: “The fool hath said in his heart there is no God.” These are charges of which Hobbes himself could stand accused. His parable of the fool is about the exchange of obedience for protection, the backslider, regime change, and the tyrant; but given that Hobbes was himself likely an oath-breaker, it is also self-reflexive (...) and self-justificatory. For, Hobbes’s fool is not a windbag, or one of the dumb mob, led astray by priests. He is, in the terminology of Psalm 52, an insipiens, a madman or raving lunatic, whose rebellion against God the King is his own destruction and that of his people. A long iconographic tradition portraying the fool as insipiens, Antichrist, heretical impostor and tyrant king, was at Hobbes’s disposal. (shrink)

ABSTRACT: Hobbes belonged to philosophical and scientific circles grappling with the big question at the dawn of modern physics: materialism and its consequences for morality. ‘Matter in motion’ may be a core principle of this materialism but it is certainly inadequate to capture the whole project. In wave after wave of this debate the Epicurean view of a fully determined universe governed by natural laws, that nevertheless allows to humans a sphere of libertas, but does not require a creator god (...) or teleology to explain it, comes up against monotheism and its insistence on the incoherence of an ordered world in the absence of a God and his purposes. The following questions were central to this debate: Can we understand the universe as law-governed in the absence of a god? If so, what room is there in a fully determined mechanical universe for human freedom? If humans do enjoy freedom, does the same hold for other animals? Is this freedom compatible with standard views of morality? (shrink)

In this article, I explore how researchers’ metaphysical commitments can be conducive—or unconducive—to progress in animal cognition research. The methodological dictum known as Morgan’s Canon exhorts comparative psychologists to countenance the least mentalistic fair interpretation of animal actions. This exhortation has frequently been misread as a blanket condemnation of mentalistic interpretations of animal behaviors that could be interpreted behavioristically. But Morgan meant to demand only that researchers refrain from accepting default interpretations of (apparent) actions until other fair interpretations have been (...) duly considered. The Canon backfired largely because of Morgan’s background metaphysical commitment to a univocal, hierarchical, and anthropocentric account of cognitive architecture. I make the case that, going forward, comparative psychologists would do well to pair judicious use of Morgan’s Canon with an openness to the existence of non-humanlike animal minds comprising phenomena belonging to distinct cognitive and folk psychological ontologies. And I argue that this case gives us pragmatic reason to reconcile deep—e.g., psychofunctionalist—and superficial—e.g., dispositionalist—approaches to the metaphysics of belief. (shrink)

Quentin Skinner’s dedication to investigating Hobbes’s concept of liberty in a number of essays and books has born some unusual fruit. Not only do we see the enormous problems that Hobbes set himself by proceeding as he did, but Skinner’s careful analysis allows us to chart Hobbes’ ingenuity as he tried to steer a path between the Charybdis of determinism and the Scylla of voluntarism – not very successfully, as we shall see. The upshot is a theory of individual freedom (...) and civil liberty to challenge the classical republican traditionThis Article does not have an abstract. (shrink)

The polemic was an important cultural event in 19th-century Cuba. From 1838 to 1840, issues of metaphysics, epistemology, ethics, pedagogy, and the influence of Victor Cousin’s eclecticism were discussed in the island’s leading newspapers. A brief historical account preceding the polemic is offered. It is argued that the predominant view of the polemic as motivated by a widespread desire for Cuba’s independence from Spain is misleading — promoting an emancipatory myth. Lastly, it is argued that José de la Luz y (...) Caballero’s appeal to patriotism during the polemic unwittingly established a dangerous precedent for self-appointed guardians of patriotism to condition public debates. (shrink)

This is a critical review of Susana Nuccetelli’s book: An Introduction to Latin America Philosophy. While I am sympathetic to Professor Nuccetelli’s conception of Latin American philosophy as applied philosophy, I tried to underscore a tension that exists between those of us who do philosophy from an analytic perspective broadly construed, and those who engage in postmodernist, decoloniality, and liberationist perspectivism. I also bring to the attention of the audience the neglected but important role that Victor Cousin’s eclecticism played in (...) promoting philosophy in the Americas. (shrink)

