The basic assumption present in these articles is that naturalism is highly compatible with a wide range of relevant philosophical questions and that, regardless of the classical problems faced by the naturalist, the price paid in endorsing naturalism is lower than that paid by essentialist or supernaturalist theories. Yet, the reader will find a variety of approaches, from naturalism in Moral Philosophy and Epistemology to naturalism in the Philosophy of Language, Philosophy of Mind and of the Aesthetics.

Justin Garson introduces the distinction between two views on Madness we encounter again and again throughout history: Madness as dysfunction, and Madness as strategy. On the latter view, Madness serves some purpose for the person experiencing it, even if it’s simultaneously harmful. The strategy view makes intelligible why Madness often holds a certain allure – even when it’s prima facie terrifying. Moreover, if Madness is a strategy in Garson’s metaphorical sense – if it serves a purpose – it makes sense (...) to use consciously chosen strategies for living with Madness that doesn’t necessarily aim to annihilate or repress it as far as possible. In this paper, we use our own respective stories as case studies. We have both struggled to resist the allure of Madness, and both ended up embracing a kind of Pyrrhonian scepticism about reality instead of clinging to sane reality. (shrink)

When interacting with other people, we assume that they have their reasons for what they do and believe, and experience recognizable feelings and emotions. When people act from weakness of will or are otherwise irrational, what they do can still be comprehensible to us, since we know what it is like to fall for temptation and act against one’s better judgment. Still, when someone’s experiences, feelings and way of thinking is vastly different from our own, understanding them becomes increasingly difficult. (...) Delusions and psychosis are often seen as marking the end of intelligibility. In this paper, I argue first for the importance of seeing other people as intelligible as long as this is at all possible. Second, I argue, based on both previous literature and my own lived experience, that more psychotic phenomena than previously thought can be rendered at least somewhat intelligible. Besides bizarre experiences like illusions, hallucinations and intense feelings of significance, I also explain what it is like to lose one’s bedrock, and how this loss impacts which beliefs one has reason to reject. Finally, I give an inside account of some disturbances of reason, and show that there are important similarities between certain psychotic reasoning problems and common non-pathological phenomena. (shrink)

How should we adjust our beliefs in light of the testimony of those who are in a better epistemic position than ourselves, such as experts and other epistemic superiors? In this paper, I develop and defend a deference model of epistemic authority. The paper attempts to resolve the debate between the preemption view and the total evidence view of epistemic authority by taking an accuracy-first approach to the issue of how we should respond to authoritative and expert testimony. I argue (...) that when we look at the debate through the lens of accuracy, it becomes clear that matters are more complicated than either the preemption view or the total evidence view are able to account for. Consequently, a deference model, outlined within a credence-based framework, does a better job of capturing the relevant phenomena, and explaining how we should update our beliefs in response to epistemically authoritative testimony. (shrink)

Wouter Kusters argues that madness has much to offer philosophy, as does philosophy to madness. In this paper, i support both claims by drawing on a mad phenomenon which I label Radical Psychotic Doubt, or RPD. First, although skepticism is a minority position in epistemology, it has been claimed that anti-skeptical arguments remain unsatisfying. I argue that this complaint can be clarified and strengthened by showing that anti-skeptical arguments are irrelevant to RPD sufferers. Second, there's a debate about whether so-called (...) hinge commitments are beliefs or not. I argue that RPD can be used to strengthen the case that they are. Moreover, if hinges are beliefs, some madpeople are more epistemically rational than some sane philosophers. Third, drawing on my own mad experiences, I challenge evidentialism by presenting a better candidate for a truly forced cchoice about what to believe than William James' traditional religious example. I further show that in certain psychiatric contexts, evidentialism has more radical implications than Jamesian pragmatism, which comes out as more conservative. Finally, I discuss how philosophical theories like pragmatism and Pyrrhonism can provide inspiration for new and much-needed coping strategies for RPD sufferers. (shrink)

The medical and social model of disability is discussed and debated among researchers, scholars, activists, and people in general. It is common to hold a mixed view and believe that some disabled people suffer more from social obstacles and others more from medical problems inherent in their bodies or minds. Rachel Cooper discusses possible ‘test environments’, making explicit an idea which likely plays an implicit part in many disability discussions. We place or imagine placing the disabled person in a range (...) of different environments. If there is a relevant test environment in which they do fine, their problem was societal/external; if there is not, it was medical/internal. Cooper admits that deciding on the appropriate range of test environments is an ethical and political question. In this chapter, I argue that we often ought to widen our scope when discussing psychiatric disabilities. (shrink)

