Se presenta una visión de la epistemología como lógica del pensar y se la lleva a una elaboración de la práctica clínica como una lógica del padecimiento psíquico. Esto basado en los planteamientos de Deleuze y Guattari. Para ello se toma como punto de partida la noción de los movimientos aberrantes que, leyendo la obra de Deleuze, elaboró David Lapoujade entendiéndolos como movimientos que se producen en la relación entre distintos términos heterogéneos, pero manteniendo su heterogeneidad. Esto es vinculado con (...) la invitación que hace el mismo Lapoujade a entender la obra deleuzeana como el desarrollo de lógicas irracionales, intentando pensar desde ahí una lógica de la locura y del padecimiento mental con base en, a su vez, una lógica de las obras literarias de Proust y Kafka, tal como las leen los mismos Deleuze y Guattari. En relación con ello destacamos, por un lado, cierta lógica de conjuntos abiertos y no totalizables que estos últimos autores encuentran en la obra de Proust y, por otro lado, una lógica de la contigüidad que encuentran en la obra de Kafka. Al mismo tiempo, se establecen puntos en común entre estas dos lecturas a propósito de lo esquizoide como algo que excede a la significación del discurso, así como a la normatividad de la conducta. Asimismo, en distintos puntos del escrito se extraerán las implicaciones que estos modos de pensar tienen para una práctica clínica en relación con modos de existencia subjetivos que se escapan a lo que está establecido en el campo social. De esa manera, ponemos en conjunción una aproximación epistemológica con una política. (shrink)

In this paper, we argue that there are epistemic norms on evidence-gathering and consider consequences for how to understand epistemic normativity. Though the view that there are such norms seems intuitive, it has found surprisingly little defense. Rather, many philosophers have argued that norms on evidence-gathering can only be practical or moral. On a prominent evidentialist version of this position, epistemic norms only apply to responding to the evidence one already has. Here we challenge the orthodoxy. First, we argue that (...) there is no significant normative difference between responding to evidence you have and gathering more evidence. Second, we argue that our practices of epistemically criticizing agents for their poor evidence-gathering indicate the existence of epistemic norms on evidence-gathering. Finally, we show that our thesis has important implications for recent debates about the relationship between epistemic norms and inquiry. (shrink)

Epistemic agents interact with evidence in different ways. This can cause trouble for mutual understanding and for our ability to rationally engage with others. Indeed, it can compromise democratic practices of deliberation. This paper explains these differences by appeal to a new notion: epistemic styles. Epistemic styles are ways of interacting with evidence that express unified sets of epistemic values, preferences, goals, and interests. The paper introduces the notion of epistemic styles and develops a systematic account of their nature. It (...) then discusses the implications of epistemic styles for central questions in epistemology, in particular, for issues surrounding rational engagement and for the debate between virtue epistemologists and epistemic situationists. (shrink)

Delusions are deeply evidence-resistant. Patients with delusions are unmoved by evidence that is in direct conflict with the delusion, often responding to such evidence by offering obvious, and strange, confabulations. As a consequence, the standard view is that delusions are not evidence-responsive. This claim has been used as a key argumentative wedge in debates on the nature of delusions. Some have taken delusions to be beliefs and argued that this implies that belief is not constitutively evidence-responsive. Others hold fixed the (...) evidenceresponsiveness of belief and take this to show that delusions cannot be beliefs. Against this common assumption, I appeal to a large range of empirical evidence to argue that delusions are evidence-responsive in the sense that subjects have the capacity to respond to evidence on their delusion in rationally permissible ways. The extreme evidence-resistance of delusions is a consequence of powerful masking factors on these capacities, such as strange perceptual experiences, motivational factors, and cognitive biases. This view makes room for holding both that belief is constitutively evidence-responsive and that delusions are beliefs, and it has important implications for the study and treatment of delusions. (shrink)

Beliefs can be resistant to evidence. Nonetheless, the orthodox view in epistemology analyzes beliefs as evidence-responsive attitudes. I address this tension by deploying analytical tools on capacities and masking to show that the cognitive science of evidence-resistance supports rather than undermines the orthodox view. In doing so, I argue for the claim that belief requires the capacity for evidence-responsiveness. More precisely, if a subject believes that p, then they have the capacity to rationally respond to evidence bearing on p. Because (...) capacities for evidence-responsiveness are fallible and may be masked, beliefs can be held in the face of counter-evidence. Indeed, I will argue that our best science of belief supports the claim that evidence-resistant beliefs result from masks on evidence-responsiveness capacities. This account of belief not only allows for resistance to evidence, but provides us with a framework for describing and explaining actual cases of evidence-resistance. (shrink)

The orthodox view in epistemology is that belief is constitutively evidence-responsive. I offer a novel argument for a version of this view, one that appeals to capacities to rationally respond to evidence. I do so by developing the Sellarsian idea that the concept of belief functions to mark the space of reasons in a non-intellectualist and naturalistic direction. The resulting view does justice to the role of belief in social interactions, joint deliberation, and rational persuasion, while including evidence-resistant beliefs and (...) animal beliefs as genuine beliefs. It has a range of further benefits: it helps us account for epistemic normativity, paves the way for better psychological models of belief revision, distinguishes beliefs from imaginings and mere acceptances, and helps us avoid noxious simplistic takes on human irrationality. (shrink)

Commentary on Pablo Hubacher Haerle’s paper “Is OCD Epistemically Irrational?”. I argue for expanding our assessment of rationality in OCD by considering a wider range of epistemic parameters and how they fit together.

