This article aims to contribute to the economic science’s discourse analysis, bringing the concepts of Foucault’s post-structuralism to this debate. We seek to understand the epistemological change in the economy, started in the 80s, without having to resort to a split in social interpretation in abstract cultural spheres (postmodernism) and other material-economic spheres (neoliberalism). The field of rhetoric in economics has sparked an intense debate in the social sciences. The abandonment of Keynesian theses, empirically tested throughout the 20th century, due (...) to the absorption of neoliberal theses was interpreted as an expression of “postmodernity” in economic science. Arida and Paulani’s analysis trace the methodological criticism to the intense mathematization of the economy, to the resumption of premises based on ontologically questionable abstractions without, however, understanding the role of language in structuring the discourse of economic science. It is the search for an adequate ontology that guides the methodological critique of marginalist-neoclassical economic science. Based on Foucault’s concepts, we propose a new ontology for the understanding of the rhetoric field in economics. (shrink)

In Sections 1–7, I provide a detailed description of some of the advantages of theistic modal realism. The aim is to show specifically how theistic modal realism solves many of the intractable problems of philosophical theology. A detailed description of all of the advantages would require a much longer treatment. The aim is to give a good sense of the theoretical benefits that theistic modal realism affords traditional theists. I offer some concluding remarks in Section 8.

The main aim in the forthcoming discussion is to contrast theistic modal realism and theistic actualist realism. Actualist realism is the dominant view among theists and presents the most serious challenge to theistic modal realism. I discuss various prominent forms of theistic actualist realism. I offer reasons for rejecting the view of metaphysical reality that actualist realism affords. I discuss theistic modal realism and show that the traditional conception of God is perfectly consistent with the metaphysics of genuine modal realism. (...) Indeed theistic modal realism is more suited to traditional theism than is any version of actualist realism. (shrink)

My aim is to show that, in Posterior Analytics B 8, the conception of lunar eclipse brought about by pre-demonstrative knowledge (hoti) is deeply vague and radically different from the one obtained by demonstrative knowledge (dioti).

The standard position on moral perfection and gratuitous evil makes the prevention of gratuitous evil a necessary condition on moral perfection. I argue that, on any analysis of gratuitous evil we choose, the standard position on moral perfection and gratuitous evil is false. It is metaphysically impossible to prevent every gratuitously evil state of affairs in every possible world. No matter what God does—no matter how many gratuitously evil states of affairs God prevents—it is necessarily true that God coexists with (...) gratuitous evil in some world or other. Since gratuitous evil cannot be eliminated from metaphysical space, the existence of gratuitous evil presents no objection to essentially omnipotent, essentially omniscient, essentially morally perfect, and necessarily existing beings. (shrink)

In this paper we respond to criticisms by Michael Bergmann and Michael Rea in their “In Defense of Sceptical Theism : A Reply to Almeida and Oppy,” Australasian Journal of Philosophy 83.

This paper aims to map the different theoretical options related to the Precautionary Principle (PP). Great part of the literature on it can be systematized by answering to three different questions: is there a basic structure in the PP? If so, in which interpretation of the PP does this structure express itself? Finally, are its damage or knowledge conditions fixed or adjustable? The first question separates realist from non-realist approaches. The second question allows us to discriminate monist, dualist, or pluralist (...) positions in relation to the three interpretations of the PP: decision rule, procedural requirement, or epistemic rule. Finally, the third question distinguishes rigid from non-rigid formulations of the principle. Based on this mapping, one can not only navigate through the different formulations of the PP present both in official documents and in specialized literature, but also deflect some of its common objections, and understand Hans Jonas’ eventual connection with PP. Notwithstanding, this mapping does not capture other important themes attached to PP, which motivates a final distinction between narrow and broader forms of PP. (shrink)

I provide the account of divine creation found in multiverse theorists Donald Turner, Klaas Kraay, and Tim O’Connor. I show that the accounts Kraay and Turner offer are incoherent. God does not survey all possible worlds and necessarily actualize those universes in the (on balance) good worlds or the worthy worlds. If God necessarily actualizes the multiverse, we have no idea which universes are parts of that multiverse. I show next that Tim O’Connor’s multiverse account of creation is also incoherent. (...) I argue that a preferable multiverse would include a much greater variety of universes than are included in Turner, Kraay or O’Connor. In the last section I offer some concluding remarks. (shrink)

The paper aims to show that, if S5 is the logic of metaphysical necessity, then no state of affairs in any possible world constitutes any non-trivial evidence for or against the existence of the traditional God. There might well be states of affairs in some worlds describing extraordinary goods and extraordinary evils, but it is false that these states of affairs constitute any (non-trivial) evidence for or against the existence of God. The epistemological and metaphysical consequences for philosophical theology of (...) assuming that S4 or Kσρ is the logic of metaphysical necessity are equally untenable. S4 guarantees that God does not exist if there is the slightest evidence against the existence of God. And Kσρ guarantees that God might survive the loss or acquisition of any essential property at all. (shrink)

I examine the difficulties involved in the Aristotelian proposal to identify the knowledge of “what it is” and “why it is”, in order to better understand the outlines that delimit it. I propose that the connections by which Aristotle links definition and explanation, and hence essence and cause, depend on the mutual convertibility between nominal expressions and predicative sentences.