Nos proponemos estudiar las objeciones de Cavendish hacia la filosofía experimental desde una perspectiva no dicotómica para mostrar que, lejos de establecer un enfrentamiento entre la filosofía contemplativa y la experimental, la razón y la sensación, o la naturaleza y el arte, la autora plantea una cooperación organizada entre estos aspectos. La postura de Cavendish puede comprenderse adecuadamente si se tiene en cuenta que su epistemología se arraiga en su metafísica, en la que los grados de la materia y los (...) distintos seres vivos que conforman el universo ocupan un lugar determinado y cumplen cierta función conformando una totalidad orgánica y armónica. (shrink)

It has been argued that we cannot be morally responsible in the sense required to deserve blame or punishment if the world is deterministic, but still morally responsible in the sense of being apt targets for moral criticism. Desert-entailing moral responsibility is supposed to be more freedom-demanding than other kinds of responsibility, since it justifies subjecting people to blame and punishments, is nonconsequentialist, and has been shown by thought experiments to be incompatible with determinism. In this paper, I will show (...) that all these arguments can be resisted. (shrink)

Psychiatric patients sometimes ask where to draw the line between who they are – their selves – and their mental illness. This problem is referred to as the self-illness ambiguity in the literature; it has been argued that solving said ambiguity is a crucial part of psychiatric treatment. I distinguish a Realist Solution from a Constructivist one. The former requires finding a supposedly pre-existing border, in the psychiatric patient’s mental life, between that which belongs to the self and that which (...) belongs to the mental illness. I argue that no such border exists, and that attempts to find it might even render the felt ambiguity worse. Instead, any solution must be constructivist; the patient (and others) should deliberate and discuss what to identify with or not. I further argue that psychiatric patients need not see their mental illness as wholly distinct from themselves to avoid ‘identifying with their diagnoses' in a problematic way. Finally, we can excuse problematic behaviour by mentally ill people – in fact, we can do so in a more nuanced and constructive way – while rejecting the view that the mental illness is wholly distinct from the patient’s self. (shrink)

In this book symposium text, I focus on Ciurria’s critique of P. F. Strawson’s incredibly influential paper “Freedom and Resentment”, and more generally present-day Strawsonians about moral responsibility. Ciurria rightfully argues that the picture painted of “our responsibility practices” is highly idealized; it ignores crucial power asymmetries and oppression. I agree with this. However, it seems to me that Ciurria sometimes lacks awareness of exactly how profound the disagreement between her and Strawson and his followers is.

Martha Nussbaum argues that animals are entitled to a flourishing life according to the norm for their species. Nussbaum furthermore suggests that in the case of dogs, breed norms as well as species norms are relevant. Her theses capture both common intuitions among laypeople according to which there is something wrong with the breeding of “unnatural” animals, or animals that are too different from their wild ancestors, and the dog enthusiast’s belief that dogs departing from the norms for their breed (...) are tragic. I argue that the high diversity of the dog species and the ultimate arbitrariness of breed norms support the thesis that a conception of welfare must be tied to what the individual requires in order to flourish. In the second part of the paper, I discuss the implications that an individualized welfare conception has for the breeding of dogs for conformation shows, for the pet market and for the performance of various tasks for which we need working dogs. (shrink)

This paper explores the concept of moral expertise in the contemporary philosophical debate, with a focus on three accounts discussed across moral epistemology, bioethics, and virtue ethics: an epistemic authority account, a skilled agent account, and a hybrid model sharing key features of the two. It is argued that there are no convincing reasons to defend a monistic approach that reduces moral expertise to only one of these models. A pluralist view is outlined in the attempt to reorient the discussion (...) about moral expertise. (shrink)

Breeders of purebred dogs usually have several goals they want to accomplish, of which canine wellbeing is one. The purpose of this article is to investigate what we ought to do given this goal. Breeders typically think that they fulfil their wellbeing-related duties by doing the best they can within their breed of choice. However, it is true of most breeders that they could produce physically and mentally healthier dogs if they switched to a healthier breed. There are a few (...) breeds that are healthier than other breeds as well as mutts; we could maximize wellbeing for the next generations by focusing all our breeding resources on those. However, in the long run such a strategy would severely deplete the canine gene pool. If we are to breed for wellbeing in the long run, we must thus weigh the benefits of selection against physical and mental problems against the benefits of genetic diversity. The optimal breeding strategy for canine wellbeing is to preserve many breeds, though not all of them. Furthermore, we ought to combine strict health programs with looser barriers between breeds. Such a policy conflicts with the goal of breed preservation, at least if we think of breeds as populations registered within kennel clubs rather than types of dogs, but not with the goal of producing good working dogs capable of performing various tasks. (shrink)