Delusions are standardly defined as attitudes that are not amenable to change in light of conflicting evidence. But what evidence do people with delusion have for and against it? Do delusions really go against their total evidence? How are the answers affected by different conceptions of evidence? -/- This chapter focuses on how delusions relate to evidence. I consider what delusions-relevant evidence people with delusions have. I give some reasons to think that people typically have evidence for their delusions, and (...) that the evidence they have against them is often overstated. I draw on this discussion to consider whether delusions are evidentially supported and epistemically rational. Finally, I discuss implications for the nature of delusion, responsibility, and treatment and suggest directions for future research. Throughout, the discussion is sensitive to different conceptions of evidence and rationality in epistemology. -/- A central upshot is that what we should say about the epistemic standing of delusions depends substantively on our positions in epistemology, in particular, on the debate between internalists and externalists about evidence. If we want clarity on the epistemic standing of delusions, we need to incorporate more sophisticated tools from epistemology. (shrink)

This article comprises an up-to-date critical review of the field known as Economic Methodology or Philosophy of Economics (EM/PE). Two edited volumes (Kincaid and Ross 2021; Heilmann and Reiss 2021), a special issue of the Journal of Economic Methodology (2021), and a recent bibliometric analysis of the field (Claveau et al. 2021) constitute the basis of the review. Drawing on these sources, we identify a number of problematic trends in current EM/PE research. We claim that these trends could be interpreted (...) as two kinds of biases, namely a micro-level bias and a mainstream bias. We discuss the respective details of these biases and their normative implications for the discipline. (shrink)

What are the roles of scientific causal knowledge in relation to the evidential requirements of policy making? In this chapter, I review the existing approaches in philosophy of science to the policy relevance of causal knowledge. I assess the specific concerns and questions on which these philosophical accounts have focused and show how they only offer a partial perspective of the relation between causal knowledge and policy making. Most existing views are top-down approaches: they start from philosophical concerns about causation (...) and evidence, and then make general claims about (potential) policy implications, but leave the notion of “policy” unanalyzed. As an alternative, I put forward some ideas toward a bottom-up approach: one that understands policy making as a dynamic process with several stages, and that starts from concrete policy problems, to then examine how causal notions and methods can contribute in various ways to the specifics of the process of policy making. (shrink)

This study determined the relationship between triarchic intelligences and engagement as factors in mathematics achievement of 1148 Grade 10 students in the Division of Davao del Norte, Philippines. It also investigated the relationship among the variables utilizing a descriptive-correlational and causal-comparative research design. Modified survey questionnaires were used for triarchic intelligence and engagement scales which were validated by the panel of experts. Standardized Division Unified Test was used to measure the mathematics achievement. Mean and Pearson product moment coefficient correlation were (...) used to determine the proficiency level and the relationship between the variables while multiple linear regression was also used to derive the value and identify the predictor variable. The findings of the study showed that students did not meet the expectations on mathematics achievement; triarchic intelligences and engagement were at moderate level. Among the six indicators, only behavioral engagement was the predictor of the achievement. This indicates that the mathematics achievement of the students is best anchored on engagement. Thus, the result suggests that the more engaged the students are, the better and higher the achievement in mathematics. (shrink)

In this article, I offer a methodological analysis of the empirical research on the causal effects of trade liberalisation, and assess whether such studies can be of any use for guiding policy prescriptions in real-world economies. The analysis focuses on the mainstream economic research that has been used to support arguments in favour of trade liberalisation during the last decades. Even though there are empirical results that could be taken as valid evidence for a causal connection between free trade and (...) economic gains, none of the existing evidence licences trustworthy inferences about the policy effectiveness of trade liberalisation reforms in real-world cases. There are three aspects of the empirical literature that make it highly problematic for making reliable policy inferences: (a) the criteria used to define the notion of ‘free trade’, (b) the background assumptions embedded in the econometric techniques used for estimating causal effects, and (c) the widespread desire among academic economists to attain scientific results in terms of universally valid generalisations. The analysis exposes a worrisome mismatch between, on the one hand, the research aims and outcomes of scientific economics and, on the other, the kind of evidence that would be useful for guiding actual policy deliberations. (shrink)

Do the facts of evolution generate an epistemic challenge to moral realism? Some think so, and many “evolutionary debunking arguments” have been discussed in the recent literature. But they are all murky right where it counts most: exactly which epistemic principle is meant to take us from evolutionary considerations to the skeptical conclusion? Here, I will identify several distinct species of evolutionary debunking argument in the literature, each one of which relies on a distinct epistemic principle. Drawing on recent work (...) in epistemology, I will show that most of these initially plausible principles are false, spoiling the arguments that rely on them. And we will see that each argument threatens only one popular view of moral psychology: a “Representationalist” view on which our moral judgments rely crucially on a mental intermediary—e.g. a sentiment, gut reaction, or affect-laden intuition—delivered by our evolved moral faculty. In the end, only one evolutionary debunking argument remains a menace: an “ Argument from Symmetry ” that I will introduce to the literature. But we will see that it should worry only all naturalists, pressuring them into a trilemma: give up moral realism, accept a rationalism that is incongruous with naturalism, or give up naturalism. Non-naturalists are free and clear. (shrink)