In this paper, it is argued that terrorism undermines the justification of perspective relativism. The cliché, “one person’s terrorist is another person’s freedom fighter,” is offered as an example of perspective relativism. Perspective relativists argue that moral principles and judgments have no universal moral import. Those who defend the cliché expression presuppose that the evaluation of terrorism is necessarily perspectival. For them, there are no morally objective differences, e.g., between deliberately killing combatants and deliberately killing innocent noncombatants. Yet there are (...) morally objective differences between these two acts. While the first act might be justified, the second act is considered murder. Hence, the evaluation of terrorism is not necessarily perspectival. Therefore, in the face of the evil that terrorists bring about, it is argued that perspective relativists have a substantive burden of proof to show that there are no transcultural moral values. (shrink)

The adage, “one person’s terrorist is another person’s freedom fighter,” is offered as a plausible example of evoking moral relativism. Moral relativists recognize no transcultural moral facts. So, for them, even the concept of harm would be subjective or context-sensitive. Yet one can appeal to cogent transcultural moral reasons to distinguish between deliberately and unjustifiably harming impeccably innocent people and those who might engage in justifiably harming those guilty of grave crimes. In the face of the preventable evil acts that (...) terrorists frequently perpetrate against impeccably innocent people, it is argued that moral relativists have a substantive burden of proof to demonstrate that no cogent transcultural moral reasons exist against the practice of terrorism. In the absence of such a demonstration, it is reasonable to believe that the practice of terrorism, while not totally defeating moral relativism, seems to undermine its credibility. (shrink)

Recent years have seen a heightened focus on the study of minimal forms of awareness during sleep to advance the study of consciousness and understand what makes a state conscious. This focus draws on an increased interest in anecdotical descriptions made by classic Indian philosophical traditions about unusual forms of awareness during sleep. For instance, in the so-called state of witnessing-sleep or luminosity sleep, one is said to reach a state that goes beyond ordinary dreaming and abide in a state (...) of just awareness, a state in which one is not aware of anything else other than one’s own awareness. Moreover, for these traditions, this state is taken to be the essence or background of consciousness. Reports on such a state opens the door to exciting new lines of research in the study of consciousness, such as inquiry into the so-called “objectless” awareness during sleep—states of awareness that lack an ordinary object of awareness. In this two-staged research project, we attempted to find the phenomenological blueprints of such forms of awareness during sleep in 18 participants by conducting phenomenological interviews, informed by a novel tool in qualitative research, the micro-phenomenological interview (MPI) method. Following a phenomenological analysis, we isolated a similar phase across 12 reported experiences labelled as ‘nothingness phase’ since it described what participants took to be an experience of ‘nothingness’. his common phase was characterised by minimal sense of self—a bodiless self, yet experienced as being ‘somewhere’—, the presence of non-modal sensations, relatively pleasant emotions, an absence of visual experience, wide and unfocused attention, and an awareness of the state as it unfolded. (shrink)

One challenge faced by aesthetics is the development of an account able to trace out the continuities and discontinuities between general experience and aesthetic experiences. Regarding this issue, in this paper, I present an enactive model of some raw cognitive dynamics that might drive the progressive emergence of aesthetic experiences from the stream of general experience. The framework is based on specific aspects of John Dewey’s pragmatist philosophy and embodied aesthetic theories, while also taking into account research in ecological psychology, (...) cognitive sciences, and dynamic systems theory. The model focuses on dynamically relevant nodes at the pre-reflective and the reflective side of experience that would work as nested rhythmic constraints at different cognitive timescales with the potential to shunt experiences toward the aesthetic in everyday situations. My proposal constitutes a way to explore aesthetic experiences from an enactive perspective that regards them as transformative events in which cognitive processes entrain and are entrained by changes taking place in the environment, the brain, and the body. (shrink)

El presente texto intenta establecer algunas bases de la filosofía social de Søren Kierkegaard. Para ello, toma el concepto de lo demoníaco, que se desarrolla en Sobre el concepto de ironía y El concepto de la angustia. En ellas, Kierkegaard señala las determinaciones de este concepto y lo enmarca dentro de las posibilidades de la subjetividad en su relación con los otros y consigo misma. En la primera, la figura de Sócrates da cuenta de lo demoníaco en el sentido del (...) surgimiento y repliegue de la subjetividad que no participa de los asuntos públicos de la polis griega. En la segunda, Kierkegaard trata la situación demoníaca como un estado psicológico donde la conciencia da cuenta de su relación forzada con el bien y de su mantenimiento en la posición del mal, que lleva al individuo a un estado de endemoniamiento caracterizado por su incomunicación, vacuidad y aburrimiento. Este diagnóstico establece, pues, que los demonios kierkegaardianos son tanto la imposibilidad de la configuración social de los individuos, como su posibilidad a través de la formación de una fuerte subjetividad. (shrink)