Sceptical theists--e.g., William Alston and Michael Bergmann--have claimed that considerations concerning human cognitive limitations are alone sufficient to undermine evidential arguments from evil. We argue that, if the considerations deployed by sceptical theists are sufficient to undermine evidential arguments from evil, then those considerations are also sufficient to undermine inferences that play a crucial role in ordinary moral reasoning. If cogent, our argument suffices to discredit sceptical theist responses to evidential arguments from evil.

The book discusses the structure, content, and evaluation of cosmological arguments. The introductory chapter investigates features essential to cosmological arguments. Traditionally, cosmological arguments are distinguished by their appeal to change, causation, contingency or objective becoming in the world. But none of these is in fact essential to the formulation of cosmological arguments. Chapters 1-3 present a critical discussion of traditional Thomistic, Kalam, and Leibnizian cosmological arguments, noting various advantages and disadvantages of these approaches. Chapter 4 offers an entirely new approach (...) to the cosmological argument - the approach of theistic modal realism. The proper explananda of cosmological arguments on this approach is not change, causation, contingency or objective becoming in the world. The proper explananda is the totality of metaphysical reality - all actualia and all possibilia. The result is the most compelling and least objectionable version of the cosmological argument. (shrink)

Despite the importance of human blood to clinical practice and research, hematology and blood transfusion data remain scattered throughout a range of disparate sources. This lack of systematization concerning the use and definition of terms poses problems for physicians and biomedical professionals. We are introducing here the Blood Ontology, an ongoing initiative designed to serve as a controlled vocabulary for use in organizing information about blood. The paper describes the scope of the Blood Ontology, its stage of development and some (...) of its anticipated uses. (shrink)

Estas reflexões têm como principal objetivo mostrar como a concepção do belo em Agostinho de Hipona é tributária da tradição platônico-aristotélica e das Escrituras. No que tange à primeira influência, a ênfase é colocada nas noções de simetria, de proporção, de forma, de unidade e, portanto, de belo. No que diz respeito às Escrituras, Agostinho considera em primeiro lugar o papel da criação e a ação de Deus no universo como o Ser a partir do qual todas as coisas se (...) mantêm harmônica e proporcionalmente vinculadas entre si. Neste universo, ao pôr o acento sobre o homem como a imagem e semelhança de Deus, o teólogo explora igualmente o conceito de participação, que também remete a Platão e às Escrituras. O texto termina apontando para o paradoxo, tipicamente estoico, do apesar de, isto é, apesar do mal, existe o bem, apesar do feio e do desgracioso, existe o belo. (shrink)

Nick Trakakis and Yujin Nagasawa criticise the argument in Almeida and Oppy . According to Trakakis and Nagasawa, we are mistaken in our claim that the sceptical theist response to evidential arguments from evil is unacceptable because it would undermine ordinary moral reasoning. In their view, there is no good reason to think that sceptical theism leads to an objectionable form of moral scepticism. We disagree. In this paper, we explain why we think that the argument of Nagasawa and (...) Trakakis fails to overthrow our objection to sceptical theism. (shrink)

Defensores do princípio da precaução propõem com frequência mudanças nas práticas científicas, para que elas facilitem o mesmo objetivo do princípio: evitar ameaças incertas ao ambiente ou à saúde humana. A ciência deveria ser uma ciência precautória. Apesar da importância prática da ciência precautória e da sua proximidade com os debates sobre ciência e valores, ela ainda não foi sistematicamente examinada. Neste artigo, pretende-se contribuir para a literatura sobre a ciência precautória de dois modos: sistematizando sua literatura prévia e propondo (...) uma definição de um de seus elementos principais, a precaução epistêmica, como uma orientação específica para a gestão de riscos indutivos. Conclui-se com algumas objeções que tal definição levanta, bem como caminhos de pesquisas futuras para abordá-las. (shrink)

