Does a diagnosis of brain dysfunction matter for ascriptions of moral responsibility? This chapter argues that, while knowledge of brain pathology can inform judgments of moral responsibility, its evidential value is currently limited for a number of practical and theoretical reasons. These include the problem of establishing causation from correlational data, drawing inferences about individuals from group data, and the reliance of the interpretation of brain findings on well-established psychological findings. Brain disorders sometimes matter for moral responsibility, however, because they (...) change an individual’s moral psychology in a way that is beyond their control. While control over psychological changes is not an excusing factor, brain disorders can mitigate moral responsibility because they confront individuals with new psychological deficits or urges for which their previous moral education and existing external and internal moral resources have not prepared them. (shrink)

Slippery slope arguments are frequently dismissed as fallacious or weak arguments but are nevertheless commonly used in political and bioethical debates. This paper gives an overview of different variants of the argument commonly found in the literature and addresses their argumentative strength and the interrelations between them. The most common variant, the empirical slippery slope argument, predicts that if we do A, at some point the highly undesirable B will follow. I discuss both the question which factors affect likelihood of (...) slippage and the relation between the strength of the prediction and the justificatory power of the argument. (shrink)

Clinical psychology is characterized by persistent disagreement about fundamental aspects of the discipline ranging from what mental disorders are to what constitutes effective treatment. Attempts to address the problem of epistemic disagreement have been frequently based on establishing the correct answer by fiat without identifying and addressing the sources of the disagreement. We argue that this strategy has not worked very well and the result is frequently ongoing and intractable disagreement, with each side in an argument convinced they are correct. (...) In this paper, we outline an epistemic disagreement procedural model intended to assist researchers and clinicians in the field of clinical psychology to identify, explore, and develop inquiry strategies that capitalize on situations where competing knowledge claims are made. The result is a flexible conceptual framework committed to a defensible epistemic pluralism, fallibilism, and contextualism, across the various research tasks constituting the field of clinical psychology. (shrink)

Opponents of biomedical enhancement frequently adopt what Allen Buchanan has called the “Personal Goods Assumption.” On this assumption, the benefits of biomedical enhancement will accrue primarily to those individuals who undergo enhancements, not to wider society. Buchanan has argued that biomedical enhancements might in fact have substantial social benefits by increasing productivity. We outline another way in which enhancements might benefit wider society: by augmenting civic virtue and thus improving the functioning of our political communities. We thus directly confront critics (...) of biomedical enhancement who argue that it will lead to a loss of social cohesion and a breakdown in political life. (shrink)

The challenges facing us today require practical wisdom to allow us to react appropriately. In this paper, we argue that at a group level, we will make better decisions if we respect and take into account the moral judgment of agents with diverse styles of cognition and moral reasoning. We show this by focusing on the example of autism, highlighting different strengths and weaknesses of moral reasoning found in autistic and non-autistic persons respectively.

Derek Walcott's colonial schoolhouse bears an interesting relationship to space and place: it is both a Caribbean site, and a site that disavows its locality by valorizing the metropolis and acting as a vital institution in the psychic colonization of the Caribbean peoples. The situation of the schoolhouse within the Caribbean landscape, and the presence of the Caribbean body, means that the pedagogical relationship works in two ways, and that the hegemonic/colonial discourses of the schoolhouse are inherently challenged within its (...) walls. While the school was used as a means of colonial subjugation, as a method of privileging the metropolitan centre, and as a way of recreating that centre within the colonies, Walcott's emphasis on place complicates and ultimately rewrites colonial discourses and practices. While the school attempts to legitimize colonial space, it in fact fosters what Walter Mignolo has termed "border thinking.". (shrink)

Gratitude, the proper or fitting response to benevolence, has often been conceptualized as a virtue—a temporally stable disposition to perceive, think, feel, and act in certain characteristic ways in certain situations. Many accounts of gratitude as a virtue, however, have not analyzed this disposition accurately, and as a result, they have not revealed the rich variety of ways in which someone can fail to be a grateful person. In this paper, I articulate an account of the virtue of gratitude, and (...) I use this account to explore various vices that can manifest in its absence. (shrink)

