In a recent paper in this journal, David Chalmers introduced the meta-problem of consciousness as “the problem of explaining why we think consciousness poses a hard problem” (Chalmers, 2018, p. 6). A solution to the meta-problem could shed light on the hard problem of consciousness. In particular, it would be relevant to elucidate whether people’s problem intuitions (i.e. intuitions holding that conscious experience cannot be reduced to physical processes) are driven by factors related to the nature of consciousness, or rather (...) by factors that are independent of consciousness. Whether people hold problem intuitions, and what factors drive those intuitions, are largely empirical questions. However, there is a lack of empirical research on these issues to date. The results of four studies will show that (1) problem intuitions are not widespread, and (2) when they arise, they do so because of factors that are unrelated to the nature of consciousness. This suggests that consciousness is, after all, not so problematic. (shrink)

This essay focuses on three recent books on morality and virtue, Michael Slote's 'Morals from Motives', Rosalind Hursthouse's 'On Virtue Ethics', and Philippa Foot's 'Natural Goodness'. Slote proposes an "agent-based" ethical theory according to which the ethical status of acts is derivative from assessments of virtue. Following Foot's lead, Hursthouse aims to vindicate an ethical naturalism that explains human goodness on the basis of views about human nature. Both Hursthouse and Slote take virtue to be morally basic in a way (...) that Foot, to her credit, does not. We argue that all three views face a range of serious difficulties. (shrink)

Can we experience emotion without the feeling of accelerated heartbeats, perspiration, or other changes in the body? In his paper “What is an emotion”, William James famously claimed that “if we fancy some strong emotion and then try to abstract from our consciousness of it all the feelings of its bodily symptoms, we find we have nothing left behind” (1884, p. 193). Thus, bodily changes are essential to emotion. This is known as the Subtraction Argument. The Subtraction Argument is still (...) used to support Embodied theories of emotion. Proponents of Disembodied theories, however, have different intuitions regarding the role of bodily changes in the experience of emotion. In order to advance this debate, I conducted a series of studies testing people’s intuitions regarding the Subtraction Argument. Results show that, against James’ claims, most people consider that their hypothetical (Study 1) and actual (Study 2) emotions persist in the absence of bodily feelings. Furthermore, Study 1 found that participants’ responses were not related to individual differences in reflection or interoceptive awareness. These results pose a problem for Embodied theories of emotion and challenge extant explanations for the persistence of emotional experience in cases of impaired interoception. (shrink)

Emergency situations require individuals to make important changes in their behavior. In the case of the COVID-19 pandemic, official recommendations to avoid the spread of the virus include costly behaviors such as self-quarantining or drastically diminishing social contacts. Compliance (or lack thereof) with these recommendations is a controversial and divisive topic, and lay hypotheses abound regarding what underlies this divide. This paper investigates which cognitive, moral, and emotional traits separate people who comply with official recommendations from those who don't. In (...) four studies (three pre-registered) on both U.S. and French samples, we found that individuals' self-reported compliance with official recommendations during the COVID-19 pandemic was partly driven by individual differences in moral values, disgust sensitivity, and psychological reactance. We discuss the limitations of our studies and suggest possible applications in the context of health communication. (shrink)

I propose and defend the conjecture that what explains why Gettiered subjects fail to know is the fact that their justified true belief depends essentially on unknown propositions. The conjecture follows from the plausible principle about inference in general according to which one knows the conclusion of one’s inference only if one knows all the premises it involves essentially.

John N. Williams argued that Peter Klein's defeasibility theory of knowledge excludes the possibility of one knowing that one has (first-order) a posteriori knowledge. He does that by way of adding a new twist to an objection Klein himself answered more than forty years ago. In this paper I argue that Williams' objection misses its target because of this new twist.

