Atas do III Colóquio Internacional de Metafísica. [ISBN 978-85-7273-730-2]. Sumário: 1. Prazer, desejo e amor-paixão no texto de Lucrécio, por Antonio Júlio Garcia Freire; 2. Anaximandro: física, metafísica e direito, por Celso Martins Azar Filho; 3. Carta a Guimarães Rosa, por Cícero Cunha Bezerra; 4. Ante ens, non ens: La primacía de La negación em El neoplatonismo medievel, por Claudia D’Amico; 5. Metafísica e neoplatonismo, por David G. Santos; 6. Movimento e tempo no pensamento de Epicuro, por Everton da Silva (...) Rocha; 7. Críticas e elogios de Nietzche a Sócrates, por Fernanda Bulhões; 8. Sobre a Metafísica ou a respeito do jejum, por Gilvan Fogel; 9. A origem estética da ontologia hermenêutica de Luigi Pareyson, por Íris Fátima da Silva; 10. A Natureza da filosofia de Hume, por Jaimir Conte; 11. Logique ET métaphysique, por Jean-Baptiste Jainet; 12. Blaise Pascal: da recusa da metafísica da raison à metafísica do « estudo do homem », por João Emiliano Fotaleza de Aquino; 13. O niilismo no prólogo de Assim Falou Zaratustra. Por José Elielton de Sousa; 14. Presencia;Ausência: de Plotino a Procolo, por José Maria Zamora; 15. A natureza do Eros platônico, por Jovelina Maria Ramos de Souza; 16. Breve comentário acerca da origem da Gelassenheit de Heidegger a partir da mística de mestre Eckkart, por Luiz Fernando Fontes-Teixeira; 17. Humanismo e domesticação em Regras para o parque humano, por Luiz Roberto Alves dos Santos; 18. Contra a teoria de dois mundos na filosofia de Platão (República V 476e-478e), por Marcelo Pimenta Marques; 19. Sensações, impressões, projeções: as afecções do pensamento, por Markus Figueira da Silva; 20. Contribuições à história de uma metáfora: Heidegger e Nicolau de Cusa, por Oscar Federico Bauchwitz; 21. Uma impossibilidade ontológica em Schopenhauer, por Paulo César Oliveira Vasconcelos; 22. Ser e fenômeno: a Fenomenologia como teoria estética da ciência, por Pedro Paulo Coroa; 23. Para que serve a Metafísica de Aristóteles? O exemplo do movimento animal, por Pierre-marie Morel; 24. Contribuições para uma ontologia digital, por Rafael Capurro; 25. O que é o fim da metafísica, por Rodrigo Ribeiro Alves Neto; 26. A Physis na conformação do logos: linguagem e pensamento no corpus epicúreo, por Rodrigo Vidal do Nascimento; 27. O acontecimento de mundo na era da informação, por Soraya Guimarães da Silva; 28. Apofaticismo e abstração em Mark Rothko, por Vanessa Alves de Lacerda Santos. -/- . (shrink)

The author- following his own research on the subject- argues that Wittgenstein ignores argumentation theory and in general, the problems of rhetoric and argumentation. From this point of view, he frames Stephen Toulmin’s reading of Wittgenstein, arguing that the British philosopher- who was a student of the Austrian- advocates precisely the same thesis. He explains that this happens in a very peculiar (rhetorical) context on Toulmin’s part; a context in which, in essence, Wittgenstein’s philosophy is being rehabilitated.

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)

This article aims to make public part of the research on the concept of ‘light’ in the theological and, above all, liturgical tradition of the Greek Orthodox Church, based on its representation of the concept of ‘hypostasis’. Taking as a point of departure the interpretation of the expression ‘light of light’ [φῶς ἐκ φωτός (phôs ek phōtos)] of the text of the Niceno-Constantinopolitan Symbol, the article presents a proposal for the interpretation of the concept of ‘representation’ for this specific case, (...) based on the idea of apomímesis, and applies this concept to a reading of the place of ‘light’ in the Holy Scripture, in the Patrology and in the Greek Eastern Liturgies. (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)

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)

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.

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)

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)

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)

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)

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)

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)

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.

Brian C. Ribeiro’s _Sextus, Montaigne, Hume: Pyrrhonizers_ invites us to view the Pyrrhonist tradition as involving all those who share a commitment to the activity of Pyrrhonizing and develops fresh, provocative readings of Sextus, Montaigne, and Hume as radical Pyrrhonizing skeptics.

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 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)

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)

The work of Richard H. Popkin both introduced the concept of skeptical fideism and served to impressively document its importance in the philosophies of a diverse range of thinkers, including Montaigne, Pascal, Huet, and Bayle. Popkin’s landmark History of Scepticism, however, begins its coverage with the Renaissance. In this paper I explore the roots of skeptical fideism in ancient Greek and Roman philosophy, with special attention to Cicero’s De Natura Deorum, the oldest surviving text to clearly develop a skeptical fideist (...) perspective. (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.