Many contemporary epistemologists hold that a subject S’s true belief that p counts as knowledge only if S’s belief that p is also, in some important sense, safe. I describe accounts of this safety condition from John Hawthorne, Duncan Pritchard, and Ernest Sosa. There have been three counterexamples to safety proposed in the recent literature, from Comesaña, Neta and Rohrbaugh, and Kelp. I explain why all three proposals fail: each moves fallaciously from the fact that S was at epistemic risk (...) just before forming her belief to the conclusion that S’s belief was formed unsafely. In light of lessons from their failure, I provide a new and successful counterexample to the safety condition on knowledge. It follows, then, that knowledge need not be safe. Safety at a time depends counterfactually on what would likely happen at that time or soon after in a way that knowledge does not. I close by considering one objection concerning higher-order safety. (shrink)

Some philosophers believe that when epistemic peers disagree, each has an obligation to accord the other's assessment the same weight as her own. I first make the antecedent of this Equal-Weight View more precise, and then I motivate the View by describing cases in which it gives the intuitively correct verdict. Next I introduce some apparent counterexamples – cases of apparent peer disagreement in which, intuitively, one should not give equal weight to the other party's assessment. To defuse these apparent (...) counterexamples, an advocate of the View might try to explain how they are not genuine cases of peer disagreement. I examine David Christensen's and Adam Elga's explanations and find them wanting. I then offer a novel explanation, which turns on a distinction between knowledge from reports and knowledge from direct acquaintance. Finally, I extend my explanation to provide a handy and satisfying response to the charge of self-defeat. (shrink)

This essay undertakes an examination of the foundational status of logic, rethinking its origins and limitations from an empirical perspective. Drawing upon the original concepts of Conceptual Quarks (CQs)—defined as the fundamental units of knowledge—and the Programmed Conceptual Deconstruction (PCD) algorithm, which I created for this study, I present methodologies to systematically analyze and deconstruct the principles of logic, exposing their empirical roots. Utilizing a custom-built artificial intelligence model, the study proposes that classical logical principles, such as identity and non-contradiction, (...) are emergent phenomena shaped by sensory context rather than immutable absolutes. By integrating philosophical inquiry with technological innovation, this work offers a new perspective on traditional perspectives, including those of Kant and Leibniz, and establishes a novel framework for understanding logic as a contextual and contingent phenomenon. (shrink)

In this paper, I hope to solve a problem that’s as old as the hills: the problem of contingency for religious belief. Paradigmatic examples of this argument begin with a counterfactual premise: had we been born at a different time or in a difference place, we easily could have held different beliefs on religious topics. Ultimately, and perhaps by additional steps, we’re meant to reach the skeptical conclusion that very many of our religious beliefs do not amount to knowledge. I (...) survey some historical examples of this argument, and I try to fill the gap between the counterfactual premise and the skeptical conclusion as forcefully as possible. I consider the following possibilities: there are no additional steps in the argument; or there are and they concern the alleged safety condition on knowledge, or the alleged non-accidentality condition on knowledge, or the unclarity produced by disagreement. On every possibility, the argument from the counterfactual premise to the conclusion of widespread skepticism is invalid. It seems, then, that there is no serious problem of contingency for religious belief. (shrink)

Some philosophers believe that, when epistemic peers disagree, each has an obligation to accord the other’s assessment equal weight as her own. Other philosophers worry that this Equal-Weight View is vulnerable to straightforward counterexamples, and that it requires an unacceptable degree of spinelessness with respect to our most treasured philosophical, political, and religious beliefs. I think that both of these allegations are false. To show this, I carefully state the Equal-Weight View, motivate it, describe apparent counterexamples to it, and then (...) explain away the apparent counterexamples. Finally, I adapt those explanations to cases of religious disagreement. In the end, we reach the surprising conclusion that—even if the Equal-Weight View is true—in very many cases of religious disagreement between apparent epistemic peers, the parties to the disagreement need not be conciliatory. And what goes for religious beliefs goes for political and philosophical beliefs as well. This strongly suggests that the View does not demand an unacceptable degree of spinelessness. (shrink)

In the standard thought experiments, dualism strikes many philosophers as true, including many non-dualists. This ‘striking’ generates prima facie justification: in the absence of defeaters, we ought to believe that things are as they seem to be, i.e. we ought to be dualists. In this paper, I examine several proposed undercutting defeaters for our dualist intuitions. I argue that each proposal fails, since each rests on a false assumption, or requires empirical evidence that it lacks, or overgenerates defeaters. By the (...) end, our prima facie justification for dualism remains undefeated. I close with one objection concerning the dialectical role of rebutting defeaters, and I argue that the prospects for a successful rebutting defeater for our dualist intuitions are dim. Since dualism emerges undefeated, we ought to believe it. (shrink)

Many philosophers believe that our ordinary English words man and woman are “gender terms,” and gender is distinct from biological sex. That is, they believe womanhood and manhood are not defined even partly by biological sex. This sex/gender distinction is one of the most influential ideas of the twentieth century on the broader culture, both popular and academic. Less well known are the reasons to think it’s true. My interest in this paper is to show that, upon investigation, the arguments (...) for the sex/gender distinction have feet of clay. In fact, they all fail. We will survey the literature and tour arguments in favor of the sex/gender distinction, and then we’ll critically evaluate those arguments. We’ll consider the argument from resisting biological determinism, the argument from biologically intersex people and vagueness, the argument from the normativity of gender, and some arguments from thought experiments. We’ll see that these arguments are not up to the task of supporting the sex/gender distinction; they simply don’t work. So, philosophers should either develop stronger arguments for the sex/gender distinction, or cultivate a variety of feminism that’s consistent with the traditional, biologically-based definitions of woman and man. (shrink)