In emotion research, both conceptual analyses and empirical studies commonly rely on emotion reports. But what do people mean when they say that they are angry, afraid, joyful, etc.? Building on extant theories of emotion, this paper presents four new studies (including a pre-registered replication) measuring the weight of cognitive evaluations, bodily changes, and action tendencies in people’s use of emotion concepts. The results of these studies suggest that the presence or absence of cognitive evaluations has the largest impact on (...) people’s emotion attributions, and that bodily changes and action tendencies are considered to depend on cognitive evaluations. Implications for theories of emotion (concepts) and the interpretation of emotion reports are discussed. (shrink)

Are feelings an essential part or aspect of emotion? Cases of unconscious emotion suggest that this is not the case. However, it has been claimed that unconscious emotions are better understood as either (a) emotions that are phenomenally conscious but not reflectively conscious, or (b) dispositions to have emotions rather than emotions proper. Here, I argue that these ways of accounting for unconscious emotions are inadequate, and propose a view of emotions as non-phenomenal attitudes that regard their contents as relevant (...) to one's motivations. (shrink)

Since the automation revolution of our technological era, diverse machines or robots have gradually begun to reconfigure our lives. With this expansion, it seems that those machines are now faced with a new challenge: more autonomous decision-making involving life or death consequences. This paper explores the philosophical possibility of artificial moral agency through the following question: could a machine obtain the cognitive capacities needed to be a moral agent? In this regard, I propose to expose, under a normative-cognitive perspective, the (...) minimum criteria through which we could recognize an artificial entity as a genuine moral entity. Although my proposal should be considered from a reasonable level of abstraction, I will critically analyze and identify how an artificial agent could integrate those cognitive features. Finally, I intend to discuss their limitations or possibilities. (shrink)

La literatura sobre razonamiento probatorio busca incidir en la determinación de los hechos en los procesos judiciales. Para alcanzar dicho propósito, no basta con dirigir la mirada hacia disciplinas extrajurídicas exitosas e integrar lo que de ellas pueda extraerse a las teorías jurídicas de la prueba y a la práctica judicial. Es necesario, además, considerar el tipo de hechos a probar, los roles de las reglas jurídicas aplicables, y asumir que litigantes y jueces, actuando en un contexto institucional, podrán ser (...) más o menos agudos en la discusión fáctica, entre otras cosas. Minimizar la influencia de tales factores expone a los estudios probatorios a tener un bajo rendimiento práctico. Algo de esto ha ocurrido con la llamada concepción racionalista de la prueba. Su innegable aporte al debate académico en español no ha ido a la par de su impacto judicial. Para explicar esta brecha entre teoría y práctica, identificamos tres creencias-obstáculo que afectan a su discurso sobre la prueba y que deben ser sorteadas si lo que se busca es influir en la forma en que se juzgan los hechos en un sistema judicial realmente existente. (shrink)

In “Is Justified True Belief Knowledge?” Edmund Gettier (1963) attacked the thesis ‘S knows that P iff P is true, S believes that P, and S is justified in believing that P’. His intention was to sustain that someone can have a justified true belief without knowing that belief. He made that by creating two counter-examples to that thesis. In this article, I try to show that Gettier’s arguments are based in a weak account of justification, and that such a (...) weak view cannot talk about someone knowing something. I begin by presenting his counter-examples, and then I show they do not work. (shrink)

It is often claimed that fear has an important epistemological function in making us aware of danger. Reactive theories challenge this view. According to them, fear is a response to real or apparent danger. In other words, real or apparent danger is the reason for which we experience fear. Thus, fear depends on awareness of danger instead of making us aware of danger. Proponents of the reactive theory have appealed to phenomenological and, most prominently, linguistic observations to support their views. (...) In particular, they argue that how we talk about the objects of fear supports the view that fear is a response (rather than a perception), and that how we talk about reasons for fear supports the view that reasons for fear are necessarily evaluative (about danger). Building on systematic linguistic observations in the form of corpus analyses and survey data, we argue that how we talk about the objects of fear and how we talk about reasons for fear do not support the reactive theory. Indeed, these linguistic considerations undermine the reactive theory. Most importantly, they suggest that there are non-evaluative reasons for fear. This is good news for rival theories, like perceptual theories, which hold that emotions have epistemic value in contributing to knowledge of evaluative properties such as danger. (shrink)

If we want to say what “fundamentality” means, we have to start by approaching what we generally see at the empty place of the predicate “____ is fundamental”. We generally talk about fundamental entities and fundamental theories. At this article, I tried to make a metaphysical approach of what is for something to be fundamental, and I also tried to talk a little bit of fundamental incomplete and complete theories. To do that, I start stating the notion of “entity” and (...) looking at the difference at perceived entities. The difference led us to talk about the entities’ structures and their powers, and about the supervenience between these last two. The supervenience talk made us to see the fight between emergentism and reductionism as the difference between the irreducibility of laws and the reducibility of powers and structures to lower-order domains. Then, we conclude that “fundamentality” is a mereological relation – a relation that a whole structure has to a certain combination of its structural parts or that a power has to a certain combination of its constituent powers – of to be identical and to exist in virtue of them. (shrink)