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)

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)

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.

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

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.

Testimonial injustices occur when individuals from particular social groups are systematically and persistently given less credibility in their claims merely because of their group identity. Recent “pluralistic” approaches to folk psychology, by taking into account the role of stereotypes in how we understand others, have the power to explain how and why cases of testimonial injustice occur. If how we make sense of others’ behavior depends on assumptions about how individuals from certain groups think and act, this can explain why (...) speakers are given different degrees of credibility depending on their group identity. For example, if people assume that women are more emotional than men, they will systematically give less credibility to women’s claims. This explanation involves three empirical claims: people assume that women are more emotional than men, people assume that emotionality hinders credibility, and people give less credibility to women’s claims. While extant studies provide some support for and, no study to date has directly tested. In two different studies, we tested all these three claims. The results from both studies provide support for, as we found significant negative correlations between emotionality and credibility attributions. However, in contrast to what some accounts of folk psychology posit, we did not find any significant difference in people’s attributions of emotionality and credibility towards women versus men speakers. We hope that our studies here pave the way for further empirical studies testing the phenomenon of testimonial injustice in a context-sensitive way, in order to have a better understanding of the conditions in which testimonial injustices are likely to happen. (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)

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)

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)

This chapter analyses the prospects of using neuroimaging methods, in particular functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), for philosophical purposes. To do so, it will use two case studies from the field of emotion research: Greene et al. (2001) used fMRI to uncover the mental processes underlying moral intuitions, while Lindquist et al. (2012) used fMRI to inform the debate around the nature of a specific mental process, namely, emotion. These studies illustrate two main approaches in cognitive neuroscience: Reverse inference and (...) ontology testing, respectively. With regards to Greene et al.’s study, the use of Neurosynth (Yarkoni 2011) will show that the available formulations of reverse inference, although viable a priori, seem to be of limited use in practice. On the other hand, the discussion of Lindquist et al.’s study will present the so far neglected potential of ontology-testing approaches to inform philosophical questions. (shrink)

Modern semiotics is a branch of logics that formally defines symbol-based communication. In recent years, the semiotic classification of signs has been invoked to support the notion that symbols are uniquely human. Here we show that alarm-calls such as those used by African vervet monkeys (Cercopithecus aethiops), logically satisfy the semiotic definition of symbol. We also show that the acquisition of vocal symbols in vervet monkeys can be successfully simulated by a computer program based on minimal semiotic and neurobiological constraints. (...) The simulations indicate that learning depends on the tutor-predator ratio, and that apprentice-generated auditory mistakes in vocal symbol interpretation have little effect on the learning rates of apprentices (up to 80% of mistakes are tolerated). In contrast, just 10% of apprentice-generated visual mistakes in predator identification will prevent any vocal symbol to be correctly associated with a predator call in a stable manner. Tutor unreliability was also deleterious to vocal symbol learning: a mere 5% of “lying” tutors were able to completely disrupt symbol learning, invariably leading to the acquisition of incorrect associations by apprentices. Our investigation corroborates the existence of vocal symbols in a non-human species, and indicates that symbolic competence emerges spontaneously from classical associative learning mechanisms when the conditioned stimuli are self-generated, arbitrary and socially efficacious. We propose that more exclusive properties of human language, such as syntax, may derive from the evolution of higher-order domains for neural association, more removed from both the sensory input and the motor output, able to support the gradual complexification of grammatical categories into syntax. (shrink)

In this paper I consider an understudied form of the design argument which focuses on the beauty of the natural world and which argues, on that basis, that the world requires a divine Artist in order to explain its beauty. Against this view, one might raise a question concerning the beauty of, and in, this divine Artist. What explains the divine beauty? This kind of explanatory regress objection is exactly like that used by Philo in Hume’s Dialogues to undercut standard (...) versions of the design argument focused on the orderliness of the world. Here I argue that Philo’s explanatory regress objection likewise significantly undercuts versions of the design argument focusing on the beauty of the world. (shrink)

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.