We explore Peirce’s pragmatic conception of sign action, as a distributed and emergent view of cognition and exemplify with the emergence of classical ballet. In our approach, semiosis is a temporally distributed process in which a regular tendency towards certain future outcomes emerges out of a history of sign actions. Semiosis self-organizes in time, in a process that continuously entails the production of more signs. Emergence is a ubiquitous condition in this process: the translation of signs into signs cannot be (...) inferred from the properties of the components of a semiotic triad alone, but has to take into account a complex interaction between a micro-semiotic and macro-semiotic level of description. This interaction can be understood as an interplay of potentialities and tendencies, or upward constitutive determinative relations and downward selective determinative relations. According to this view, emergence is a central defining condition of processes of meaning. Ballet is a sign in action. The emergence of classical ballet is a self-regulatory process, in which a system of different kinds of cognitive artifacts (musical, bodily/motor, spatial/architectonic) and agents obtained a stable semiotic relation throughout many phases of development between the 16th and the 19th Century. One case is the development of the verticality of dance in classical ballet as a semiotic relation connecting proscenium arch stages, dancing bodies, and audiences. This development is micro-semiotically determined by the spatial constraints of the proscenium arch stage, and macro-semiotically determined by a historical construction of the dancing body as a sign within a network of semiotic chains, such as the intersemiotic regulation of body of the dancer by principles coming from painting. This is not only the emergence of actual meaning, but also the emergence of an open-ended field of potential and general meanings, an autonomous tendency of development. To say that ballet, as sign action, emerges, is to say that cognitive artifacts such as dancer’s bodies, stages and audience’s point of view, musical compositions, costumes, all sorts of supporting institutions, etc, constitute a niche for sign action, interacting according to tendencies of development that didn’t exist before. (shrink)

According to Paul Draper and Ryan Nichols the practice of philosophy of religion—and especially its theistically committed practitioners—regularly violate norms of rationality, objectivity, and impartiality in the review, assessment, and weighing of evidence. (Draper and Nichols, 2013). We consider the charge of epistemic partisanship and show that the observational data does not illustrate a norm-violating form of inquiry. The major oversight in the charge of epistemic partiality is the epistemically central role of prior probabilities in determining the significance of incongruent (...) evidence. We argue that reasonably divergent views on the likelihood of theism on incongruent evidence can also account for differences in significance. We conclude that it is an epistemic requirement that committed theists regard incongruent evils as much less significant evidence against theism than do lukewarm theists, agnostics, or atheists. Differences in the significance of evidence quite properly reflect differences in commitments to theism. (shrink)

Aproximaciones a la escuela francesa de epistemología Los problemas que dominan a la epistemología pueden contextualizarse históricamente como una forma de racionalidad filosófica. La filosofía se ha presentado a lo largo de la historia como un discurso en el que sus diversos componentes (metafísica, ontología, gnoseología, ética, lógica, etc.) se mostraron unidos en el molde de la ?unidad del saber?. En este marco unitario alguna de las formas del saber filosófico detenta usualmente una posición dominante. El énfasis colocado en la (...) unidad del saber filosófico, o en ?la unidad del pensamiento humano?, es una herencia que el pensamiento filosófico recibe de sus raíces mítico-teológicas. Dicha visión se vio sometida, en la historia de la filosofía, a un proceso de secularización por el cual la instancia dominante pasó de la teología a la metafísica y de ésta a la teoría del conocimiento. Entre los siglos XIX y XX, este proceso atestiguó un cambio ulterior, colocando a la epistemología como instancia dominante de la racionalidad filosófica. La sucesión debe verse como una consecuencia de la funcionalización social de los dispositivos de creencias (ideología), lo que provoca que los mismos se conviertan, en determinado momento, en un obstáculo para la producción de nuevos conocimientos. De esta manera, los nuevos conocimientos, para desarrollarse, se ven forzados a provocar reestructuraciones en el campo filosófico, ya sea mediante el reemplazo de la instancia dominante, la incorporación o creación de nuevas formas de saber filosófico -tal el caso de la epistemología-, o de la marginalización relativa de otras. Se trata de en un proceso complejo (que no es ni lineal, ni biunívoco), en el que cabe no obstante discernir un esquema de la sucesión temporal de las formas filosóficas que dominan la pretendida ?unidad del pensamiento humano? (filosofía). El que acabamos de describir es un proceso lento de sustitución y reemplazo en el tipo de garantías que se le exige elaborar a la filosofía. Algunos momentos, como el ocaso de las garantías de la fe, acaecido con el surgimiento de la filosofía moderna, podrían parecer a primera vista contrajemplos para esta concepción de la evolución del saber filosófico. Podría creerse, en efecto, que con la constitución de esferas autónomas de discurso (teología, ciencia, filosofía), del discurso filosófico se desgajó en un discurso de una naturaleza diferente: la ciencia. Sin embargo, una mirada más atenta revela un paisaje diferente, puesto que esta transformación estuvo acompañada, primero, por la aparición de una nueva instancia dominante de la unificación del conocimiento filosófico. Se trata de la búsqueda de una nueva clase de garantías, las del origen y el fundamento del conocimiento, es decir, las de la gnoseología o teoría del conocimiento, en el interior de la cual se verificó finalmente un nuevo desplazamiento, con la constitución, a fines del siglo XIX y principios del siglo XX, de la ?filosofía de la ciencia? o epistemología. Este modelo para la conceptualización del desarrollo del discurso filosófico tiene la ventaja de permitirnos pensar la relación que la epistemología guarda con la instancia de saber filosófico dominante en el seno de la cual se desarrolla: la de la gnoseología. A partir de las relaciones que la epistemología guarda con la temática de las garantías del conocimiento podemos apresar, en un esquema heurístico que será complejizado de diversos modos en este libro, la diferencia entre las tesis características de la epistemología anglosajona y de la epistemología francesa. De acuerdo con en este esquema heurístico, el rasgo más característico de la epistemología anglosajona es su sujeción, en la mayor parte de su desarrollo, a la teoría del conocimiento, lo que se revela en la persistencia de algunos aspectos de la filosofía de la representación y en la reproducción de la oposición idealista entre sujeto y objeto como dos polos cuya armonía debería establecerse, filosóficamente, en términos de la verdad. En su lugar, la epistemología francesa se propuso el estudio de los mecanismos de producción de los conocimientos. La epistemología, desde esta perspectiva, ya no fue vista primordialmente como el estudio de los fundamentos del conocimiento científico, sino como la teoría de las condiciones y las formas de la práctica científica y la historia de esta práctica, tal como aparece en las distintas ciencias concretas. Expresado de otra manera, el contraste se podría establecer mediante la observación de que mientras los anglosajones hacen filosofía de la ciencia como una extensión de la lógica, los franceses la hacen como una extensión de la historia de la ciencia, es decir, encontrando en la historia el laboratorio del epistemólogo. Ahora bien, según veremos, el campo de la epistemología francesa ha cobijado una buena cantidad de debates que tienen que ver primordialmente con dos tendencias en tensión: la que enfatiza la autonomía de lo epistemológico y aquella que destaca la determinación social del pensamiento. Los trabajos de este libro esperan problematizar este y otros ejes, explorando las perspectivas de los ?clásicos? de la escuela francesa en epistemología (Bachelard, Canguilhem, Althusser, Foucault, etc.), las relaciones entre los mismos y los diálogos que cabe establecer entre estos y otras corrientes de pensamiento. ÍNDICE: La ruptura epistemológica, de Bachelard a Balibar y Pêcheux, Pedro Karczmarczyk La ruptura epistemológica según Bachelard, Althusser y Badiou, Carlos Gassmann Visitaciones Derrideanas, Jazmín Anahí Acosta Epistemología sin sujeto cognoscente. Superación, disolución o sujeción de la subjetividad en Popper, Wittgenstein y Foucault, Silvia Rivera; La torsión política del concepto de verdad en Michel Foucault, Manuel Cuervo Sola Canguilhem y Foucault. De la norma biológica a la norma política, Andrea Torrano Psicología e ideología: Foucault, Canguilhem y Althusser, Matías Abeijón . (shrink)