To address the underrepresentation of women in philosophy effectively, we must understand the causes of the early loss of women. In this paper we challenge one of the few explanations that has focused on why women might leave philosophy at early stages. Wesley Buckwalter and Stephen Stich offer some evidence that women have different intuitions than men about philosophical thought experiments. We present some concerns about their evidence and we discuss our own study, in which we attempted to replicate their (...) results for 23 different responses to 14 scenarios . We also conducted a literature search to see if other philosophers or psychologists have tested for gender differences in philosophical intuitions. Based on our findings, we argue that that it is unlikely that gender differences in intuitions play a significant role in driving women from philosophy. (shrink)

In this thesis, I argue that empathy is morally significant because it plays an important role in informing our moral deliberations. Empathy should be thought of not as an alternative to rational deliberation about how we are to act, but rather as an important input into such deliberation. -/- I focus on exploring what we learn when we empathize with the suffering of another person. Standard epistemic defences of empathy say only that such empathy will give us knowledge of which (...) affective states the suffering person is feeling. I add to those defences by arguing that empathy with a suffering person also gives us additional types of knowledge about the affective states that this person is feeling. Most significantly, I argue that empathizing with a suffering person gives us knowledge of the strength of one of our reasons to help that person. I call this the Normative Epistemic Claim. -/- In chapter 1, I contextualize my approach within the recent philosophical discussion of empathy. In the following chapter, I explore the relationship between empathy and altruism, and argue that there is an unanswered question about how empathy gives rise to altruistic motivation. I suggest that we should answer this question by considering the idea that empathy gives us phenomenal knowledge about the affective states of other people. I defend this idea in chapter 3, where I also relate it to the debate about phenomenal knowledge that has been stimulated by Frank Jackson’s example of Mary, the scientist who comes to see colour for the first time. In chapter 4, I begin to show the importance of phenomenal knowledge to moral deliberation. I argue that by giving us such knowledge, empathy with a suffering person also gives us knowledge of how intrinsically bad that person’s suffering is for them. In chapter 5, I extend this approach to defend the Normative Epistemic Claim. Finally, in chapter 6, I summarize the role of empathy in moral deliberation and broaden my discussion to include consideration of the significance that empathy has in inhibiting harming and in directing us to promote the joy of other people. (shrink)

Whether anorexic patients should be able to refuse treatment when this potentially has a fatal outcome is a vexed topic. A recent proposal for a new category of ‘terminal anorexia’ suggests criteria when a move to palliative care or even physician assisted suicide might be justified. I argue that this proposed diagnosis presents a false sense of certainty of the illness trajectory by conceptualizing anorexia in analogy with physical disorders and stressing the effects of starvation. Furthermore, this conceptualization is in (...) conflict with the claim that individuals who meet the diagnostic criteria for terminal anorexia have decision making capacity. It should therefore be rejected. (shrink)

In this paper, we introduce and defend the recurrent model for understanding bodily spatial phenomenology. While Longo, Azañón and Haggard (2010) propose a bottom-up model, Bermúdez (2017) emphasizes the top-down aspect of the information processing loop. We argue that both are only half of the story. Section 1 intro- duces what the issues are. Section 2 starts by explaining why the top- down, descending direction is necessary with the illustration from the ‘body-based tactile rescaling’ paradigm (de Vignemont, Ehrsson and Haggard, (...) 2005). It then argues that the bottom-up, ascending direction is also necessary, and substantiates this view with recent research on skin space and tactile field (Haggard et al., 2017). Section 3 discusses the model’s application to body ownership and bodily self-representation. Implications also extend to topics such as sense modality individuation (Macpherson, 2011), the constancy- based view of perception (Burge, 2010), and the perception/cognition divide (Firestone and Scholl, 2016). (shrink)