Interest in the nature of religious and mystical experiences (henceforth RMEs) is old. Recently, this interest has shifted toward understanding the relationship between brain function and RMEs. In the first section, I introduce neurocognitive data from three experiments that strongly correlate the report of religious mystical experiences with specific neural activity. Although correlations cannot be considered as “absolute” proof, strong correlations provide us with inductive grounds for justifying the belief or nonbelief of some proposition. These data suggest that the human (...) brain plays a key role in having an RME and will provide support for the claim that our explanations for phenomena should be located in the natural world. In the next section, I explore the meaning of an RME from a Jamesian perspective and discuss the use of RMEs and the apparent design of the world as proof for God’s existence. My point is to show that the whole enterprise of using phenomena “that only God could have brought about” as the proof for God’s existence is inherently question begging and so is no proof that God exists. In the third section, I lay out in detail my assumptions for my main argument in the final section. There, I argue that belief in the supernatural is not justifiable given the data we have from contemporary science and basic rules of reasoning. (shrink)

The Golden Rule is (roughly) as follows: treat others as you would have others treat you. Philosophical reactions to it vary; it has both supporters and detractors. In any case, almost nobody who things critically about morality takes the literal version of the Golden Rule seriously, since there are just too many problems with it. To demonstrate this, I will look at a literal version of the Golden Rule espoused by John C. Maxwell, a well-known and influential motivational speaker, and (...) briefly discuss some of the obvious problems that it faces. I will then examine a more sophisticated version of the Golden Rule espoused by philosopher Harry Gensler. While able to overcome some of the problems of the literal Golden Rule, Gensler's version nevertheless shares a common difficulty with it: in both cases, the moral agent is asked to imagine themselves in the place of another. Maxwell things this is easily done, and Gensler asks for vividness and accuracy in this act of imagination. I wish to show that any version of the Golden Rule that takes seriously the need to imagine oneself in the place of another is to ask one to do the impossible, so any versions of the Golden Rule that require this should be rejected. (shrink)

What is a woman? The definition of this central concept of feminism has lately become especially controversial and politically charged. “Ameliorative Inquirists” have rolled up their sleeves to reengineer our ordinary concept of womanhood, with a goal of including in the definition all and only those who identify as women, both “cis” and “trans.” This has proven to be a formidable challenge. Every proposal so far has failed to draw the boundaries of womanhood in a way acceptable to the Ameliorative (...) Inquirists, since not all those who identify as women count as women on these proposals, and some who count as women on these proposals don’t identify as women. This is the Trans Inclusion Problem. Is there any solution? Can there be? Recently, Katharine Jenkins, pointing to the work of Mari Mikkola, suggests that the Trans Inclusion Problem can be “deflated” rather than solved. We will investigate this proposal, and show that, unfortunately, Jenkins is mistaken: Mikkola’s project will not help us answer the Trans Inclusion Problem. After that, we’ll look at Robin Dembroff’s suggestion that we “imitate” the linguistic practices of trans inclusive and queer communities, and we will evaluate whether this would help us solve the Trans Inclusion Problem. Unfortunately, this strategy also fails to solve the problem. By the end, we’ll have a better appreciation of the challenges faced by Ameliorative Inquirists in their project of redefining “woman,” and clearer view of why the Trans Inclusion Problem cannot, in fact, be solved. That’s primarily because, no matter what it means to be a woman, it’s one thing to be a woman, and another thing to identify as a woman. (shrink)

In an essay recently published in this journal (“Is Safety in Danger?”), Fernando Broncano-Berrocal defends the safety condition on knowledge from a counterexample proposed by Tomas Bogardus (Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 2012). In this paper, we will define the safety condition, briefly explain the proposed counterexample, and outline Broncano-Berrocal’s defense of the safety condition. We will then raise four objections to Broncano-Berrocal’s defense, four implausible implications of his central claim. In the end, we conclude that Broncano-Berrocal’s defense of the safety (...) condition is unsuccessful, and that the safety condition on knowledge should be rejected. (shrink)

Modalists think that knowledge requires forming your belief in a “modally stable” way: using a method that wouldn't easily go wrong, or using a method that wouldn't have given you this belief had it been false. Recent Modalist projects from Justin Clarke-Doane and Dan Baras defend a principle they call “Modal Security,” roughly: if evidence undermines your belief, then it must give you a reason to doubt the safety or sensitivity of your belief. Another recent Modalist project from Carlotta Pavese (...) and Bob Beddor defends “Modal Virtue Epistemology”: knowledge is a belief that is maximally modally robust across “normal” worlds. We'll offer new objections to these recent Modalist projects. We will then argue for a rival view, Explanationism: knowing something is believing it because it's true. We will show how Explanationism offers a better account of undermining defeaters than Modalism, and a better account of knowledge. (shrink)