These days philosophy teaching in universities follows two main views: the continental philosophy and the analytic philosophy. Each one of those traditions has very different philosophical and pedagogical practices. My objectives in this article are: 1. to show the distinctions between the practices that continental and analytical philosophies cultivated at the universities; 2. to indicate that there is a confusion at the characterization of what is analytic philosophy, and that the critics driven to it are in fact driven to logical (...) positivism; 3. to show that the analytic practices are the ones we consider as genuinely philosophical. / Atualmente o ensino de Filosofia nas universidades tem seguido duas visões principais: a filosofia continental e a filosofia analítica. Cada uma dessas duas tradições diferem bastante em suas práticas filosófica e pedagógica. Meus objetivos neste artigo são: 1. mostrar as distinções entre as práticas cultivadas dentro das universidades pela filosofia continental e pela filosofia analítica; 2. indicar que há uma confusão na caracterização do que é filosofia analítica e que as críticas a ela dirigidas na verdade apontam para o positivismo lógico; 3. mostrar que as práticas analíticas são aquelas que consideramos como genuinamente filosóficas. (shrink)

If we are going to understand morality, it is important to understand the nature of societies. What is fundamental to them? What is the glue that holds them together? What is the role of shared norm acceptance in constituting a society? Michael Bratman’s account of modest sociality in his book, Shared Agency, casts significant light on these issues. Bratman’s account focuses on small-scale interactions, but it is instructive of the kinds of factors that can enter into explaining sociality more generally. (...) Norms of “social rationality” play an important role in Bratman’s account. I agree with his idea that these norms have normative force. I contend that these norms actually are morally significant. On the resulting view, social glue consists of actual and intended meshing of intentions and shared knowledge combined with a kind of normative pressure that has normative authority—along with other more familiar factors such as familial connections, cooperative arrangements, and affective states such as loyalties. (shrink)

ABSTRACT: David Braybrooke argues that the core of the natural law theory of Thomas Aquinas survived in the work of Hobbes, Locke, Hume, and Rousseau. Much to my surprise, Braybrooke argues as well that David Copp’s society-centered moral theory is a secular version of this same natural law theory. Braybrooke makes a good case that there is an important idea about morality that is shared by the great philosophers in his group and that this idea is also found in Copp’s (...) work. The idea is captured by the Functionalist Thesis, the thesis that moral propositions are made true by facts about what, given the nature of human beings and their circumstances, enables people to live together in thriving communities. I argue that Copp can accept Braybrooke’s suggestion and use it to improve his formulation of the basic idea of the society-centered theory. RÉSUMÉ : David Braybrooke soutient que l’idée centrale de la théorie du droit naturel de Thomas d’Aquin a survécu dans les œuvres de Hobbes, Locke, Hume et Rousseau. À mon grand étonnement, Braybrooke soutient aussi que la théorie morale société-centrique de David Copp est une version séculaire de cette même théorie du droit naturel. Braybrooke argumente de façon convaincante que les œuvres de ces grands philosophes partagent une idée centrale relative à la moralité et que cette idée se retrouve aussi chez Copp. Cette idée est la Thèse Fonctionnaliste, c’est-à-dire la thèse selon laquelle les faits moraux sont des faits concernant ce qui rend les membres de la société capables de vivre ensemble dans des communautés florissantes, étant donné la nature des êtres humains et les circonstances de leurs vies. Je soutiens que Copp peut reprendre à son compte les arguments de Braybrooke, et ainsi améliorer la formulation de l’idée centrale de sa théorie société-centrique. (shrink)

It is generally assumed that emotion concepts are purely descriptive. However, recent investigations suggest that the concept of happiness includes information about the morality of the agent's life. In this study, we argue that normative influences on emotion concepts are not restricted to happiness and are not about moral norms. In a series of studies, we show that emotion attribution is influenced by whether the agent's psychological and bodily states fit the situation in which they are experienced. People consider that (...) emotions are not just about feeling in certain ways, but also about feeling the right way. (shrink)

Saul Kripke argued that the requirement that knowledge eliminate all possibilities of error leads to dogmatism . According to this view, the dogmatism puzzle arises because of a requirement on knowledge that is too strong. The paper argues that dogmatism can be avoided even if we hold on to the strong requirement on knowledge. I show how the argument for dogmatism can be blocked and I argue that the only other approach to the puzzle in the literature is mistaken.