Florence Ashley has argued that requiring patients with gender dysphoria to undergo an assessment and referral from a mental health professional before undergoing hormone replacement therapy (HRT) is unethical and may represent an unconscious hostility towards transgender people. We respond, first, by showing that Ashley has conflated the self-reporting of symptoms with self-diagnosis, and that this is not consistent with the standard model of informed consent to medical treatment. Second, we note that the model of informed consent involved in cosmetic (...) surgery resembles the model Ashley defends, and that psychological assessment and referral is recognised as an important aspect of such a model. Third, we suggest that the increased prevalence of psychiatric morbidity in the transgender population arguably supports the requirement of assessment and referral from a mental health professional prior to undergoing HRT. (shrink)

Recently, there is a renewed debate concerning the role of perspective in vision. Morales et al. (2020) present evidence that, in the case of viewing a rotated coin, the visual system is sensitive to what has often been called “perspectival shapes.” It has generated vigorous discussions, including an online symposium by Morales and Cohen, an exchange between Linton (2021) and Morales et al. (2021), and most recently, a fierce critique by Burge and Burge (2022), in which they launch various conceptual (...) and empirical objections. Although Morales and Firestone (2022) have responded to them recently, and we are in agreement with Morales and Firestone in general, there are further problems in Burge and Burge (2022) that are worth highlighting. The main point of this comment is that what the Burge–Burge team call “viewpoint-dependent relational properties” are simply instances of what the Morales–Firestone team call “perspectival shapes”; the confusion arises from Burge and Burge’s misconstrual of Morales et al.’s claims. This shows that conceptually, the two teams are in large agreement, as Morales and Firestone (2022) also point out, and the focus should be put on the empirical disagreements, which has been covered by Morales and Firestone (2022). Relatedly, we argue that Burge and Burge (2022) misinterpret Morales et al. (2020) as supporting a new entity in perception science, and that this misinterpretation is a primary source of their apparent disagreement. This is worth pointing out because such misunderstanding generates many unnecessary quarrels that hinder progress. (shrink)

Philosophers generally agree that gratitude, the called-for response to benevolence, includes positive feelings. In this paper, I argue against this view. The grateful beneficiary will have certain feelings, but in some contexts, those feelings will be profoundly negative. Philosophers overlook this fact because they tend to consider only cases of gratitude in which the benefactor’s sacrifice is minimal, and in which the benefactor fares well after performing an act of benevolence. When we consider cases in which a benefactor suffers severely, (...) we see the feelings associated with gratitude can be negative, and even quite painful. I conclude with a discussion of the implications negative feelings of gratitude have for the normative question of when gratitude is owed, and for the descriptive claim in positive psychology that gratitude enhances wellbeing. (shrink)

Many find it plausible that for a given beneficiary, Y, benefactor, R, and action, ϕ, Y’s being grateful to R for ϕ-ing implies Y’s being grateful that R ϕ-ed. According to some philosophers who hold this view, all instances of gratitude to, or “prepositional gratitude,” are also instances of gratitude that, or “propositional gratitude.” These philosophers believe there is a single unified concept of gratitude, a phenomenon that is essentially gratitude that, and whose manifestations sometimes have additional features that make (...) them instances of gratitude to as well. In this article, I show that view to be mistaken. I base my argument on two hypothetical cases, in each of which a beneficiary, Y, is grateful to a benefactor, R, for ϕ-ing, but not grateful that R ϕ-ed. Generalizing from those cases and other cases of gratitude, I argue that prepositional gratitude is the proper response to benevolence-motivated action and propositional gratitude consists in a beneficiary’s judging a state of affairs to be valuable for himself and welcoming that state of affairs. Because not every instance of a benefactor’s acting benevolently toward a beneficiary is something that beneficiary finds valuable for himself and welcomes, it is possible to be grateful to a benefactor for ϕ-ing but not grateful that she ϕ-ed. Prepositional gratitude and propositional gratitude can each occur without the other and are thus two distinct phenomena. I conclude by explaining the importance of accurately understanding the relationship between prepositional gratitude and propositional gratitude. (shrink)