Feminism has long grappled with its own demarcation problem—exactly what is it to be a woman?—and the rise of trans-inclusive feminism has made this problem more urgent. I will first consider Sally Haslanger’s “social and hierarchical” account of woman, resulting from “Ameliorative Inquiry”: she balances ordinary use of the term against the instrumental value of novel definitions in advancing the cause of feminism. Then, I will turn to Katharine Jenkins’ charge that Haslanger’s view suffers from an “Inclusion Problem”: it fails (...) to class many trans women as women. Jenkins offers a novel norm-relevancy account of woman to avoid the Inclusion Problem. Unfortunately, Jenkins’ account has serious internal problems, i.e. problems by Jenkins’ own lights: it is unintelligible, or it suffers from an Inclusion Problem of its own. After that, I will develop novel arguments for the conclusion that the project of Ameliorative Inquiry is both incoherent and also impossible to complete—at least, impossible to complete in a trans-inclusive way. Trans-inclusive feminism, therefore, would do well to move beyond Ameliorative Inquiry. Insofar as that’s not possible, trans-inclusive feminism inherits the incoherence of Ameliorative Inquiry. (shrink)

With the ascent of modern epidemiology in the Twentieth Century came a new standard model of prediction in public health and clinical medicine. In this article, we describe the structure of the model. The standard model uses epidemiological measures-most commonly, risk measures-to predict outcomes (prognosis) and effect sizes (treatment) in a patient population that can then be transformed into probabilities for individual patients. In the first step, a risk measure in a study population is generalized or extrapolated to a target (...) population. In the second step, the risk measure is particularized or transformed to yield probabilistic information relevant to a patient from the target population. Hence, we call the approach the Risk Generalization-Particularization (Risk GP) Model. There are serious problems at both stages, especially with the extent to which the required assumptions will hold and the extent to which we have evidence for the assumptions. Given that there are other models of prediction that use different assumptions, we should not inflexibly commit ourselves to one standard model. Instead, model pluralism should be standard in medical prediction. (shrink)

There are many possible definitions of “technology” and I will discuss some of these in this book. However, in this introduction let me use a definition of Svante Lindqvist who defines technology very intuitively as “those activities, directed towards the satisfaction of human wants, which produce change in the material world.” He says also “the distinction between human “wants” and more limited human “needs” is crucial, for we do not use technology only to satisfy our essential material requirements.” Consequently, from (...) this perspective, a technology that is “broken” could be defined as those activities, directed towards the satisfaction of human wants that are intended to produce changes in the material world that either do not manage to satisfy these wants or do not produce changes in the material world, or both. This is the third edition, updated October 2015. (shrink)

Building Information Modelling (BIM) is a process for managing construction project information in such a way as to provide a basis for enhanced decision-making and for collaboration in a construction supply chain. One impediment to the uptake of BIM is the limited interoperability of different BIM systems. To overcome this problem, a set of Industry Foundation Classes (IFC) has been proposed as a standard for the construction industry. Building on IFC, the ifcOWL ontology was developed in order to facilitate representation (...) of building data in a consistent fashion across the Web by using the Web Ontology Language (OWL). This study presents a critical analysis of the ifcOWL ontology and of the associated interoperability issues. It shows how these issues can be resolved by using Basic Formal Ontology (ISO/IEC 21838-2) as top-level architecture. A set of competency questions is used as the basis for comparison of the original ifcOWL with the enhanced ontology, and the latter is used to align with a second ontology – the ontology for building intelligent environments (DOGONT) – in order to demonstrate the added value derived from BFO by showing how querying the enhanced ifcOWL yields useful additional information. (shrink)

Predictive Processing theory, hotly debated in neuroscience, psychology and philosophy, promises to explain a number of perceptual and cognitive phenomena in a simple and elegant manner. In some of its versions, the theory is ambitiously advertised as a new theory of conscious perception. The task of this paper is to assess whether this claim is realistic. We will be arguing that the Predictive Processing theory cannot explain the transition from unconscious to conscious perception in its proprietary terms. The explanations offer (...) by PP theorists mostly concern the preconditions of conscious perception, leaving the genuine material substrate of consciousness untouched. (shrink)

Identity labels like “woman”, “Black,” “mother,” and “evangelical” are pervasive in both political and personal life, and in both formal and informal classification and communication. They are also widely thought to undermine agency by essentializing groups, flattening individual distinctiveness, and enforcing discrimination. While we take these worries to be well-founded, we argue that they result from a particular practice of using labels to rigidly label others. We identify an alternative practice of playful self-labelling, and argue that it can function as (...) a tool for combating oppression by expressing and enhancing individual and collective agency. (shrink)

Sentences that ascribe action are logically related, but it is not always obvious why. According to event semantics, implications and non-implications result from referential relations between unpronounced constituents. Taking as starting point examples including free relative clauses, this paper advances the alternative view that examples as such present logical relations as forms of predicative dependence indicated with pronounced constituents. To this end, I argue that Verbal Phrases and verbal traces follow the pattern of Verbal Phrase Anaphora and, more controversially, that (...) they can be semantically interpreted in terms of higher-order quantification that represent actions as properties, but neither as events nor event-kinds. (shrink)