William Rowe has argued that if there is an infinite sequence of improving worlds then an essentially perfectly good being must actualize some world in the sequence and must not actualize any world in the sequence. Since that is impossible, there exist no perfectly good beings. I show that Rowe's argument assumes that the concept of a maximally great being is incoherent. Since we are given no reason to believe that the concept of a maximally great being is incoherent we (...) have no reason to believe Rowe's Argument from Improvability is sound. (shrink)

(CONTENIDO: LA FILOSOFÍA DE ALTHUSSER A 50 AÑOS DE LIRE LE CAPITAL Pedro Karczmarczyk, 3; DISCURSO Y DECRETO: SPINOZA ALTHUSSER Y PÊCHEUX Warren Montag 11; ALTHUSSER LECTOR DE GRAMSCI Vittorio Morfino 43 LAS ABSTRACCIONES, ENTRE LA IDEOLOGÍA Y LA CIENCIA João Quartim de Moraes 67 ELOGIO DEL TEORICISMO. PRÁCTICA TEÓRICA E INCONSCIENTE FILOSÓFICO EN LA PROBLEMÁTICA ALTHUSSERIANA, Natalia Romé 85 MARXISMO Y FEMINISMO: EL RECOMIENZO DE UNA PROBLEMÁTICA1 115 Luisina Bolla* / Pedro Karczmarczyk* 115 RRESEÑAS El materialismo de (...) Althusser. Más allá del telos y del Eschaton de Vittorio Morfino, por Valentín Huarte 153; El sujeto en cuestión, Pedro Karczmarczyk (ed.) por Constanza Storani; 159 La posición materialista. El pensamiento de L. Althusser entre la práctica teórica y la práctica política, de Natalia Romé, por Ingrid Sarchman y Carolina Collazo 164. (shrink)