There are two traditional ways to read Kant's claim that every event necessarily has a cause: the weaker every-event some-cause and the stronger same-cause same-effect causal principles. The focus of the debate about whether and where he subscribes to the SCP has been in the Analogies in the Critique of Pure Reason and in the Metaphysical Foundations of Natural Science. By analysing the arguments and conclusions of both the Analogies and the Postulates as well as the two Latin principles non (...) datur casus and non datur fatum that summarise their results, I will argue for the novel thesis that the SCP is actually demonstrated in the Postulates of the First Critique. (shrink)

: According to Kant, the arguments of rational psychology are formal fallacies that he calls transcendental paralogisms. It remains heavily debated whether there actually is any formal error in the inferences Kant presents: according to Grier and Allison, they are deductively invalid syllogisms, whereas Bennett, Ameriks, and Van Cleve deny that they are formal fallacies. I advance an interpretation that reconciles these extremes: transcendental paralogisms are sound in general logic but constitute formal fallacies in transcendental logic. By formalising the paralogistic (...) inference, I will pinpoint the error as an illegitimate existential presupposition. Since - unlike transcendental logic - general logic abstracts from all objects, this error can only be detected in transcendental logic. (shrink)

Orthodox semantics for natural language modals give rise to two puzzles for their interactions with disjunction: Ross’s puzzle and the puzzle of free choice permission. It is widely assumed that each puzzle can be explained in terms of the licensing of ‘Diversity’ inferences: from the truth of a possibility or necessity modal with an embedded disjunction, hearers infer that each disjunct is compatible with the relevant set of worlds. I argue that Diversity inferences are too weak to explain the full (...) range of data. Instead, I argue, modals with embedded disjunctions license ‘Independence’ inferences: from the truth of a modal with an embedded disjunction, hearers infer that each disjunct is an independent alternative among the relevant set of worlds. I then develop a bilateral inquisitive semantics for modals that predicts the validity of these Independence inferences. My account vindicates common intuitions about both Ross’s puzzle and the puzzle of free choice permission, and explains the full range of data. (shrink)

The overflow debate concerns this following question: does conscious iconic memory have a higher capacity than attention does? In recent years, Ned Block has been invoking empirical works to support the positive answer to this question. The view is called the “rich view” or the “Overflow view”. One central thread of this discussion concerns the nature of iconic memory: for example how rich they are and whether they are conscious. The first section discusses a potential misunderstanding of “visible persistence” in (...) this literature. The second section discusses varieties of attention relevant to this debate. The final section discusses the most prominent alternative interpretation of the Sperling paradigm—the postdiction interpretation—and explains how it can be made compatible with a weaker version of the rich or overflow view. (shrink)

There have recently been various empirical attempts to answer Molyneux’s question, for example, the experiments undertaken by the Held group. These studies, though intricate, have encountered some objections, for instance, from Schwenkler, who proposes two ways of improving the experiments. One is “to re-run [the] experiment with the stimulus objects made to move, and/or the subjects moved or permitted to move with respect to them” (p. 94), which would promote three dimensional or otherwise viewpoint-invariant representations. The other is “to use (...) geometrically simpler shapes, such as the cube and sphere in Molyneux’s original proposal, or planar figures instead of three-dimensional solids” (p. 188). Connolly argues against the first modification but agrees with the second. In this article, I argue that the second modification is also problematic (though still surmountable), and that both Schwenkler and Connolly are too optimistic about the prospect of addressing Molyneux’s question empirically. (shrink)

According to what Jonathan Bennett calls the Kant–Frege view of existence, Frege gave solid logical foundations to Kant’s claim that existence is not a real predicate. In this article I will challenge Bennett’s claim by arguing that although Kant and Frege agree on what existence is not, they agree neither on what it is nor on the importance and justification of existential propositions. I identify three main differences: first, whereas for Frege existence is a property of a concept, for Kant (...) it is a relational property pertaining between the concept and intuition of an object. Second, whereas for Frege truth about individuals presupposes their existence, for Kant truth is in many cases independent of the existence of objects. Third, whereas Frege binds logic to existence and removes modalities from logic, for Kant existence is a modal category that is emphatically removed from the domain of logic and set in the core of metaphysics. Due to these differences in Kant’s and Frege’s theories of existence, Frege cannot be seen as giving logical clarity to Kant’s view. (shrink)