This paper is a critical discussion of Simon Blackburn’s recent work on lust. Blackburn develops a view on which lust is decent only when part of a pure mutuality in sex, and is best left alone—we ought not tamper with its “freedom of flow.” I argue that this treatment, which I believe reflects commonly held views, fails in several ways. First, it does not square with the fact that we pursue lust as a good in itself. Second, pure mutuality is (...) hard to come by and almost impossible to recognize, so Blackburn’s account is more restrictive than it may seem. Third, on such a view, masturbation is morally sanctioned only insofar as it mimics real sex; this doesn’t seem right. Finally, such a perspective fits ill with some recent research on the biology of lust in women. (shrink)

This essay advances the following set of arguments: First, that we must take seriously Hobbes's claim in Behemoth that "the science of just & unjust" is a demonstrable science, accessible to those of even the meanest capacity. Second, that Leviathan is the work in which this science, intended as a serious project in civic education, is set out. Third, that Hobbes is prepared to accept, like Plato & Aristotle, "giving to each his own," as a preliminary definition of justice, from (...) which however, he draws some very un-Aristotelian conclusions. Fourth, that though in Hobbes's theory "just & unjust" are equivalent of "lawful & unlawful," this is far from being a simple statement of legal positivism, but rather the conclusion of a practical syllogism. Fifth, that the impediments to this demonstrable science of justice being universally accepted, on Hobbes's account, are twofold, explained in terms of religion & the role of preachers & educators produced by the universities, on the one hand, & by the activity of "democratical gentlemen" & classical republicans dominating parliament, on the other. Sixth, that Hobbes's account of the transition from jus to lex, specified in terms of a transition from the state of nature to that of civil society, although Epicurean in origin, is much closer to a conventional civil law position. Adapted from the source document. (shrink)

In this text we intend to analyze Bill Viola’s video installation Nantes Triptych (1992) as an example of the richness which lies in the liminal spaces between arts. We defend the thesis that the utilization of the traditional pictorial structure of the triptych in this particular work, along with the powerful audiovisual material, renders a kairological event available to the viewer. This temporal experience makes possible an existential experience when in front of this video installation. To discuss this assumption we (...) will use classical art theory texts about the triptychs, as well as, among others, Deleuze’s texts about time image and the triptych structure, Agamben’s concept of kairos, the concept of kairological artwork coined by David Chan and the philosophy of temporality developed by Merleau-Ponty. (shrink)

Basándome en la explicación que hace Jean-Paul Sartre de la violencia, sostengo que no solo la mala fe es inevitable en la práctica, sino que una mala fe limitada es necesaria para la autenticidad. Aunque violar la libertad de otros es mala fe, es imposible no violar nunca la libertad de alguien. Además, y de manera fundamental, la estructura ontológica del para-sí implica que este solo puede ser auténtico en el modo de no ser auténtico. Tratar de evitar por completo (...) la mala fe es, en sí mismo, un acto de mala fe, porque es un intento de constituirse como esencialmente auténtico, pero el para-sí no tiene esencia preexistente. Sin embargo, al reconocer la total responsabilidad de uno por elegir la mala fe, se limita su alcance. Esta mala fe limitada es, de hecho, necesaria para la autenticidad, un proyecto vivido en situaciones concretas y no una ley moral categórica que prohíbe la mala fe. [This is a Spanish translation by Leandro Sánchez Marín of the article "The Authentic Person's Limited Bad Faith".]. (shrink)

This work presents to dance and music scholarship the concept of competence, developed and deployed by Greimas, together with the semiotic concepts of counterpoint and harmony. I emphasize competence as a temporal process that requires sanction by an external entity and which corresponds to the level of surface narrative syntax within Greimas’s method of ‘generative trajectory’. To exemplify the application of the generative trajectory to dance, I present the case of the contrapunto de zapateo from Peru. In this step dance, (...) two or more dancers take turns and perform for an audience who claps and cheers for them and upon whom depends the appreciation of their competence. To better account for the complex relations between all actors of the contrapunto, I resort to the concept of semiotic counterpoint, which is first explained by means of input–output boxes, inspired by black box modeling in engineering. Counterpoint is also represented using equations, especially to address memory/retention and prediction/protention, with a subsequent discussion of its relevance and articulation to Greimas’s semiotics. Finally, I complement counterpoint with Leibniz’s definition of harmony and Spinoza’s principle of maximization of action, in order to account for different kinds of fluent interactions between dancers, arguing for its application not only to the contrapunto de zapateo, but also to dances such as Capoeira, breakdancing, and contact improvisation. (shrink)