Human emotional expressions can communicate the emotional state of the expresser, but they can also communicate appeals to perceivers. For example, sadness expressions such as crying request perceivers to aid and support, and anger expressions such as shouting urge perceivers to back off. Some contemporary artificial intelligence (AI) systems can mimic human emotional expressions in a (more or less) realistic way, and they are progressively being integrated into our daily lives. How should we respond to them? Do we have reasons (...) to reply to the appeals made by AI emotional expressions? In this paper, we examine the conditions under which AI emotional expressions could give us prudential or even moral reasons to change our behavior. We argue that these conditions do not depend on whether the emotional expression is genuine or not, but rather on the presence of features some of which can be implemented in emotive AI given our current level of technological development. We extract recommendations and warnings for the development of emotive AI. (shrink)

En el presente trabajo propongo una interpretación de las Dissertationes de Epicteto estructurada sobre dos argumentos centrales: el Argumento Eudaimonista y el Argumento Teleológico. Sugeriré que a pesar de las estrategias que el autor presenta para evitar la acusación de solipsismo, Epicteto no puede escapar a la misma, y que la figura de la divinidad adquiere, por esa misma razón, una dimensión que ha sido desestimada por los comentaristas contemporáneos. -/- In the present paper I put forward an interpretation of (...) Epictetus Discourses which is based on two main arguments: the Eudaimonistic Argument and the Teleological Argument. I suggest that despite the author's strategies to avoid the accusation of solipsism, Epictetus cannot escape it, and that the figure of the divinity acquires, for this very reason, a dimension that has been overlooked by contemporary critics. (shrink)

En el presente artículo intento señalar una serie de dificultades implícitas en la teoría del carácter desarrollada por David Hume, y, por extensión, en su propuesta compatibilista. Sugeriré que el rechazo humeano de todo concepto metafísico de causalidad pone a Hume en una posición problemática, en tanto sólo puede ofrecer como alternativa una concepción de causalidad (demasiado fuerte para un libertario y demasiado débil para un determinista) que difícilmente puede constituirse en la base de su propia teoría del carácter. -/- (...) In the present paper I aim to point out a series of difficulties which lie beneath Hume's theory of character and, by extension, beneath his compatibilist argument. I shall suggest that Hume's rejection of every metaphysical conception of causality leads him to a problematic situation, insofar as he can only offer as an alternative conception of causality (too strong for a libertarian and too weak for a determinist) that can hardly become the basis of his own theory of character. (shrink)

My main purpose in this article is to present an argument for the idea that necessity qua truth in all possible worlds, without other qualifications, leads us to contradiction. If we do not want to accept the contradiction, we will face a dilemma: or accepting that everything we take as contingent is in fact necessary, or accepting that we cannot translate some sentences – at least the indexed to worlds sentences – to the possible worlds vocabulary. We have an intuition (...) – and we develop an argument for it – that if “P”, evaluated in w*, is a contingent truth, so it cannot be the case that “P in w*” is a necessary truth. Generally, the argument tries to show that “P”, evaluated in w*, and “P in w*” are made true by the same contingent fact. If we suppose that “P in w*” is necessary, we would have to suppose that the fact that makes it true is also necessary, which would be contradictory with the fact that makes “P” true in w*, if we accept that what makes “P” in w* and “P in w*” true is the same fact. I attain such an aim by presenting an argument that is divided in two parts, one to imply the contradiction and the other to show that there is no relevant difference between the indicated sentences, by showing how the dilemma arises, and by answering some possible objections. This is an important objective because the possible worlds vocabulary is the default vocabulary to treat the modalities of necessity and possibility. And if it is flawed, it is important that we identify the flaw and fix it – which is exactly what we intend to do at the end of this article, by suggesting some qualification at the necessity notion, that the necessity is the native truth in all possible worlds. And this would save the possible worlds vocabulary from the presented objection. (shrink)

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

El Test de Turing es un método tan controvertido como desafiante en Inteligencia Artificial. Se basa en la imitación de la conducta lingüística de humanos, y tiene como objetivo recabar evidencia empírica en favor de la tesis de que las máquinas programadas podrían pensar. Alan Turing, su creador, ha sido catalogado como conductista por la mayor parte de los comentaristas. En este capítulo muestro que no lo es. Por el contrario, Turing es un funcionalista, porque todo el énfasis del juego (...) de la imitación está en el engaño de la máquina hacia los humanos. Por ello el género es importante en dicho juego, al menos en su versión preliminar. (shrink)