Durante los siglos XVII y XVIII hubo un intenso debate en las Islas Británicas en torno al materialismo. Mi objetivo consiste en caracterizar la postura de David Hume en el marco de ese debate. Sostengo que, no obstante rechazar la metafísica sustancialista para centrarse en el estudio de las percepciones, Hume sienta una posición respecto de la relación entre mente y materia. Sin embargo, esa posición reviste cierta complejidad en tanto no es explicitada en los textos que se editaron en (...) vida de Hume. Propongo definirla como un materialismo restringido, ya que, respecto de la naturaleza de la mente, Hume desestima tanto las posturas materialista como inmaterialista, pero respecto de las causas del pensamiento, termina acercándose al materialismo a partir de argumentos basados en la experiencia y en la analogía con la naturaleza. (shrink)

Catharine Trotter Cockburn’s metaphysics dissolves the necessary relationship between immateriality, immortality and thought. While in her youth this leads her to admit the possibility of thinking matter, in her mature work, it allows her to conceive space as non-thinking immaterial substance that links non-thinking material substance and thinking immaterial substance. To ground this conception of space, she draws on the thesis of the great chain of being. However, the possibility of thinking matter is not consistent with the hierarchy of beings, (...) because within this frame matter occupies the lowest place. My aim is to evaluate whether there is any alternative within Trotter's philosophy to solve this contradiction. -/- La metafísica de Catharine Trotter Cockburn disuelve la relación necesaria entre inmaterialidad, inmortalidad y pensamiento. Mientras que en su juventud esto la lleva a admitir la posibilidad de la materia pensante, en su madurez le permite concebir al espacio como sustancia inmaterial no pensante que oficia como eslabón entre la sustancia material no pensante y la sustancia inmaterial pensante. Para ello, apela también a la tesis de la gran cadena del ser. Sin embargo, la posibilidad de la materia pensante no es consistente con la tesis de la jerarquía de seres, porque en ella la materia ocupa el lugar más bajo. Me propongo estudiar si existe alguna alternativa dentro de la filosofía de Trotter que permita resolver esta contradicción. (shrink)

Saul Smilansky’s theory of free will and moral responsibility consists of two parts; dualism and illusionism. Dualism is the thesis that both compatibilism and hard determinism are partly true, and has puzzled many philosophers. I argue that Smilansky’s dualism can be given an unquestionably coherent and comprehensible interpretation if we reformulate it in terms of pro tanto reasons. Dualism so understood is the thesis that respect for persons gives us pro tanto reasons to blame wrongdoers, and also pro tanto reasons (...) not to blame them. These reasons must be we ighed against each other (and against relevant consequentialist reasons) in order to find out what we all things considered ought to do. (shrink)

My response to Rashed's critique of my account as theorizing instead of showing what it is like.

O presente artigo incide sobre o conceito de expressão no âmbito do pensamento leibniziano, pretendendo, a partir da sua análise, expor a crítica que Fernando Gil lhe tece, nomeadamente no que diz respeito à ideia de “causalidade expressiva”. Passando por vários conceitos leibnizianos como “substância simples”, “força”, “apetição” ou “entre-expressão”, o que se pretende analisar é a reflexão de Fernando Gil relativamente àquilo que o autor considera “a aporia da expressão leibniziana”, e, ainda, a sua reabilitação da inteligibilidade expressiva como (...) pensamento do contínuo, onde inteligibilidade, beleza e simplicidade se implicam mutuamente. (shrink)

Published on Daily Philosophy 2021-10-18 Why do we have a criminal justice system? What could possibly justify the state punishing its citizens? Philosophers, scholars of law, politicians and others have proposed different justifications, one of them being retributivism: the view that we ought to give offenders the suffering that they deserve for harming others. However, intentionally harming other people and making them suffer is serious business. If we are to do this in the name of what’s right and good, we (...) better be very certain that what we do really is right and good. The so-called Epistemic Argument Against Retributivism calls this certainty into question. (shrink)