The field of Latin American philosophy has established itself as a relevant subfield of philosophical inquiry. However, there might be good reasons to consider that our focus on the subfield could have distracted us from considering another subfield that, although it might share some geographical proximity, does not share the same historical basic elements. In this paper, I argue for a possible and meaningful conceptual difference between Latin American Philosophy and Indigenous philosophy produced in Latin America. First, I raise what (...) I call Mariátegui’s Solidarity Challenge to show that there might be some neglectful treatment of the philosophical views of different Indigenous groups. I then depart from Mariátegui and engage in a critical exercise to show that even he would be guilty of failing in his own solidarity demands. I follow that by drawing out some implications of the argument. I first sketch how this differentiation would play out against the political project of “Mestizaje,” a project that seems to inform some of the Latin American philosophical tradition. I then speculate about the kinds of duties that the field of Latin American philosophy might have towards the field of Indigenous Philosophy produced in Latin America. (shrink)

The concept of modes of existence of semiotic entities underlies (post)Greimasian semiotics, yet it seems to have received little attention. Modes of existence can be used in different senses. For Greimas, from the perspective of narrative semiotics, when Michelangelo first receives a block of marble and decides to sculpt the David, his intention is in a virtual mode; as Michelangelo progresses he ends up bringing the David into existence, and his intention comes to the realized mode. In Fontanille’s tensive semiotics, (...) however, modes of existence can have to do with how one can narrow or broaden the scope of our apprehension of the David as our eyes look at it in order to produce a meaningful experience. In this work, the perspectives of narrative and tensive semiotics are contrasted both theoretically and practically applying both to a number of examples. In order to identify all possible modes of existence and all the possibilities of transitioning from one to the other in the examples presented, we resort to the method of finite-state automata from computer science. In the end, we propose a robust narrative account of modes of existence that relies on narrative semiotics for its definition, but into which intent and apprehension from tensive semiotics can be integrated. This work calls for the need of establishing a syntax of modes of existence, since both Greimas and Fontanille construe them as being necessary to account for the production of signification. (shrink)

This work approaches the distinction between knowledge-how and knowledge-that in terms of two complementary concepts: performance and information. In order to do so, I formulate Ryle’s argument of infinite regress in terms of performance in order to show that Stanley and Williamson’s counterargument has no real object: both reject the view that the exercise of knowledge-that necessarily requires the previous consideration of propositions. Next, using the concept of feedback, I argue that Stanley and Williamson’s positive account of knowledge-how in terms (...) of knowledge-that corresponds to the output of the comparison between an intention of action and the perceived outcome of performance. Then, I expound other theories of mind and cognition in which feedback and prediction play a fundamental role in order to explain other ways in which information intervenes in performance—i.e., information is construed as knowledge-that available at subject level that guides performance. Finally, I present some reflections on the impact of the concept of knowledge-how, and possible routes to continue our enquiry on the nature of knowledge. (shrink)

Many pragmatist and non-representational approaches to cognition, such as the enactivist, have focused on the relations between actions, affectivity, and habits from an intersubjective perspective. For those adopting such approaches, all these aspects are inextricably connected; however, many questions remain open regarding the dynamics by which they unfold and shape each other over time. This paper addresses a specific topic that has not received much attention: the impact on future behavior of not fulfilling possibilities for social interaction even though their (...) fulfillment is desirable within a given context. Inspired by Gibson’s theory of affordances and Dewey’s account of habits, these situations will be characterized as events where an agent does not act upon an inviting affordance for social interaction due to a conflict which he or she experiences between given concerns, needs, and social norms. This conflict leads to a sense of unfulfillment that may eventually bring about a crisis and revision of habits. Through specific examples, this work presents the potential impact of the connection between affordances, habits, and affectivity on everyday situations. It therefore represents an exploration of the common ground between pragmatism and enactivism and an attempt to contribute to a process-based approach to social interaction. (shrink)

This paper explores various notions of aesthetic affordance recently developed through embodied, situated and enactive approaches to aesthetic experience by Maria Brincker and Shaun Gallagher, and the similarities and differences between them and the idea of affective affordance put forward by Joel Krueger and Giovanna Colombetti. This discussion is a way to try to offer some answers to the question of what aesthetic affordances particularly afford compared to affective affordances. I will focus on the affordances that we perceive during various (...) aesthetic experiences in which we find ourselves more moved by the object, event or person(s) causing the experience than we had anticipated. I will argue that these experiences emerge as opportunities to carry out an active exploration of aspects of the narrative self that we feel is related to features of the experience; and that one particular brain network likely to be involved in these experiences – i.e. the default network – might help us to understand how these experiences meaningfully change our relationship with ourselves and with the social context of which we are a part. (shrink)