We present a theoretical view of the cellular foundations for network-level processes involved in producing our conscious experience. Inputs to apical synapses in layer 1 of a large subset of neocortical cells are summed at an integration zone near the top of their apical trunk. These inputs come from diverse sources and provide a context within which the transmission of information abstracted from sensory input to their basal and perisomatic synapses can be amplified when relevant. We argue that apical amplification (...) enables conscious perceptual experience and makes it more flexible, and thus more adaptive, by being sensitive to context. Apical amplification provides a possible mechanism for recurrent processing theory that avoids strong loops. It makes the broadcasting hypothesized by global neuronal workspace theories feasible while preserving the distinct contributions of the individual cells receiving the broadcast. It also provides mechanisms that contribute to the holistic aspects of integrated information theory. As apical amplification is highly dependent on cholinergic, aminergic, and other neuromodulators, it relates the specific contents of conscious experience to global mental states and to fluctuations in arousal when awake. We conclude that apical dendrites provide a cellular mechanism for the context-sensitive selective amplification that is a cardinal prerequisite of conscious perception. (shrink)

Most philosophers, including all materialists I know of, believe that I am a complex thing?a thing with parts?and that my mental life is (or is a result of) the interaction of these parts. These philosophers often believe that I am a body or a brain, and my mental life is (or is a product of) brain activity. In this paper, I develop and defend a novel argument against this view. The argument turns on certainty, that highest epistemic status that a (...) precious few of our beliefs enjoy. For example, on the basis of introspection, I am certain that I am not in fierce pain right now. But if I am a complex thing like a body or a brain, then introspection might be a causal series of events extended in time. And any such process could go awry. So, if introspection is such a process, then I could gain good evidence that the introspective process has gone awry and that I am, contrary to appearances, feeling fierce pain right now. Therefore, the view that I am a complex thing like a body or a brain forces open the possibility that I cannot be certain that I am not feeling fierce pain right now. Since that is clearly not an open possibility, it follows that I am not a complex thing. I conclude by responding to three objections. (shrink)

There is much to admire in John Pittard’s recent book on the epistemology of disagreement. But here we develop one concern about the role that rational insight plays in his project. Pittard develops and defends a view on which a party to peer disagreement can show substantial partiality to his own view, so long as he enjoys even moderate rational insight into the truth of his view or the cogency of his reasoning for his view. Pittard argues that this may (...) happen in ordinary cases of religious disagreement—cases in which it’s a live skeptical possibility that one is misdescribing his insight, or not having insight at all—and therefore one need not be strongly conciliatory even in the face of peer disagreement. Yet Pittard agrees that one should be strongly conciliatory in cases of disagreement involving, e.g., visual perception and dim rational insight, since the sort of fallible, corrigible evidence involved in such cases may be counterbalanced by symmetrical evidence on the part of one’s disagreeing peer. We worry that there’s an inconsistency here. If it’s unreasonable to show partiality to one’s visual experience (or dim rational insight) in cases like “Horse Race” and “Restaurant Check,” it’s likewise unreasonable to show partiality in religious disagreements to one’s moderate rational insight, fallible and corrigible as it is. (shrink)

The article presents Martin Heidegger’s early conception of foundational questions of logic and science. It focuses on their treatment in the Introduction to Phenomenological Research. Presenting the conception of phenomenon, perception, language/speech, noun and verb, proposition and deceit, the article shows the fundamental idea of facticity of speaking as the ground of these questions. It uses ideas of existence, fact and time to a-chieve the result. The impact on the most famous early book by Martin Heidegger is also considered.

The present paper was written as a contribution to ongoing methodological debates within the NCC project. We focus on the neural correlates of conscious perceptual episodes. Our claim is that the NCC notion, as applied to conscious perceptual episodes, needs to be reconceptualized. It mixes together the processing related to the perceived contents and the neural substrate of consciousness proper, i.e. mechanisms making the perceptual contents conscious. We thus propose that the perceptual NCC be divided into two constitutive subnotions. The (...) main theoretical idea that emerges as a consequence of this reconceptualization is that the neural correlate of a perceptual episode is formed in the neural interaction between content-processing and consciousness-conferring mechanisms. The paper elaborates this distinction, marshals some initial arguments in its favour, and tests it against some of the most debated theories of consciousness. (shrink)

En "La sensibilidad oculta" se analizan y critican los elementos de la ideología contemporánea que imposibilitan al ciudadano entender su vida cotidiana. La filosofía, el cine, el rock y la arquitectura sintetizan muchas de las pasiones que atormentan a los sujetos en nuestra época. En esas pasiones podemos reconocer la problemática que recorre el planeta: desde las relaciones amorosas hasta la idea de familia, del trabajo asalariado a la desocupación. En todo ello parece ocultarse una búsqueda incesante de comunidad que (...) jamás resulta satisfecha ni en familia ni fuera de ella, con trabajo o sin él. (shrink)

[Replies to My Friends] This is an answer to the critics of my book WHAT IT'S LIKE, OR WHAT IT'S ABOUT? THE PLACE OF CONSCIOUSNESS IN THE MATERIAL WORLD (2017). I proceed from the least to the most serious objections. I start with Jakub Mihálik’s defense of Russellian Monism against my claim that it is not a genuine alternative to standard dualism and materialism. In reply, I claim this is a side issue to the central aim of my book, which (...) is to undermine the concept of phenomenal consciousness assumed by Russellian Monism as much as by every other standard theory. One of these standard theories is reductive materialism, pursued by Michal Polák and Tomáš Marvan. Both Polák and Marvan are worried by Dennett’s alleged eliminativism, even though their arguments somewhat differ. Polák believes in a deflationary concept of consciousness, which I am afraid lacks a definite content. Marvan offers an “innocent” concept of consciousness, on which there is supposed to be a general consensus, but I think he just assumes that the concept of phenomenal property is part of the definition of consciousness. Curiously, while Polák and Marvan take me as to be a Dennettian, Stefanie Dach argues that I misinterpret Dennett. Conversely, I believe that she overlooks weak points in Dennett’s theory. (shrink)