A Crítica de Hume ao Argumento do Desígnio José Oscar de Almeida Marques Dep. de Filosofia – UNICAMP -/- RESUMO: É comum considerar que o chamado “argumento do desígnio” (o argumento a posteriori para provar a existência de Deus a partir da ordem e funcionalidade do mundo) teria sido refutado ou seriamente abalado por Hume. Mas a natureza e o alcance dessa alegada refutação são problemáticos, pois Hume muitas vezes expressou suas críticas através de seus personagens e evitou assumi-las (...) diretamente enquanto autor. Em vez de supor que Hume procedeu dessa forma apenas para disfarçar suas verdadeiras convicções e evitar um conflito com as autoridades eclesiásticas, proponho que sua posição nesse assunto não é tão categórica como às vezes se supõe, e que os famosos argumentos de Filo nos Diálogos mostram apenas que é possível que a ordem e funcionalidade do mundo tenham surgido sem a intervenção de um desígnio consciente, mas não podem por si sós dar a essa hipótese o mínimo grau de plausibilidade necessário para torná-la digna de uma séria consideração. De fato, antes da revolução explicativa operada por Darwin um século depois, ninguém estava realmente em condições de vislumbrar uma alternativa plausível à atuação de algum tipo de inteligência na geração da ordem e funcionalidade do mundo. ------------ Some Remarks on Hume’s Critique of the Argument from Design José Oscar of Almeida Marques Dep. of Philosophy - UNICAMP -/- ABSTRACT: The so-called “argument from design” (the a posteriori argument to prove the existence of God from the order and functionality of the world) is commonly considered to have been refuted or seriously impaired by Hume. But the nature and scope of this alleged refutation is problematic because Hume often expressed his critics through other characters’ mouth and avoided to assume them directly as author. Contrarily to the supposition that Hume proceeded in this way only to disguise his true convictions and to avoid a confrontation with the ecclesiastical authorities, I propose that his stance on the matter is not, in fact, as clear-cut as it is sometimes supposed, and that Philo’s famous arguments in the Dialogues show only that it is possible for the order and functionality of the world to have arisen without the intervention of an intelligent design, but cannot by themselves lend to this hypothesis the least degree of plausibility needed to make it worthy of serious consideration. In fact, before the explanatory revolution inaugurated by Darwin a century later, nobody was in position to envisage a plausible alternative to the operation of some sort or other of intelligence in the generation of the order and functionality of the world. (shrink)

Perhaps the greatest impediment to a viable libertarianism is the provision of a satisfactory explanation of how actions that are undetermined by an agent's character can still be under the control of, or ‘up to’, the agent. The ‘luck problem’ has been most assiduously examined by Robert Kane who supplies a detailed account of how this problem can be resolved. Although Kane's theory is innovative, insightful, and more resourceful than most of his critics believe, it ultimately cannot account for the (...) type of control that moral responsibility and (ultimate) agency legitimately require. (shrink)

La obra es un estudio de una de las nociones fundamentales en la filosofía de Gadamer, el concepto de aplicación. Se intenta dar cuenta de la manera en que dicho concepto viene a solucionar, o tal vez sería mejor decir, a disolver, en la reflexión del siglo XX, el problema que enfrentaban las ciencias históricas en el siglo XIX para convertirse en conocimiento objetivo. Dicho problema consistía en dos importantes dificultades vinculadas entre sí: la imposibilidad de disponer de un objeto (...) independiente, el pasado “tal cual ocurrió” para confrontar la adecuación de las visiones del mismo constituidas desde el presente, por un lado, y la imposibilidad de erradicar la perspectiva del presente (intereses, ideologías, etc.)en los relatos históricos. Para abordar este problema, Gadamer acomete nada menos que una revisión de las categorías fundamentales en las cuales se inserta esta dificultad, esto es, las nociones de conocimiento, realidad y verdad modeladas, a través de Kant, de acuerdo a la perspectiva de la moderna ciencia de la naturaleza. Un paso fundamental será entonces examinar el problema del valor cognitivo del arte, esto es, elucidar las nociones de realidad y experiencia a partir de la experiencia artística, para extender luego estas conclusiones a la historia y el lenguaje. En el marco de esta revisión se perfila el concepto de aplicación, el cual destaca que nuestra condición de agentes históricos, insertos en una tradición y en una comunidad lingüística, no es un obstáculo, sino justamente la condición que hace posible que podamos comprender lo diferente a lo propio, ya sea en la forma de la alteridad histórica, lingüística o meramente personal. La tesis de la obra que presentamos es que la estructura de la aplicación, con la consecuente historicidad que acarrea, se presenta de manera semejante tanto en las macro-estructuras de la comprensión (comprensión de textos, de la tradición, del arte) como en las estructuras de un nivel inferior o más básico, como la realización de juicios y la comprensión de conceptos, punto que se elabora, en esta obra, a través de una comparación con las ideas del segundo Wittgenstein. (shrink)