Carl Schmitt contends that liberal constitutionalism or the rule of law fails because it neglects the state of exception and the political, namely politics viewed as a distinction between friend and enemy groups. Yet, as a representative of liberal constitutionalism, Locke grapples with the state of exception by highlighting a magistrate prerogative and/or the right of the majority to act during a serious political crisis. Rather than neglecting the political, Locke’s state of war presupposes it. My thesis is that Schmitt’s (...) assault against Locke’s liberal constitutionalism is one-sided, and hence Locke’s militant liberalism can disarm it. In support of my thesis I shall argue (1) that Schmitt overlooks Locke’s distinction between liberty and license; (2) that, ironically, Schmitt’s conception of politics resembles Locke’s state of war; and (3) that Locke’s liberalism is militant rather than neutral because it excludes extremists from enjoying equal civil and political rights, as reasonable citizens do, to compete for political power. (shrink)

Attention has turned from Hobbes the systematic thinker to his inconsistencies, as the essays in the Hobbes symposium published in the recent volume of Political Theory suggest. Deborah Baumgold, in “The Difficulties of Hobbes Interpretation,” shifted the focus to “the history of the book,” and Hobbes’s method of serial composition and peripatetic insertion, as a major source of his inconsistency. Accepting Baumgold’s method, the author argues that the manner of composition does not necessarily determine content and that fundamental paradoxes in (...) Hobbes’s work have a different provenance, for which there are also contextual answers. Hobbes was a courtier’s client, but one committed early to a materialist ontology and epistemology, and these commitments shackled him in treating the immediate political questions with which he was required to deal, leading to systemic paradoxes in his treatment of natural law, liberty, authorization, and consent. (shrink)

The ongoing war on drugs in the Philippines has become the epicenter of discourse and concern regarding human rights, populism, and illiberal democracy. While most studies focus on President Duterte's controversial 'strongman' persona and mass appeal, very few have sought to analyze the locals' attitudes towards him as cognitive-affective phenomena. To address this gap, this paper provides an in-depth qualitative analysis of pre-selected subjects in Davao and Manila, two regions in the Philippines with arguably the most salient pro-and anti-Duterte populations, (...) respectively, in 2019. Using a mapping software modeled after Paul Thagard's emotional coherence theory, this study maps the possible cognitive-affective processes underpinning the political ideologies of an influential leftist organization in the Philippines. Cognitive dissonance theory was used to consolidate the qualitative analyses of data derived from the surveys and interviews. The findings suggest that the two populations' political ideologies were relatively similar, as expected of subjects who belong to the same organization. However, the significant differences in the subjects' stances towards the Duterte administration suggest that the socio-political contexts of Manila and Davao could affect political opinions and views despite their similar core political ideologies. (shrink)

This essay, published in Political Theory in 1975, was one of the first to address the subject of the last two long books of Hobbes's Leviathan on religion. It addresses the purpose of these books and the relation between Hobbes's philosophy, ecclesiology and theology and the problems they raise.

Thomas Hobbes's 'Historia Ecclesiastica' presents his views on religion and aims to divert the attention of the public from charges against his being a heretic to placing heresy in pagan history, claiming that Greek philosophers were responsible for introducing heresy in the Christian Church. His book reveals his interest in religious history and the growth of hermeticism and Cabalism in England in his age.

When he gave his first political work the title The Elements of Law Natural and Politic, Hobbes signalled an agenda to revise and incorporate continental Roman and Natural Law traditions for use in Great Britain, and from first to last he remained faithful to this agenda, which it took his entire corpus to complete. The success of his project is registered in the impact Hobbes had upon the continental legal system in turn, specific aspects of his theory, as for instance (...) the right to punish, entering the European civil code through Pufendorf, and remaining to this day. This is a topic of considerable importance at a time at which the UK is considering scrapping the European Union, with all the attendant the legal ramifications. But strangely, despite some acknowledgement of Hobbes’s contribution to European civil law, and specifically the German civil code, the larger legal context for his thought has not thus far been systematically addressed. -/- Key words: Hobbes, civil law, common law, jurisprudence, ‘artificial reason’, natural law, sovereignty,. (shrink)