Descartes niega que una máquina pueda ser inteligente, pues los mecanismos son predecibles, inflexibles y limitados. Los seguidores de la Inteligencia Artificial clásica (o IA fuerte) argumentan lo contrario. Pese a esto, Descartes y la IA proponen que la mente podría no estar adscrita a propiedades físicas, posibilidad explorada por el primero a partir de una intuición modal que separa mente y cuerpo. La IA fuerte se acerca a esta tesis cuando reduce la mente a una Máquina de Turing cuya (...) realización física resulta irrelevante. Aunque ambos argumentos presuponen teorías e implicancias diferentes, en este trabajo examino cómo el Funcionalismo resulta compatible con una forma de Dualismo, lo que aleja a la IA clásica del Materialismo que originalmente la inspiró. (shrink)

Jonathan Haidt’s _Moral Foundation Theory _has been criticized on many fronts, mainly on account of its lack of evidence concerning the genetic and neurological bases of the evolved moral intuitions that the theory posits. Despite the fact that Haidt’s theory is probably the most promising framework from which to integrate the different lines of interdisciplinary research that deal with the evolutionary foundations of moral psychology, _i) _it also shows a critical underspecification concerning the precise mental processes that instantiate the triggering (...) of our evolved moral intuitions, and that _ii) _that underspecification coexists with and overspecification of the structure of human nature when it comes to exploring alternatives to capitalist societies. (shrink)

Pese a su uso e importancia, no hay investigaciones semánticas sobre los pseudónimos. Aunque resulta claro que los nombres ficticios son importantes en la definición de la identidad de un artista, no ha habido mayor investigación sobre el rol que desempeñan. Aquí, justamente intento mostrar que son fundamentales en el arte, porque permiten crear la identidad de un personaje, pero ello ocurre principalmente en el mundo social. Dada la escasez de investigaciones sobre los pseudónimos y sobre su conexión con la (...) identidad, este artículo muestra: i) que no pueden ser designadores rígidos kripkeanos; ii) que la identidad que conllevan es puramente artística, y no metafísica. En la primera sección, apoyo parte de la propuesta de Kripke acerca de los designadores rígidos: los nombres propios, como tales designadores, deben analizarse a la luz de los mundos posibles; esto es, en términos de cómo podrían haber resultado las cosas de otra manera. En la segunda sección, examino los antecedentes y las consecuencias de que dichos nombres sean designadores rígidos. En la tercera, en cambio, argumento que los pseudónimos no pueden ser designadores rígidos como los nombres propios. Dicha conclusión es alcanzada a partir de la variación de un experimento mental kripkeano, uno que versa sobre Dios y el esfuerzo de Él para crear objetos. En la sección final muestro que los pseudónimos, en vez de designar rígidamente, crean personajes en el mundo social. Por ello la identidad que conllevan no es interna a los objetos; por el contrario, es un tipo de identidad que solo pertenece al mundo social. (shrink)

The paper introduces a new problem for fallibilist and infallibilist epistemologies – the diachronic threshold problem. As the name suggests, this is a problem similar to the well–known threshold problem for fallibilism. The new problem affects both fallibilism and infallibilism, however. The paper argues that anyone who worries about the well known problem for fallibilism should also worry about this new, diachronic version of the problem.

This article intends to present the thought of Wittgenstein – mainly from his notes at Philosophical Investigations (PI), Remarks on the Philosophy of Psychology (RPP), and Last Writings on the Philosophy of Psychology (LW) – and of his commentators about important thesis on memory. This one is a major epistemic problem, since our knowledge of the past facts comes from it. Provided that it sometimes fails, is important to know of what we are talking about when we use the term (...) “memory” and to know how can we trust it. (shrink)

O objetivo deste artigo é ser uma introdução aos diversos tipos de possibilidades e mostrar o caminho que a discussão sobre a existência de possibilidades não-atuais deve seguir a partir da aceitação do determinismo. E essa discussão é relevante porque sua resposta tem bastante infl uência em nossos pensamentos e lógicas sobre as modalidades da necessidade e da possibilidade. Cumprimos tal objetivo através de um diálogo a respeito das possibilidades. Este formato de texto tem a vantagem de ser mais pedagógico (...) do que os ensaios em terceira pessoa, pois insere o problema fi losófi co das possibilidades em uma situação real particular sem que a generalidade do assunto e dos argumentos seja perdida. (shrink)