Resumen: Los trabajos abordan, desde diferentes perspectivas a la categoría de sujeto como una categoría crucial del pensamiento contemporáneo. El ámbito de preocupaciones es amplio: la perspectiva del filósofo norteamericano S Cavell quien hace una originalísima recepción de la herencia de Austin y Wittgenstein; la perspectiva fenomenológica de Sartre en diálogo y conflicto con la del psicoanálisis lacaniano y las reconceptualizaciones de la ideología realizadas por Louis Althusser; la constitución del sujeto en tensión entre la sujeción al poder y las (...) posibilidadesde resistencia según la perspectiva de Judith Butler; una relectura de la implicación de estructura y sujeto en la perspectiva estructural abierta por Saussure y continuada por Lévi-Strauss, Benveniste y Lacan, tema que recibe un tratamiento circunscripto al pensamiento del argentino Ernesto Laclau, en el que se distinguen distintas etapas; las implicaciones que los eventos fundamentales de la historia del siglo XX acarrean para una conceptualización de la subjetividad en la perspectiva de Theodor Adorno y las limitaciones que la conceptualización de la obra de arte como juego en la obra de Gadamer impone a la concepción moderna de la subjetividad. -/- Índice: Presentación del compilador La crítica de Heidegger a la noción de sujeto: un análisis a partir de la incidencia de su reflexión sobre la técnica y el lenguaje, Luciana Carrera Aizpitarte El juego como auto-representación y modo de ser de la obra de arte en la estética hermenéutica de Gadamer, Paola Belén El yo sobre la línea de ficción: análisis de las concepciones de Sartre y Lacan, Luisina Bolla El poder y el sujeto. Sujeción, norma y resistencia en Judith Butler, Matías Abeijón Theodor W. Adorno: la crítica al sujeto después de Auschwitz, Gustavo Robles Estructura, discurso y subjetividad, Pedro Karczmarczyk Transformaciones, rupturas y continuidades entre la perspectiva de Ernesto Laclau y la tradición (post)estructuralista, Hernán Fair La recuperación del sujeto: escepticismo, autoconocimiento y escritura en S. Cavell, Guadalupe Reinoso . (shrink)

To try to understand Nietzsche’s conception of Christianity is to try to understand his conception of morality, or to try to analyze, dissect, and diagnose the forces and the relation of forces that underly it, or permeate it. These forces characterize not only the reality as Nietzsche considers it, but also the dynamic of his own writing, thought, and perspective. This is the reason why we can affirm that Nietzsche’s thought and writing are essentially, intrinsically, paradoxical. Indeed, the Nietzschean text (...) unfolds as what constantly resists and escapes the order of discourse as such, which means that it would be a frustrating undertaking to seek a key that discloses and explicates the plurality of meanings that engender and determine the development of his writing. Paradoxically, Nietzschean thought reveals itself only to the extent that it is masked, reread, repeated, rewritten, and stripped of all attempts to master it. In other words, it progresses through a continuous intermingling of forces and, consequently, of values, interpretations, and significations that are unceasingly overcoming and surpassing each other. (shrink)

This paper discusses the first incarnation of what came to be known as the “Frege-Geach” point. The point was made by Peter Geach in his 1960 essay “Ascriptivism”, and developed in “Assertion”, a 1965 piece. Geach’s articles launch a wholesale attack on theories of non-descriptive performances advanced by “some Oxford philosophers” whom he accuses of ignoring “the distinction between calling a thing ‘P’ and predicating ‘P’ of a thing”. One view that Geach specifically targets is H. L. A. Hart’s claim (...) that sentences of the form “X φ-ed” are not primarily descriptive but ascriptive of responsibility for actions. Hart explicitly accepted Geach’s criticism, and disowned his essay. I argue that he was wrong to do so. Perhaps the essay was worth retracting, but not because of Geach’s objections. I begin by restating and refining Geach’s arguments, in order to bring out the flaw he claimed to have detected in the “pattern of philosophising” that he took Hart’s essay to exemplify. I go on to argue that Geach’s original point poses no obstacle either to non-descriptivism in general, or to Hart’s sui generis non-descriptivist claim in particular. (shrink)

I consider the most serious problem for the traditional account of divine creation in theistic actualism. According to van Inwagen's modal collapse argument, ultimate explanation entails that gratitude to God for one's existence is totally inappropriate. Ultimately, the actual world, and everything in it, is self-explanatory, and not a consequence of divine creation. I argue that van Inwagen's argument is unsound. It is consistent with an ultimate explanation for the world that the actual world is contingently necessary. If God actualizes (...) the world as a matter of contingent necessity, then gratitude to God for one's existence is perfectly appropriate. It is true that we exist as a matter of necessity, but that necessary existence is just a contingent fact. There are possible worlds in which we fail to exist altogether. (shrink)

In a recent paper in this Journal San Pedro I formulated a conjecture relating Measurement Independence and Parameter Independence, in the context of common cause explanations of EPR correlations. My conjecture suggested that a violation of Measurement Independence would entail a violation of Parameter Independence as well. Leszek Wroński has shown that conjecture to be false. In this note, I review Wroński’s arguments and agree with him on the fate of the conjecture. I argue that what is interesting about (...) the conjecture, however, is not whether it is true or false in itself, but the reasons for the actual verdict, and their implications regarding locality. (shrink)