What are the probabilities that this universe is repeated exactly the same with you in it again? Is God invented by human imagination or is the result of human intuition? The intuition that the same laws/mechanisms (evolution, stability winning probability) that have created something like the human being capable of self-awareness and controlling its surroundings, could create a being capable of controlling all what it exists? Will be the characteristics of the next universes random or tend to something? All these (...) ques-tions that with different shapes (but the same essence) have been asked by human be-ings from the beginning of times will be developed in this paper. (shrink)

This paper provides a semantic analysis of the particles afinal (European Portuguese) and alla fine (Italian) in terms of the notion of truth unpersistence, which can be situated at the intersection of epistemic modality and discourse structure. In the analysis proposed, the particles are propositional operators and require that the truth of a proposition p* fail to persist through a temporal succession of epistemic states, this proposition being incompatible with the prejacent, and that the interlocutors share knowledge of a previous (...) epistemic attitude toward p*. We analyze two main cases (plan-related and non plan-related propositions) and also show that these particles are indexical to one (or more) epistemic agent(s) and allow for shifts in perspective. (shrink)

Why would someone concerned with heresy, who defined it as private opinion that flew in the face of doctrine sanctioned by the public person, harbor such a detailed interest in heterodoxy? Hobbes's religious beliefs ultimately remain a mystery, as perhaps they were meant to: the private views of someone concerned to conform outwardly to what his church required of him, and thereby avoid to heresy, while maintaining intellectual autonomy. The hazard of Hobbes's particular catechism is that he and his supporters (...) could never avoid the suspicion of insincerity. His preparedness to believe whatever the prince demanded of him smacked of heresy in the more usual sense, despite elaborate biblical exegesis designed to prove his orthdoxy. Undoubtedly he realized it even as he wrote the last lines of Leviathan, expressing the hope that "I cannot think it will be condemned at this time, either by the Publique Judge of Doctrine, or by any that desires the continuance of Publique Peace/7 Indicating an intention to return to science, he continued, "I hope the Novelty will as much please, as in the Doctrine of this Artificiall Body it useth to offend" (Lev, Rev. and Conclusion, 491). (shrink)

Open peer commentary on the article “Constructivist Model Building: Empirical Examples From Mathematics Education” by Catherine Ulrich, Erik S. Tillema, Amy J. Hackenberg & Anderson Norton. Upshot: I argue that radical constructivism poses a series of deep methodological constraints on educational research. We focus on the work of Ulrich et al. to illustrate the practical implications of these constraints.

Abstract: In the past fifteen years Tugendhat has tentatively proposed to recover the role of anthropology as the core philosophical discipline or first philosophy. This peculiar return to the German thinking of the ‘20s is, on the one hand, a projection of the author’s whole intellectual evolution. On the other hand, it allows us to focus on classic epistemological problems of philosophical anthropology such as its object and contents, its method, and its place among other philosophical studies. The present paper (...) criticizes Tugendhat’s position, yet considers this sort of return to Kant as valuable, a return that sees anthropology as the core and ultimate self-reflective telos of philosophy. -/- Key Words: Ends of reason. Human vulnerability. Kant. Metaphilosophy. Self-reflection. (shrink)

Since the inception of their discipline, anthropologists have studied virtually every conceivable aspect of other peoples' morality - religion, social control, sin, virtue, evil, duty, purity and pollution. But what of the examination of anthropology itself, and of its agendas, epistemes, theories and praxes? Conceived as a response to Patrick Tierney's hugely inflammatory book Darkness in El Dorado , whose allegations of immoral and negligent anthropological research in South America caused a storm of protest and debate, the book combines theoretical (...) papers and case studies from eminent scholars including Steven Nugent, Marilyn Silverman and Veronica Strang. Showing how the topic of ethics goes to the heart of anthropology, it raises the controversial question of why - and for whom - the anthropological discipline functions. (shrink)

Malcolm’s English-Latin Leviathan is a marvelous technical accomplishment. My issues are with his contextualization, seeing Leviathan primarily as an advice book for Hobbes’s teenage pupil, the future Charles II. Malcolm’s localization involves minimalizing Leviathan's remoter sources, so the European Republic of Letters, for which Hobbes so painstakingly translated his works into Latin, is almost entirely missing, along with current European traditions of Hobbes scholarship. Is this very British Hobbes truly credible, or do we need a more European Hobbes to account (...) for the complexity of Leviathan? (shrink)