En este trabajo examinamos el tópico de la responsabilidad en el derecho penal internacional a la luz de la filosofía de John Searle, y del fallo dictado por la Corte Penal Internacional en el caso de Thomas Lubanga. En el primer acápite analizamos la declaración de responsabilidad penal en función de la teoría de actos de habla de Austin y de Searle, tratándola como un acto ilocucionario cuyo significado es dependiente de un marco institucional específico. Luego, en el segundo acápite, (...) mostramos de qué forma tal marco puede reconstruirse como un ejemplo paradigmático de la realidad social construida descrita por Searle, especialmente en virtud del nexo entre mente, lenguaje y sociedad. A nuestro juicio, los conceptos de intencionalidad colectiva, atribución de funciones de estatus y poderes deónticos son fundamentales para entender tal nexo. En efecto, tal como argumentamos en la tercera sección, los sistemas de poderes deónticos asociados al derecho internacional no solo explican la aparición de Tribunales penales internacionales, como la Corte Penal Internacional, sino además el carácter imprescriptible de los crímenes de lesa humanidad. Los acuerdos internacionales que promueven y protegen los derechos humanos, y que tratan la imprescriptibilidad de aquellos crímenes, son objeto de análisis en la sección final, en donde exponemos algunas reflexiones finales a partir del caso Lubanga. (shrink)

En este artículo examino dos criterios para la existencia de estados mentales, el de Descartes y el de Turing. Mientras que el primero plantea que las máquinas no pueden pensar en principio, el segundo defiende la inteligencia de máquina. Pese a esto, ambos parecen coincidir en que la decisión sobre la presencia de estados mentales es tomada por alguien que juzga internamente la misma. Si bien ello es esperable del racionalismo cartesiano, en el funcionalismo de Turing es sorprendente. En efecto, (...) ningún comentarista de su Juego de la Imitación repara en el hecho de que los interrogadores son una instancia que no parece reemplazable y, además, que dichos interrogadores aplican un criterio internalista para decidir si están frente a una mente o un computador. Tal aproximación internalista a la mente, argumento, representa una dificultad para que una máquina pase el Test de Turing. Por este motivo concluyo que dicho test no solo no reemplaza la pregunta ¿pueden pensar las máquinas?; adicionalmente traslada de modo dramático el foco del debate a la filosofía de la mente. (shrink)

A direct implication of E=K seems to be that false beliefs cannot justify other beliefs, for no false belief can be part of one’s total evidence and one’s total evidence is what inferentially justifies belief. The problem with this alleged implication of E=K, as Comesaña and Kantin :447–454, 2010) have noted, is that it contradicts a claim Gettier cases rely on. The original Gettier cases relied on two principles: that justification is closed under known entailment, and that sometimes one is (...) justified in believing a falsehood. In this paper I argue that E=K, contrary to what Comesaña and Kantin would want us to believe, is compatible with the agent being justified in believing a falsehood. (shrink)

I review a tentative list of the examples of ethical (or spiritual) exercises that have been proposed as Epictetan by contemporary commentators. Based on a minimal definition of the notion of ethical exercises, I suggest that some practices have been misidentified and propose some revisions to that repertoire.

En este artículo analizaré algunos aspectos específicos de la obra de Filodemo de Gadara desde la perspectiva de la dimensión retórica del discurso filosófico con el fin de mostrar que el empleo que hace este pensador de ciertos dispositivos retóricos: i) no implica necesariamente un rompimiento con las normativas epicúreas respecto del uso legítimo de la retórica, ii) ni debe leerse como un abandono del proyecto racionalista epicúreo, sino que iii) puede interpretarse como expresión de una concepción sumamente rica y (...) compleja de la racionalidad humana que incorpora las capacidades descriptivas del lenguaje como herramientas esenciales en la transmisión de la información relevante para la toma de decisiones. -/- I aim to examine certain specific aspects of the work of Philodemus of Gadara from the point of view of the rhetorical dimension of philosophical speech in order to show that Philodemus’ use of certain rhetorical devices i) does not necessarily entail a break with Epicurean norms on the correct usage of rhetoric, ii) cannot be read as an abandonment of the Epicurean rationalist project, but iii) may be interpreted as an expression of a rich and complex conception of human reason, a conception that incorporates the descriptive capacities of human language as essential tools for the transmission of relevant information in decision procedures. (shrink)

Christine Tappolet’s book Philosophy of Emotion: A contemporary introduction, and many other works in emotion theory, focus primarily on emotional episodes at the expense of so-called “emotional dispositions.” I argue that there are no reasons for theories of emotion to focus on emotional episodes, or to reserve the term “emotion” for emotional episodes.