O presente artigo examina a natureza da investigação antropológica que Kant executou nos seus cursos sobre geografia física. Se, por um lado, a sua relação com a física empírica é assegurada, por outro, a incorporação de ambos os objetos do sentido interno, alma e ser humano, na abordagem cosmológica da investigação empírica da natureza humana gera questionamentos sobre a articulação disciplinar e metodológica pressupostas no Conhecimento do Mundo. Será mostrado que a investigação antropológica de Kant desde o início procurou assegurar (...) uma combinação sistemática entre diferentes procedimentos científicos que visam o conhecimento da natureza humana e que este é justamente o caso do emprego geográfico do conceito ontológico de alma no esclarecimento da diversidade de temperamentos e de gostos da espécie humana. (shrink)

This paper presents the theory of epistemic safety in relation to three problems: similarity, closure, and generality. Within the neo-Moorean framework of skepticism, the epistemic safety theory complements contextualist theories, where a difference is established between sceptical-thought and everyday contexts. In this way, it is claimed that conviction–i.e., when the bases upon which a belief is constructed remain unquestioned–is an intellectual virtue that makes trustworthy processes in near worlds possible. Finally, the aim of the paper is to highlight the modal (...) difference between beliefs that presuppose near worlds as their core and those that take nearby words as their core. (shrink)

Este trabajo tiene como objetivo examinar cómo el legado kantiano de la razón crítica sigue vigente, pues se sostiene en un imperativo teórico fundado en la autonomía. Tal como argumento, este imperativo «categórico-teórico» se estructura gracias a la primacía de la razón práctica por sobre la razón teórica. El ensayo está estructurado en tres secciones. En la primera discuto brevemente el compromiso con la verdad propio de la ética de Sócrates y Platón, quienes inauguran el racionalismo crítico, según Popper. Luego, (...) en la segunda sección examino la filosofía kantiana y su propuesta, la cual ciertamente influye en el «Tratado contra el Método» de Paul Feyerabend. Finalmente, en la tercera sección, analizo la conexión entre razón crítica y razón teórica. En particular, muestro que la primera gobierna la segunda, y que la autonomía es parte de la naturaleza racional humana. Dicha naturaleza ciertamente explica por qué la razón crítica sigue vigente en la época contemporánea. (shrink)

A primeira tese de Sober é que não podemos agir livremente, a não ser que o Argumento da Causalidade ou o Argumento da Inevitabilidade tenham alguma falha. O Argumento da Causalidade é o seguinte: nossos estados mentais causam movimentos corporais; mas nossos estados mentais são causados por fatores do mundo físico. Nossa personalidade pode ser reconduzida à nossa experiência e à nossa genética. E tanto a experiência quanto a genética foram causados por itens do mundo físico. Assim, o meio ambiente (...) e os genes são os causadores de nossas crenças e desejos. E estes, por sua vez, causam o nosso comportamento. Como, em última instância, não escolhemos nem os nossos genes e nem o meio ambiente no qual adquirimos as nossas experiências, também não escolhemos o nosso comportamento: ele é causado por fatores além do nosso controle; isso nos faz não ser livres. E o Argumento da Inevitabilidade é exposto por Sober assim: se uma ação foi praticada livremente, então deve ter sido possível ao agente agir de outra forma. Mas, dado que as causas de nossas ações são as nossas crenças e desejos, não poderíamos ter agido diferentemente de como elas nos determinam a agir. (shrink)

My aim here is to answer the question about why is there something rather than nothing by arguing for the existence of some necessary beings (that, as such, couldn’t not exist) – the space, the time, and the natural basic laws – and by showing that the existence of nothingness is logically impossible. I also try to account for the fact that contingent beings arise from necessary beings by distinguishing between necessary existence and necessary arising, as to answer the question (...) about why is there anything contingent at all and to propose a solution to the Dilemma of Contingency. (shrink)

Anti-luck epistemologists tell us that knowledge is incompatible with epistemic luck and that epistemic luck is just a special case of luck in general. Much work has been done on the intricacies of the first claim. In this paper, I scrutinize the second claim. I argue that it does not survive scrutiny. I then offer an analysis of luck that explains the relevant data and avoids the problems from which the current views of luck suffer. However, this analysis of luck (...) is of no help to the anti-luck epistemologist for it uses knowledge to explain luck, making this account of knowledge circular. The main lesson is that the only viable analysis of luck is not suited for the anti-luck epistemologist's coveted noncircular analysis of knowledge. (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)

The Gettier Problem and Moore’s Paradox are related in a way that is unappreciated by philosophers. If one is in a Gettier situation, then one is also in a Moorean situation. The fact that S is in a Gettier situation (the fact that S is “Gettiered”), like the fact that S is in a Moorean situation (the fact that S is “Moored”), cannot (in the logical sense of “cannot”) be known by S while S is in that situation. The paper (...) starts the job of mapping what can be said about this feature of Gettier situations. The goal is to stimulate further exploration into this yet uncharted territory. (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)

According to John Searle, default positions, i.e., those intelligibility and action presuppositions, are some departing points from which pre-reflective and pragmatic assumptions are made. Postulating such points helps us deal with certain perennial philosophical issues, by leaving them aside. These problems are the existence of the external world, truth and facts, “direct” perception, the meaning of words, and causality. In this article, we argue that those default positions described by Searle constitute a default humanity, and their absence would dehumanize us. (...) This is particularly relevant in a default position: cooperation, which is the basis of collective intentionality and the milestone of human civilization. (shrink)