The belief that obese people ought to lose weight and keep it off is widespread, and has a profound negative impact on the lives of the obese. I argue in this paper that most obese people have no such obligation, even if obesity is bad, and caused by calorie input exceeding output. Obese people do not have an obligation to achieve long-term weight loss if this is impossible for them, is worse than the alternative, or requires such an enormous effort (...) in relation to what stands to be gained that this option is supererogatory rather than obligatory. It is highly plausible that most obese people fall into one of these three groups. Politicians may still have obligations to fight obesity, but they ought to do so through progressive politics rather than blaming and shaming. (shrink)

En la segunda mitad del siglo XVIII tuvo lugar un debate entre Thomas Reid y Joseph Priestley acerca de la naturaleza de la mente y su interacción con el cuerpo. En el marco de la defensa de la religión cristiana y en nombre de principios metodológicos experimentalistas y newtonianos, los autores defienden propuestas radicalmente diferentes acerca de la relación entre la mente y la materia. Sus divergencias se vinculan con la interpretación del método newtoniano y su concepción de la materia, (...) lo que delineará dos actitudes: una dualista, de carácter más conservador por parte de Reid y una materialista, heterodoxa e innovadora por parte de Priestley. (shrink)

Quoique l’on trouve plusieurs explications de l’ontologie du Bien dans l’œuvre d’Aristote, on n’y trouve qu’une seule explication de l’ontologie du mal. En Métaphysique Θ 8 et 9, la description du rapport entre la puissance et l’acte prépare le chemin vers une explication ontologique du mal comme la privation d’un bien. Le but de cet article est de montrer que cette doctrine du mal comme privation constitue le fondement métaphysique de toute la philosophie pratique aristotélicienne et d’illustrer la continuité entre (...) les doctrines de la vertu, du vice et du bonheur et la doctrine du mal comme privation. (shrink)

En este trabajo nos proponemos hacer un aporte para esclarecer el sentido y la función de la experiencia en el marco de la teoría del conocimiento de Hume. Para ello examinaremos dos interpretaciones que pueden reconstruirse en la literatura secundaria: la que la entiende como impresiones simples de sensación y la que la concibe como patrones de percepciones conectadas. Consideramos que la primera perspectiva no es adecuada para comprender el rol epistémico de la experiencia, lo que nos inclina hacia la (...) segunda interpretación. Sin embargo, esta última no ha sido lo suficientemente desarrollada por los autores que la sugieren. Nuestro propósito es llevar a cabo esa tarea pendiente, ofreciendo una serie de precisiones que la hacen más robusta a los fines de elucidar por qué para Hume la experiencia es la piedra de toque en el conocimiento sobre cuestiones de hecho. Así, mostraremos que el sentido que adquiere la experiencia en las inferencias causales es el de casos que recogemos mediante la observación y organizamos en colecciones o patrones, los que funcionan como evidencia para establecer o justificar enunciados epistémicos. Por último, para comprender la especificidad de su función en este tipo de inferencias, distinguiremos la experiencia de las impresiones y del hábito. (shrink)

ABSTRACT A restricted interpretation of Humean methodology understands his experimentalism solely in terms of reducing epistemic statements to private sensory impressions accessible via introspection. My aim is to revise this interpretation by means of criticizing the connection it establishes between the maxim of not going beyond experience and the copy principle. I will show that this interpretation is inconsistent with the way Hume conceives the experimental method, since there is textual evidence to affirm that experience should not be understood in (...) terms of sensory impressions only, and that the science of human nature is not restricted to the study of the mental contents only, but it is nourished in the same way by the observation of social interaction. Finally, I will argue that the method Hume proposes does not prevent intersubjective verification of the empirical evidence, since the principle of sympathy enables the communication of mental states, which makes them devoid of their private character. (shrink)

We propose an extension of Discourse Respresentation Theory (DRT) for analyzing pictorial narratives. We test drive our PicDRT framework by analyzing the way authors represent characters’ mental states and perception in comics. Our investigation goes beyond Abusch and Rooth (2017) in handling not just free perception sequences, but also a form of apparent perspective blending somewhat reminiscent of free indirect discourse.

A diagnosis based exclusively on the so-called scientifi c evidence does not take into account the problem of the theoryladenness, widely debated in Twentieth Century epistemology. The theory of knowledge developed by Ludwik Fleck, physician and philosopher active in the 30s, can still be useful for shedding light on how psychiatric diagnoses are infl uenced by a specifi c thought style that directs the observations and affects the development of knowledge and the formation of connections between concepts.