V práci sa zaoberám kritickou expozíciou argumentačných schém v kontexte pragma-dialektického prístupu k argumentácii. Nadväzujem pritom na prácu Hitchcocka a Wagemansa (2011), ktorí sa sústredili najmä na problémy súvisiace s typológiou argumentačných schém v pragma-dialektike. Pozorovania Hitchcocka a Wagemansa sú v priebehu výkladu kriticky hodnotené, prípadne upravené. Časť kritiky, ktorú v práci uvádzam, súvisí s tým, že niektoré dôležité aspekty argumentačných schém sú v rôznych pragma-dialektických publikáciách prezentované odlišne bez toho, aby sa odlišnosť akokoľvek komentovala, alebo zdôvodnila. Existencia takýchto zdôvodnení (...) nie je pritom iba znakom, ale aj nevyhnutnou podmienkou toho, aby sme akúkoľvek zmenu mohli nazývať pokrokom v teórii. Posledná časť práce je zameraná na problémy týkajúce sa hodnotenia argumentácie v pragma-dialektickom prístupe. Hoci článok prináša vlastné pozitívne návrhy, dôraz a celkový zámer spočíva predovšetkým na expozícii nedostatkov súčasného stavu pragma-dialektickej koncepcie argumentačných schém. Kľúčové slová: argumentačné schémy, kritické otázky, pragma-dialektický prístup k argumentácii, hodnotenie argumentov. (shrink)

El presente artículo ofrece una interpretación original del trabajo de Austin sobre la aserción y los adverbios y deriva de ella una semántica expresivista para las oraciones de acción. En primer lugar, el análisis austiniano de la aserción con su idea de fuerzas asertivas específicas se conecta sistemáticamente con sus observaciones sobre la modificación adverbial para obtener esquemas de aserción para oraciones de acción. En segundo lugar, se interpretan esos esquemas en términos de la expresión de los compromisos inferenciales propios (...) de prácticas argumentativas exculpatorias, justificativas y ejemplarizantes en las que se explota la contrariedad lógica a la par de la contradicción. This paper offers a new interpretation of John Austin's views both on assertion and on adverbs, as result of which an expressivist thesis concerning the semantics for action sentences is advanced. First, Austin's analysis of assertion based on various, specific assertive forces and his remarks on adverbs are systematically connected in order to obtain assertive schemata for action sentences. Finally, those schemata are put to work as the expression of inferential commitments implicit in argumentative practices of different sorts in the deployment of which both logical contrariety and contradiction are exploited. (shrink)

We argue that prediction success maximization is a basic objective of cognition and cortex, that it is compatible with but distinct from prediction error minimization, that neither objective requires subtractive coding, that there is clear neurobiological evidence for the amplification of predicted signals, and that we are unconvinced by evidence proposed in support of subtractive coding. We outline recent discoveries showing that pyramidal cells on which our cognitive capabilities depend usually transmit information about input to their basal dendrites and amplify (...) that transmission when input to their distal apical dendrites provides a context that agrees with the feedforward basal input in that both are depolarizing, i.e., both are excitatory rather than inhibitory. Though these intracellular discoveries require a level of technical expertise that is beyond the current abilities of most neuroscience labs, they are not controversial and acclaimed as groundbreaking. We note that this cellular cooperative context-sensitivity greatly enhances the cognitive capabilities of the mammalian neocortex, and that much remains to be discovered concerning its evolution, development, and pathology. (shrink)