La discusión sobre las consecuencias políticas del pensamiento de L. Wittgenstein ha girado sobre la posibilidad de construir miradas críticas sobre lo social, su legitimidad, amplitud, fuerza, etc. Sin embargo, aproximar a Wittgenstein a una posición materialista, como la entendía L. Althusser, conduce a una comprensión diferente de la crítica, vinculada a la tarea de deconstruir el discurso filosófico que intenta unificar y organizar jerárquicamente las evidencias (certezas) constitutivas de los diferentes juegos de lenguaje en los que se despliega lo (...) social. Se intenta extraer de esta aproximación una distinción entre la filosofía como práctica teórica ideológica y como práctica teórica crítica. The discussion regarding the political consequences of Wittgenstein's thought has focused on the possibility of building critical approaches to the legitimacy, amplitude, strength, etc. of the social sphere. However, bringing Wittgenstein close to a materialist position as understood by L. Althusser leads to a different understanding of critique, linked to the deconstruction of the philosophical discourse that attempts to unify and hierarchically organize the certainties that are constitutive of the different language games in which the social is deployed. On the basis of this approach, the article attempts to draw a distinction between philosophy as ideological theoretical practice and as critical theoretical practice. (shrink)

In debates concerning the consequence argument, it has long been claimed that [McKay, T. J., and D. Johnson. 1996. “A Reconsideration of an Argument Against Compatibilism.” Philosophical Topics 24 (2): 113–122] demonstrated the invalidity of rule (β). Here, I argue that their result is not as robust as we might like to think. First, I argue that McKay and Johnson's counterexample is successful if one adopts a certain interpretation of ‘no choice about’ and if one is willing to deny the (...) conditional excluded middle principle. In order to make this point I demonstrate that (β) is valid on Stalnaker's theory of counterfactuals. This result is important and should not be neglected, I argue, because there is a particular line of objection to the revised formulations of the consequence argument that does not succeed against the original version. (shrink)

Rigidity does interesting philosophical work, with important consequences felt throughout metaphysics, epistemology, philosophy of mind, and so on. The authors’ aim in this article is to show that rigidity has yet another role to play, with surprising consequences for the problem of free will and determinism, for the phenomenon of rigidity has the upshot that some metaphysically necessary truths are up to us. The significance of this claim is shown in the context of influential arguments against free will. The authors (...) show that some virtually indisputable inference rules employed in formulations of the Consequence Argument, as well as in fatalistic arguments, fail with a variety of counter-examples. Along the way, the authors compare the present arguments to other, similar arguments made in recent years. (shrink)

Property-identical divine-command theory (PDCT) is the view that being obligatory is identical to being commanded by God in just the way that being water is identical to being H2O. If these identity statements are true, then they express necessary a posteriori truths. PDCT has been defended in Robert M. Adams (1987) and William Alston (1990). More recently Mark C. Murphy (2002) has argued that property-identical divine-command theory is inconsistent with two well-known and well-received theses: the free-command thesis and the supervenience (...) thesis. I show that Murphy's argument is vitiated by mistaken assumptions about the substitutivity of metaphysical identicals in contexts of supervenience. The free-command thesis and the supervenience thesis therefore pose no serious threat to PDCT. (Published Online August 11 2004). (shrink)

En este trabajo analizamos la reivindicación gadameriana del valor cognitivo de arte como un ejemplo de un modo de conocimiento que permite concebir de mejor manera la comprensión que tiene lugar en las ciencias del espíritu. Dicha reivindicación presupone el desconocimiento del valor cognitivo del arte operado por la subjetivización de la estética con Kant y una vuelta a los presupuestos de la tradición humanista. Por ello en la introducción presentamos en esquema los conceptos humanistas de tacto, gusto, sentido común (...) y juicio y comparamos el concepto de experiencia que corresponde a los mismos con la noción de experiencia modelada por la ciencia moderna. En la primera parte del trabajo examinamos en detalle la subjetivización de la estética que comienza con Kant y culmina con la “conciencia estética”. En la segunda parte examinamos cómo la reivindicación del valor cognitivo del arte corre pareja con el desarrollo de una ontología de la obra de arte. Concluimos señalando cómo el recorrido realizado facilita la comprensión de la especificidad de las ciencias del espíritu (humanidades). (shrink)

The first part of this paper develops an outline of the history of hermeneutics organised around the problem of the method, understood as the question of guarantee of objectivity, the central problem of XIX century hermeneutics. In this outline XX century neo-Wittgensteinian philosophers like Peter Winch and Charles Taylor, appears as establishing the legitimacy of the methodological autonomy of hermeneutically oriented approach to social studies. Second part of the paper follows Georgia Warnke suggestion that specific Gadamerian contribution is to refuse (...) objectivity and intersubjective validity as necessary requisites for interpretation to be successful. We find in an analogy with phenomenological analysis of perception of material object and in hermeneutical analysis of the function of “distance” the grounds in Gadamer´s thought that supports this interpretation. We conclude assessing whether Gadamer position implies a methodological conclusion of the kind "everything goes" and which is the role intersubjectivity has to play in Gadamerian new scenery. (shrink)