In this article I focus on Cavell’s theme of finding one’s voice, as it is articulated with reference to the philosophies of language of Wittgenstein and Austin. I start by spelling out Cavell’s Wittgensteinian-Austinian view of culture as the background for his approach to aesthetics and ethics. I then set out to explore the work done by the theme in aesthetics and ethics around the notion claim. I argue that Cavell’s effort to counter the pull of non-cognitivism in aesthetics and (...) ethics, building on the notion claim, is not only illuminating of his unique way of inheriting the history of analytic philosophy but also gives us a glimpse of where and how Continental and analytic philosophy may again cross paths in the future. (shrink)

In this paper, we argue that there are reasons to believe that an implicit bias for normalcy influences what are considered medically necessary treatments in psychiatry. First, we outline two prima facie reasons to suspect that this is the case. A bias for ‘the normal’ is already documented in disability studies; it is reasonable to suspect that it affects psychiatry too, since psychiatric patients, like disabled people, are often perceived as ‘weird’ by others. Secondly, psychiatry's explicitly endorsed values of well-being (...) and function are hard to measure directly, which is why we see simpler box-ticking conceptions of recovery used in large research studies. This need not be problematic, but might lead to researchers and clinicians focusing too much on treatments that promote easy-to-measure proxies for recovery, instead of what actually matters to psychiatric patients themselves. Next, we provide examples of treatments and treatment decisions within two areas – self-injury and psychosis – which are hard to explain unless we assume that an implicit and harmful normalcy bias is at work. We conclude with some suggestions for clinicians and future research. (shrink)

O que é a «harmonia universal»? Uma causa, um efeito, um estado-de-coisas? Como Leibniz escreve a este respeito numa carta a Magnus Wedderkopf, a última razão para o intelecto divino e, consequentemente, a vontade de Deus, é a harmonia. Porém, como razão última, nada existe para lá da própria harmonia. Segundo o raciocínio leibniziano, a harmonia pode assim ser perspetivada não só como um estado-de-coisas, mas também como causa da própria organização das coisas. Muito embora a harmonia possa ser perspetivada (...) de diferentes modos, que manifestam uma unidade entre si, o foco desta análise incide justamente sobre a possibilidade de «perceber», «percecionar», ou melhor, «compreender» a harmonia universal. (shrink)

O presente manual tem como intenção constituir um guia para uma disciplina introdutória de filosofia da linguagem. Foi elaborado a partir da leccionação da disciplina de Filosofia da Linguagem I na Faculdade de Letras da Universidade do Porto desde 2001. A disciplina de Filosofia da Linguagem I ocupa um semestre lectivo e proporciona aos estudantes o primeiro contacto sistemático com a área da filosofia da linguagem. Pretende-se que este manual ofereça aos estudantes os instrumentos necessários não apenas para acompanhar uma (...) iniciação ao campo da filosofia da linguagem mas também para o estudo e a investigação autónomos posteriores. Para isso é percorrido um trajecto que conduz das intuições pré-teóricas acerca de linguagem, de que todos dispomos, até um conhecimento disciplinar específico, histórico e temático, da filosofia da linguagem. Em termos práticos, são considerados como precedentes da disciplina de Filosofia da Linguagem I – mesmo se, pelo existem actualmente precedências em sentido estrito – as disciplinas de Lógica I e II e de Filosofia do Conhecimento I e II. Os programas dessas disciplinas nos últimos anos estiveram presentes por trás da elaboração do manual. (shrink)

Broadly speaking, “empiricism” is a label that usually denotes an epistemological view that emphasizes the role that experience plays in forming concepts and acquiring and justifying knowledge. In contemporary philosophy, there are some authors who call themselves as empiricists, although there are differences in the way they define what experience consists in, how it is related to theory, and the role experience plays in discovering and justifying knowledge, etc. (e.g., Ayer 1936; Van Fraassen 2002). In contrast, in the early modern (...) period, empiricism was not a label that philosophers traditionally characterized until nowadays as empiricists (most famously, John Locke, George Berkeley, and David Hume) used to describe their doctrines. Indeed, as attributed to early modern philosophical authors, empiricism is not an actor’s category, but an analytic historiographical category retrospectively applied to them and confronted to rationalism, whose main representatives were considered to be Rene Descartes, Baruch Spinoza, and G.W. Leibniz. Such a narrative began to be established by the late nineteenthcentury and described early modern empiricism as an epistemological stance maintaining (1) that the origin of all mental contents lies in experience (a genetic statement), and (2) that knowledge can only be justified a posteriori (an epistemic statement). This entails that empiricists deny the existence of innate mental contents and the possibility of a purely a priori knowledge. In the history of early modern science such a dichotomy has been usually rendered in terms of the opposition between continental rationalist Cartesian science vs British empiricist Newtonian science. In the last four decades, many aspects of this traditional narrative have been criticized, and the meaning of early modern empiricism is subject of renewed studies. (shrink)