Reliabilism, one ofthe most significant naturalized epistemological theories, is an an attempt to justify knowledge on the basis of causal reliable procedures. This theory also seems to be the solution for the skeptic claims. However, as this paper suggests, this theory involves many problems; among others, how experiments could cause justified but false beliefs. This difficulty may reveal that naturalized epistemology cannot answer the radical question of skepticism, because it is not a scientific issue. As Quine thought, it implies a (...) metaphysical puzzle. Thus, every philosopher should face a practical decision: to admit it or to discard it as a non-sense question. (shrink)

Do moral beliefs motivate action? To answer this question, extant arguments have considered hypothetical cases of association (dissociation) between agents’ moral beliefs and actions. In this paper, I argue that this approach can be improved by studying people’s actual moral beliefs and actions using empirical research methods. I present three new studies showing that, when the stakes are high, associations between participants’ moral beliefs and actions are actually explained by co-occurring but independent moral emotions. These findings suggest that moral beliefs (...) themselves have little or no motivational force, supporting the Humean picture of moral motivation. (shrink)

This paper argues that a necessary condition on inferential knowledge is that one knows all the propositions that knowledge depends on. That is, I will argue in support of a principle I call the Knowledge from Knowledge principle: (KFK) S knows that p via inference or reasoning only if S knows all the propositions on which p depends. KFK meshes well with the natural idea that (at least with respect to deductively valid or induc- tively strong arguments) the epistemic status (...) of one’s belief in the conclusion of an argument is a function of the epistemic status of the attitudes one has to the premises of that argument. One gets what one puts in: S’s belief in the conclusion C of an argument A has epistemic status E for S only if S’s belief in each of the premises C depends on also has epistemic status E.1 This is compatible, of course, with the epistemic status of S’s conclusion being greater than the epistemic status of the premises on which the conclusion of her reasoning depends. Furthermore, even though KFK applies more straightforwardly to non-suppositional inferences, we can also plausibly apply the principle to sup- positional reasoning if we treat S’s assuming for the sake of argument that p,2 as S assuming for the sake of argument that she knows that p.3 Although extremely plausible, philosophers have failed to present a concerted case in support of KFK. Most of their energy goes to articulating and/or defending some form of closure principle for knowledge.4 What is more, recently versions of this principle have been dismissed as problematic but I think without the reasons in its support been fully appreciated. This paper is an e fort to change the current state of affairs. Its focus is positive, however: my goal is to make the best case I can in support of KFK.5 To that end, the paper presents the reasons we have to accept KFK (§1), consid- ers an objection to the principle (§2), and situates the principle in the broader normative context of knowledge norms (§3). (shrink)

This paper proposes a view on epistemic relativism that arises from the problem of the criterion, keeping in consideration that the assessment of criterion standards always occurs in a certain context. The main idea is that the epistemic value of the assertion “S knows that p” depends not only on the criterion adopted within an epistemic framework and the relationship between said criterion and a meta-criterion, but also from the collaboration with other subjects who share the same standards. Thus, one (...) can choose between particularist and methodist criteria according to the context of assessment. This position has the advantage of presenting a new perspective concerning both the criterion problem and the problem of inter-contextuality in the evaluation of different epistemic frameworks. (shrink)

Evaluative judgments imply positive or negative regard. But there are different ways in which something can be positive or negative. How do we tell them apart? According to Evaluative Sentimentalism, different evaluations (e.g., dangerousness vs. offensiveness) are grounded on different emotions (e.g., fear vs. anger). If this is the case, evaluation differentiation requires emotional awareness. Here, we test this hypothesis by looking at alexithymia, a deficit in emotional awareness consisting of problems identifying, describing, and thinking about emotions. The results of (...) Study 1 suggest that high alexithymia is not only related to problems distinguishing emotions, but also to problems distinguishing evaluations. Study 2 replicated this latter effect after controlling for individual differences in attentional impulsiveness and reflective reasoning, and found that reasoning makes an independent contribution to evaluation differentiation. These results suggest that emotional sensibilities play an irreducible role in evaluative judgment while affording a role for reasoning. (shrink)