On assiste, depuis les années 70, à une interminable littérature sur la vie et la pensée de Nietzsche. Ce foisonnement d’études prend des proportions telles, que même des interprétations relativement récentes (Deleuze, Derrida, Klossowski, Sarah Kofman) se voient déjà élevées au rang des classiques. Les thèmes anciens, mêlés à d’autres plus actuels, sont repris, répétés, relus et réécrits dans des perspectives diverses. Ainsi se noue le dialogue d’une philosophie avec de larges pans de culture : Nietzsche et la métaphysique, Nietzsche (...) et la science, Nietzsche et la politique, Nietzsche et la musique, Nietzsche et la religion, Nietzsche et l’antisémitisme, Nietzsche et les Nazis, Nietzsche et le féminin, Nietzsche et la psychanalyse. (shrink)

There has been considerable debate in legal philosophy about how to attribute purposes to rules. Separately, within cognitive science, there has been a growing body of research concerned with questions about how people ordinarily attribute purposes. Here, we argue that these two separate fields might be connected by experimental jurisprudence. Across four studies, we find evidence for the claim that people use the same criteria to attribute purposes to physical objects and to rules. In both cases, purpose attributions appear to (...) be governed not so much by original intention or by moral value as by current practice. We argue that these findings in the cognitive science of purpose attribution have implications for jurisprudential questions involving purposivist legal interpretation. (shrink)

Intentaremos reconstruir la controversia acerca de la posibilidad de un lenguaje privado. Analizamos primero las posiciones “epistemológicas” (Malcolm y Fogelin), mostrando sus fallos. Luego analizamos la versión “semántica” (Kenny y Tugendhat) encontrándolas igualmente fallidas. La crítica de Barry Stroud a los argumentos trascendentales como argumentos antiescépticos nos permite discernir el presupuesto común que debilita las posiciones anteriores. Asimismo, la reconstrucción permite apreciar mejor la manera en la que la versión de Kripke evita comprometerse con este presupueto. Argumentamos que esta versión (...) es la única versión consistente del argumento. Esta afirmación obliga afrontar algunas de las objeciones corrientes dirigidas a la propuesta de Kripke: el problema de la objetividad de la regla, ¿puede un individuo estar acertado en contra de la opinión comunitaria consensuada?; y el problema de las relaciones internas entre reglas y casos, presuntamente violentada por el rol que la noción de acuerdo comunitario desempeña en la misma. Sostenemos que nuestra reconstrucción de la controversia permite encontrar razones para mostrar por qué las objeciones mencionadas no se le aplican. -/- This paper tries to reconstruct the controversy on the possibility of private language. First, we analyse “epistemological” trends in the argument (Malcolm, Fogelin) showing their failures. Then, we analyse “semantic” versions (Kenny, Tugendhat) finding they are also failed. Barry Stroud’s criticism of transcendental arguments as refutations of scepticism allows us to discern the common presupposition that weakens the versions of the argument considered. Moreover, this reconstruction allows us to see how Kripke’s deals with the problem of the previous discussion in order to avoid committing himself with this presupposition. We consider Kripke’s version to be the only consistent version of the argument. Such a statement obliges us to consider two of the most important criticisms directed against Kripke’s Wittgenstein: The problem of objectivity of the rule: Can a single individual be right in contradicting communal assent?; and the problem of internal relationships between rules and their applications, allegedly violated because of the role played by communal agreement. We claim that our reconstruction of the controversy provides good reasons to show that the above-mentioned objections don’t apply to Kripke’s Wittgenstein version. (shrink)

Most theists do not put a (subjective) probability of 1 (certainty) on God's existence. Most atheists do not put a probability of 0 on God's existence. I argue that these familiar positions are incoherent. On the assumption of S5 and the probability calculus it can be shown that the only coherent (subjective) probabilities an agent can assign to God's existence/non-existence are 0 or 1. Believers must be completely committed believers and non-believers must be completely committed non-believers. Agnosticism is not a (...) coherent position. (shrink)

The present paper deals with the consequences Kripke’s interpretation of Wittgenstein’s private language argument has for political and social thought. We will show this is particularly important because it challenges the framework where ordinarily is located the discussion of the political and social relevance of Wittgenstein’s thought. Classical discussion has been concerned mainly with the role of communitary agreement, its relativistic or conservative consequences, the room for criticism and disagreement that it leaves, etc. We discern in classical reading a commitment (...) with some epistemological problems (warrants for knowledge) which is not completely overcame, its semantic jargon notwithstanding. Instead, we will argue, the new framework proposed by Kripke, overcome this epistemological problematic, rising new concerns, close to which, in French contemporary thought, has been called “philosophies of the subjection of the subject”. (shrink)