[What It’s Like, or What It’s About? The Place of Consciousness in the Material World] Summary: The book is both a survey of the contemporary debate and a defense of a distinctive position. Most philosophers nowadays assume that the focus of the philosophy of consciousness, its shared explanandum, is a certain property of experience variously called “phenomenal character,” “qualitative character,” “qualia” or “phenomenology,” understood in terms of what it is like to undergo the experience in question. Consciousness as defined in (...) terms of its phenomenal aspect is often called “phenomenal consciousness.” The major issue that occupies most thinkers is whether this phenomenal character happens to be a physical property, or whether it is rather sui generis. Those who believe the former are materialists; those who conclude the latter are dualists. As the currently dominant metaphysic is materialism – also sometimes called physicalism – the challenge appears to be to slot phenomenal properties among the physical properties that ultimately make up the world. David Chalmers argued powerfully that we can go very far in situating many mental properties in the physical world – namely, the properties that can be understood in functional terms – but that phenomenal properties resist such a treatment. Chalmers calls this “the hard problem” of consciousness. But there are also some quite powerful positive arguments for dualism. The two most influential ones are the modal argument, also offered by Chalmers, and the knowledge argument invented by Frank Jackson. Chalmers invites us to conceive of creatures that are exactly like human beings – physically, functionally, behaviorally – only bereft of phenomenal consciousness. If such creatures are conceivable, says Chalmers, they are metaphysically possible. And if they are metaphysically possible, materialism is false. Jackson, for his part, suggests we imagine Mary who has spent her entire life inside a black-and-white room and has seen the world through a black-and-white TV screen. But she also happens to know everything there is to know about the physics of color. And yet, Jackson suggests that once Mary is finally released from her room and sees a lawn outside, she learns something new: that this is what it is like to experience green color. The current work on consciousness is by and large characterized by attempts to answer these two dualistic arguments. I try to make sense of the positions within the domain of philosophy of consciousness by means of two major distinctions that mutually intersect. First, there is a distinction between dualism and materialism. An apparent third alternative currently on offer, the so-called Russellian monism, is unstable, collapsing into either dualism (panpsychism) or materialism (Russellian physicalism). Materialism comes in two main flavors: either the a posteriori physicalism, which detects an epistemic gap between phenomenal and physical truths, hence denying that the former could be derived from the latter; or the a priori physicalism, which does not acknowledge any such obstacle. The second major distinction is between phenomenism and representationalism. It’s true that Ned Block, who introduced this contrast, meant to distinguish between two kinds of materialism. But I believe that the distinction actually intersects the one between materialism and dualism. We thus arrive at a table with six slots, representing six main positions in the philosophy of consciousness: (1) dualist phenomenism (Chalmers, the early Jackson, and Tyler Burge); (2) dualist representationalism (René Descartes); (3) aposteriori materialist phenomenism (Block); (4) a posteriori materialist representationalism (Michael Tye, Fred Dretske, David Rosenthal); (5) a priori materialist phenomenism (David Lewis); and (6) a priori materialist representationalism (Daniel Dennett, Derk Pereboom). However, this scheme is in fact somewhat misleading. It is true that Dennett is usually classified as an apriori materialist (or, more precisely an apriori materialist representationalist), but I believe that needs to be corrected. In order to understand why, I first analyze varieties of materialist representationalism in detail, in particular various construals of phenomenal character in terms of representation, or intentionality, which includes a discussion of the identity of its content (the issue of externalism). By contrast, Dennett rejects the concept of phenomenal character. Consciousness has no intrinsic, publicly inaccessible properties. On that ground, Dennett builds an empirical, fully functionalist theory of consciousness, which he also tries to integrate within a general Darwinian framework. From that point of view, one can contrast Dennettian and representationalist views on the issue of animal consciousness. In addition to his rejection of phenomenal character, Dennett also abstains from the regular metaphysical departure point of regular materialism. He does not so much ask how an enigmatic property of consciousness fits an antecedently characterized world, but rather how far we can investigate all aspects of the world, including consciousness, using the scientific method. He is thus a methodological naturalist, rather than a metaphysical materialist. While this approach removes obstacles to the science of consciousness, it does not solve what might be called “the hardest problem” – of intentionality, not phenomenal consciousness. The hardest problem consists in the fact that our intentional discourse involves conflicting commitments that prevent a coherent metaphysic of representational states. However, it does not follow that we should give up on this discourse as a theoretical means of reduction as well as a practical tool of explanation. But it might be that intentional discourse is a somewhat pseudo one. (shrink)

[For an Ethics without Theology] This study is a critical reflection on Marek Vácha's article on the ethics of euthanasia. In the first part the author offers a short consideration of the reasons for the moribund state of ethics in Czech philosophy, after which, in the second part, he presents a critique of Vácha's article. The article in question is, above all, lacking in a philosophical approach to the problem of euthanasia, and we find in it not so much arguments (...) as rhetoric. The only line of argument that is detectable in the article is founded on natural theology, something that Vácha elsewhere repudiates, and it offers the reader a false dilemma between accepting theistic ethics on the one hand or total subjectivism on the other. In reality, of course, there is a wide range of kinds of objective secular ethics. In the third part, one of these forms is summarised--a system of "everyday morality" which is founded on the concept of harm, and which treats conduct as immoral primarily when it causes unjustifiable harm to others. This form of ethics does not presuppose any controversial theory of value, and it constitutes the viewpoint from which the author then defends physician-assisted suicide. A doctor who helps a patient die--or who causes the patient's death on his own request--does not cause that individual harm if she has only a period of life filled with pain left. In conclusion the author indentifies certain points of contact between secular and theistic ethics. (shrink)

¿Cómo puede la lógica representar expresiones indéxicas como “yo”, “aquí” y “ahora”? ¿Cómo no debe representarlas? Examino estas dos preguntas a partir de la Lógica de los Demostrativos (LD) de Kaplan y su impopular prohibición de operadores monstruosos. A pesar de algunos defectos de formulación, sostengo que dicha prohibición está guiada por una poderosa visión de las relaciones lógicas de validez entre oraciones con indéxicos que desafía la concepción tradicional de consecuencia lógica como preservación de la verdad y resalta el (...) papel fundamental de la información semántica en la construcción de sistemas formales concebidos como modelos de las lenguas naturales. (shrink)

Desde la conquista española ha existido una dicotomía constante en la identidad peruana, la cual se refleja en el arte y especialmente en la literatura. Es en ella en la que existe un personaje que representa en sus obras de manera magistral los encuentros y desencuentros generados por la interacción constante de esos dos hemisferios culturales presentes en la peruanidad. Es José María Arguedas, quien no solamente retrata dicha realidad, sino que a través del indigenismo logra representar y revalorizar la (...) figura del indio y por consiguiente de lo andino, todo en el marco de la problemática constante que aqueja la búsqueda de lo que consiste ser peruano. Tomando como referencia tres importantes obras de su producción intelectual como son: “Los ríos profundos”, “El Sexto” y “El zorro de arriba y el zorro de abajo”. (shrink)