The concept of expression has always held an important place in Fernando Gil’s thought. The author’s reflection on the idea of expression is well reflected among his writings – either in his early essays or throughout his entire work –, attaining a special focus in the lectures that he gave at Johns Hopkins University during the years of 2002, 2003 and 2004. Actually, these lectures represent the strongest testimony of the relevancy given by Fernando Gil to this concept. However, despite (...) being a concept which crosses all his work, clearly having a central place in his thought, Fernando Gil never got to write a systematic theory on the concept of expression. Thus, closely following the author’s works, the main purpose of this study is to suggest a personal vision of what could have been Fernando Gil’s theory on expression. Combining some of the main ideas of Johns Hopkins lectures to some fundamental notions of Fernando Gil’s thought, we will try to show that Fernando Gil’s theory on expression is a theory on the ordination of thought, on cognitive construction and, above all, a theory on the elevation of thought to what shall be considered its higher modality, the aesthetical thought. In fact, our major hypothesis is that Fernando Gil’s theory on expression is not only a cognitive theory but also an aesthetical one. As such, its major guidelines shall be: to explain the adequacy of expression to its objects; to show how expression evolves according to the cognitive development of the subject; and, finally, to explain and to justify the elevation of thought to universality, harmony and beauty. (shrink)

My aim is to look into the representational aspect of ideas, exploring not only to what Hume refers as adequate ideas, but also these cases where for a number of reasons an idea does not reach that standard. It has been suggested that the latter are fictions, but an in-depth examination of Hume texts reveals that there are several types of imperfections, such as incompleteness or imprecision that prevent an idea from being adequate. This leads to an analysis of the (...) status of supposed or pretended ideas, and the possibility of there being terms with no ideas annexed to them. (shrink)

Es muy habitual que se presenten los grandes lineamientos de la filosofía moderna en el marco del paradigma epistemológico y apelando a la distinción de dos corrientes filosóficas fundamentales, el empirismo y el racionalismo. Se trata de categorías analíticas construidas para interpretar y caracterizar retrospectivamente a ciertos filósofos de la modernidad. Pero no fueron términos ni conceptos utilizados por los actores mismos6. John Locke, George Berkeley y David Hume no se llamaban a sí mismos empiristas, ni René Descartes, Baruch Spinoza (...) y Gottfried W. Leibniz se autodenominaban racionalistas. En este capítulo, profundizaremos algunos puntos esbozados en el capítulo anterior. En primer lugar, expondremos las definiciones que han recibido el empirismo y el racionalismo dentro del paradigma epistemológico, que si bien ha sido criticado y redefinido en las últimas décadas, sigue siendo sostenido en la actualidad. En esa misma sección, analizaremos en qué medida las figuras del canon moderno establecido por el paradigma sostienen o no las tesis racionalistas y empiristas que les atribuyen esas definiciones tradicionales. Finalmente, resumiremos algunas críticas que ha recibido la narrativa tradicional y presentaremos una propuesta de resignificación de ambas categorías que nos parece más atinada. (shrink)

This literature review explores the issues and risks in non-conscious data collection and evaluates people’s attitudes towards it. In the modern world, data is one of the most valuable resources, yet studies focused on the potential negative implications of the new data-driven technologies are lacking. Therefore, this thesis conducts a comprehensive literature review to identify and assess risks in non-conscious data collection technologies that are most relevant and referenced in current literature. Accordingly, the most prominent risks are related to privacy (...) issues with personal data, bias in algorithms creating inequality, and the difficulties in creating adequate legislation. Subsequently, the thesis will explore existing studies about people’s attitudes towards non-conscious data collection and examine the most significant socio-demographic determinants of those attitudes. Therefore, despite socio-demographic factors such as age, gender, and economic status affecting the attitudes people have towards data collection technologies, this thesis argues how these approaches can be explained by varying external factors such as prior experiences with similar technologies. (shrink)