In this article, we will analyze the positive dimension of silencing for epistemic practices. Since: silencing refers to a communicative impediment; and at least in part our epistemic agency depends on this ability to express and make ourselves understood, it would be possible to conclude that silencing necessarily harms our epistemic interactions. However, Barrett Emerick reminds us that in some cases silencing helps to preserve the integrity and dignity of those whose epistemic agency is violated. Based on this initial insight, (...) we listed three premises that culminated in the justification for silencing other people: epistemic silences stem from socio-historical processes and the power relations that permeate them; the limits of epistemic agencies are established through social norms and conventions that affect identities in different ways; and, the dignity of the human person must be the criterion for establishing the limits between what should or should not be said. Considering that in order to act correctly it is necessary not only the justifications for acting, but also the appropriate occasion, we defend that practical wisdom is the proper virtue for individuals, groups and institutions to know when to silence other people. (shrink)

Are emotions bodily feelings or evaluative cognitions? What is happiness, pain, or “being moved”? Are there basic emotions? In this chapter, I review extant empirical work concerning these and related questions in the philosophy of emotion. This will include both (1) studies investigating people’s emotional experiences and (2) studies investigating people’s use of emotion concepts in hypothetical cases. Overall, this review will show the potential of using empirical research methods to inform philosophical questions regarding emotion.

A widespread conception of anger both within and outside academia proposes to interpret it (along with other emotions) as an adaptive response to certain recurrent problems in our evolutionary past, which implies interpreting anger as a discrete, basic, innate and adaptive emotion. In view of the crisis that the Basic Emotions thesis is going through, and taking into account a number of important objections that have been raised to the idea that anger represents a discrete emotion, I will suggest that (...) the definitive abandonment of the concept of anger (and its close relatives, rage and indignation) has important hermeneutical advantages, including the possibility of approaching the problem of the phylogenesis of our sense of justice from a perspective that avoids the rupturist and continuist extremes that rely on a discrete conception of the emotions. (shrink)

The authors argue against direction of fit accounts of the distinction between belief and desire.

Pretendo demostrar que a) el tratado *De ira* de Séneca incluye no una sino dos estrategias terapéuticas diseñadas para evitar la ira, y que b) que la segunda de estas estrategias –la cual ha sido desatendida en la literatura secundaria– presenta problemas irresolubles cuando la contrastamos contra la teoría estoica de la acción, la cual se funda en premisas intelectualistas.

Contrary to what has been assumed by several of Epictetus' commentators, I will argue in the present paper that the concept of aidōs in Epictetus cannot be reduced to the modern notion of moral conscience, given that the mental phenomenon of aidōs (which is closer to the idea of shame than has been assumed by some authors) involves the presence of a transcendent other. The consequences concerning the ethical and theological foundations of Epictetus' thought which derive from this impossibility cannot (...) be neglected if we aim to comprehend the singularity of the author's place in Stoicism. (shrink)

La respuesta que demos a la problemática del nominalismo en la obra de Baruch Spinoza determina en forma decisiva las posibilidades de responder satisfactoriamente a la pregunta por la naturaleza humana. Dictaminar (junto con numerosos intérpretes contemporáneos) que el spinozismo se construye sin concesiones sobre principios nominalistas, implica sustraer todo fundamento ontológico a las consideraciones acerca de la natura humana, piedra de toque de la deducción spinozista de los afectos y de las estrategias terapéuticas que señalan el camino hacia la (...) beatitudo. Nuestra intención, por el contrario, consistirá en señalar el componente necesariamente universal que subyace bajo la psicología spinozista, para lo cual habremos de señalar ciertos aspectos centrales en cuanto a la problemática de los géneros de conocimiento, así como respecto de la teoría spinozista de la definición. (shrink)

This paper discusses there is no sustainable theoretical alternative for building knowledge without principles including cooperation –aimed at the preparation and distribution of beliefs– among individuals. This principle helps to conceive both the relation among internalist and externalist theories, and a cognitive explanation based on the concept of epistemic warrant. The concluding remark is that concepts, like evidence or reliability, can only be conceived as skills of subjects belonging to a community.