Trope theory is the view that the world consists (wholly or partly) of particular qualities, or tropes. This admittedly thin core assumption leaves plenty of room for variation. Still, most trope theorists agree that their theory is best developed as a one-category theory according to which there is nothing but tropes. Most hold that ‘sameness of property’ should be explained in terms of resembling tropes. And most hold that concrete particulars are made up from tropes in compresence (for an overview, (...) including an introduction to some alternative versions of the view, cf. Maurin, 2014). D. M. Armstrong disagrees. He thinks the world is a world of immanent universals, the thin particulars in which those universals are instantiated, and the states of affairs that—thereby—exist. He holds that ‘sameness of property’ should be explained in terms of numerically identical universals or—if the resembling things are the universals themselves—in terms of partially identical universals. And he believes that concrete particulars are made up from ‘thin particulars’ in which a (sufficient) number of universals are instantiated. In spite of their disagreements, proponents of tropes owe Armstrong a debt of gratitude. First, for being one of the theory’s earliest, most serious, and—not least—most prominent, critics (Armstrong for the first time considers, and rejects, what he then labels ‘particularism’, in his 1978a). But also for being one of the theory’s most ardent champions. Already in his 1989a, Armstrong regrets his 1978-rejection of the view. Equivalence classes of exactly resembling tropes, he now admits, for most purposes “serve as an excellent substitute for universals” (Armstrong 1989a, 122). But then why isn’t Armstrong a trope theorist? In this paper, Armstrong’s main reasons for rejecting the trope view are critically scrutinized. All of them, it is maintained, fail to convince. If this argument is accepted, Armstrong seems to have no—or, at least, no good—reason for not accepting the existence of tropes. But, then, ought Armstrong to have been a trope theorist? If the ‘best’ version of the trope view turns out to be ontologically more parsimonious than Armstrong’s own theory of universals, then, yes. That there is a version of the trope view, a version that is not (or, at least not seriously) considered by Armstrong, that is ontologically more parsimonious than the universals view, is argued in the next section. Why none of Armstrong’s reasons for preferring universals to tropes manage to convince, is explained in the section after that. First, however, and in order to avoid a common misunderstanding of the trope view and, as a consequence, of why one ought to reject it, a few more words about the core-difference between tropes and universals, and about how this difference matters (as well as does not matter) to what—and how well—these theories explain. (shrink)

Derk Pereboom’s Free Will, Agency and Meaning in Life (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2014, pp. 219) follows quite closely in the steps of his Living Without Free Will (2001). Pereboom argues for “hard incompatibilism” in both – the thesis that regardless of whether determinism is true, the kind of free will required for desert-entailing moral responsibility is unlikely to exist. In Free Will…, however, he pays more attention to issues other than moral responsibility. This, I think, is a great strength (...) of the book. It has furthermore been suggested that Free Will… differs from Living… in being less radical; that Pereboom’s hard incompatibilism has softened up over the years. I believe this view is mistaken. It is true that Free Will… contains several passages where Pereboom writes that he is happy to take on board important elements of moral responsibility theories usually labelled “compatibilist”. However, Living… never states the contrary position. Living, rather, has a different focus – on other sceptical views, and how they differ from Pereboom’s own. (shrink)

There are compelling reasons to believe that musical works are abstract. However, this hypothesis conflicts with the platitude that musical works are appreciated by means of audition: the things that enter our ear canals and make our eardrums vibrate must be concrete, so how can musical works be listened to if they are abstract? This question constitutes the audibility problem. In this paper, I assess Julian Dodd’s elaborate attempt to solve it, and contend that Dodd’s attempt is unsuccessful. Then I (...) discuss what I take to be the ideal response to the audibility problem, and show that it ultimately fails. I contend, consequently, that the project of construing musical works as audible is disheartening. Accordingly, in my last section, I will argue the audibility problem may be satisfactorily resolved without ascribing audibility to musical works. (shrink)

This paper explores early Australasian philosophy in some detail. Two approaches have dominated Western philosophy in Australia: idealism and materialism. Idealism was prevalent between the 1880s and the 1930s, but dissipated thereafter. Idealism in Australia often reflected Kantian themes, but it also reflected the revival of interest in Hegel through the work of ‘absolute idealists’ such as T. H. Green, F. H. Bradley, and Henry Jones. A number of the early New Zealand philosophers were also educated in the idealist tradition (...) and were influential in their communities, but produced relatively little. In Australia, materialism gained prominence through the work of John Anderson, who arrived in Australia in 1927, and continues to be influential. John Anderson had been a student of Henry Jones, who might therefore be said to have influenced both main strands of Australian philosophical thought. (shrink)

Epistemic theories of truth, such as those presumed to be typical for anti-realism, can be characterised as saying that what is true can be known in principle: p → ◊Kp. However, with statements of the form “p & ¬Kp”, a contradiction arises if they are both true and known. Analysis of the nature of the paradox shows that such statements refute epistemic theories of truth only if the the anti-realist motivation for epistemic theories of truth is not taken into account. (...) The motivation in a link of understandability ans meaningful- ness suggests to change the above principle and to restrict the theory to logically simple sentences, in which case the paradox does not arise. This suggestion also allows to see the deep philosophical problems for anti-realism those counterexamples are pointing at. (shrink)

Nesta comunicação pretende-se desenvolver a relação entre violência e política enquadrada no pensamento de Hannah Arendt e a partir de duas obras fundamentais, On Revolution (1963) e On Violence (1970). Investigando-se sobre o que constitui cada experiência em particular, a da violência (ainda que sob a forma da guerra ou da revolução) e a da política, esta relação permitirá equacionar criticamente as possibilidades e os limites das sociedades democráticas actuais como o resultado da tradição política e das revoluções da modernidade.

We routinely take diminished capacity as diminishing moral responsibility (as in the case of immaturity, senility, or particular mental impairments). The prospect of enhanced capacity therefore poses immediate questions with regard to moral responsibility. Of particular interest are those capacities that might allow us to better avoid serious harms or wrongdoing. We can consider questions of responsibility with regards to enhancement at various removes. In the first instance: where such (safe and effective) interventions exist, do we have an obligation to (...) undergo such enhancement? Secondly: once enhanced, would the ambit of our responsibility therefore increase? Some philosophers have argued that enhanced capacities potentially generate “hyperresponsibility.” Hyperresponsible people would be held to a different and higher moral standard than those of us with more ordinary human capacities, and are liable to be more blameworthy for wrongdoing than ordinary agents. This chapter discusses the implications of enhancement for three central views of responsibility, namely: capacity-based, control-based and revelation-based views. Debates around moral responsibility have primarily concerned diminished capacities; as such the prospect of enhancement introduces new terrain—and potentially new fault-lines and complexities—in which to interrogate our theoretical conceptions of the foundations (and limits) of moral responsibility. (shrink)

Despite growing understanding of the addictive qualities of the internet, and rising concerns about the effects of excessive internet use on personal wellbeing and mental health, the corresponding ethical debate is still in its infancy, and many of the relevant philosophical and conceptual frameworks are underdeveloped. Our goal in this chapter is to explore some of this evolving terrain. While there are unique ethical considerations that pertain to the formalisation of a disorder related to excessive internet use, our ethical concerns (...) (and indeed our mental health concerns) about whether certain technologies undermine wellbeing can and should be far broader than the debates about the appropriateness of particular diagnostic categories. In this chapter we introduce some of these wider debates with regards to persuasive digital technologies— particularly those which aim to maximise use, or even to encourage compulsive engagement—as well as the difficulty in articulating the harms involved in excessive internet use, especially where such use has not led to functional impairment. Following these conversations we briefly consider some more practical ethical implications, including regulation of certain design features, concerns about growing socioeconomic inequality in online services, and whether there should be a “right to disconnect.”. (shrink)

El propósito del trabajo consistirá en explicar las relaciones del pensamiento de Nietzsche con la metafísica occidental, así como las razones por las que éste podría ser considerado como “el último metafísico”, según la interpretación de Heidegger, de acuerdo con su idea de la Voluntad de poder (Wille zur Macht). Se explicará cómo su pensamiento implicaría un acabamiento o culminación, en tanto llevaría hasta el extremo el pensamiento del ente en cuanto tal, pero, a la vez, se mantendría aún dentro (...) de los confines de la metafísica, de acuerdo con la tesis heideggeriana. Esta tesis será examinada a la luz del pensar de otro intérprete de Nietzsche y Heidegger: el filósofo italiano Gianni Vattimo, a fin de ver lo cierto en ella, y si acaso Heidegger hizo una justa valoración del pensamiento nietzscheano. En relación con esto, profundizaremos en la oposición, en particular, de Vattimo a la interpretación heideggeriana de Nietzsche, quien argumenta que en la filosofía de Nietzsche es posible hallar elementos de real superación de la metafísica, y que incluso ésta podría augurar un pensar post-metafísico. Finalmente, me centraré en la respuesta que presenta Heidegger frente al problema, la cual propone “un nuevo inicio” del pensar, para el cual habrían de confluir el “evento apropiador” o Ereignis con las determinaciones de erigir fundamento sobre el abismo [Ab-grund]. (shrink)