This paper investigates the complicated relations between various versions of naturalism, behaviorism, and mentalism within the framework of W. V. O. Quine's thinking. It begins with Roger Gibson's reconstruction of Quine's behaviorisms and argues that it lacks a crucial ontological element and misconstrues the relation between philosophy and science. After getting clear of Quine's naturalism, the paper distinguishes between evidential, methodological, and ontological behaviorisms. The evidential and methodological versions are often conflated, but they need to be clearly distinguished in order (...) to see whether Quine's argument against mentalism is cogent. The paper argues that Quine's naturalism supports only the weakest version of behaviorism, that is, the evidential one, but this version is compatible with mentalistic semantics. Quine's opposition to mentalism is an overreaction from the behaviorist camp. By contrast, Jerry Fodor's objection to Jose Luis Bermudez is an overreaction from the opposite direction. (shrink)

El presente trabajo surge de la reflexión acerca del fracaso de modelos educativos exteriores aplicados en contextos emergentes sin considerar la realidad de cada pueblo. A juicio de Carnoy (1974) en los países subdesarrollados existe una fuerte tradición en copiar las formas culturales y modelos de sociedades de primer mundo, sin analizar las condiciones objetivas y subjetivas que determinarán el éxito o el fracaso. El objetivo de este documento es analizar los fundamentos ontológicos presentes en el sistema educativo finlandés con (...) la finalidad de identificar los principales referentes que servirán de base para superar problemáticas de la realidad educativa en sociedades emergentes. El documento presenta una revisión de tipo exploratoria, descriptiva y comparativa que por la naturaleza del estudio es de carácter bibliográfico y cualitativo apoyado en el uso de los métodos lógico-científicos (deductivo-inductivo) con sus respectivos procedimientos, y fortalecido con la aplicación de los métodos filosóficos fenomenológico-hermenéutico. La tendencia a la imitación y a la copia de modelos educativos ajenos a nuestra realidad ha dado como resultado sistemas educativos deficientes y que no responden a las necesidades concretas propias de la realidad educativa de las sociedades emergentes. Es preciso determinar el ser, el sentido y el significado del sistema educativo finlandés con miras a la localización de aspectos esenciales que podrían convertirse en pautas para repensar otros modelos educativos. (shrink)

Freeman Dyson has questioned whether any conceivable experiment in the real universe can detect a single graviton. If not, is it meaningful to talk about gravitons as physical entities? We attempt to answer Dyson’s question and find it is possible concoct an idealized thought experiment capable of detecting one graviton; however, when anything remotely resembling realistic physics is taken into account, detection becomes impossible, indicating that Dyson’s conjecture is very likely true. We also point out several mistakes in the literature (...) dealing with graviton detection and production. (shrink)

Florence Ashley has responded to our response to ‘Gatekeeping hormone replacement therapy for transgender patients is dehumanising.’ Ashley criticises some of our objections to their view that patients seeking hormone replacement therapy (HRT) for gender dysphoria should not have to undergo a prior psychological assessment. Here we clarify our objections, most importantly that concerning the parity between cosmetic surgery and the sort of intervention Ashley has in mind. Firstly, we show Ashley’s criticism of our comparison is insubstantial. We then examine (...) their comments regarding the analogy between abortion and HRT, and the language of informed consent. We also scrutinize the data upon which Ashley relies to defend the claim that informed consent without assessment always yields positive outcomes, finding this conclusion to be overstated. Finally, even if Ashley’s arguments were vindicated, the claim that the gatekeeping of HRT is motivated by hostility towards transgender people remains unsupported. (shrink)

The term “consciousness” is very often, though not always, interchangeable with the term “awareness,” which is more colloquial to many ears. We say things like “are you aware that ...” often. Sometimes we say “have you noticed that ... ?” to express similar thoughts, and this indicates a close connection between consciousness (awareness) and attention (noticing), which we will come back to later in this chapter. Ned Block, one of the key figures in this area, provides a useful characterization of (...) what he calls “phenomenal consciousness.” For him, phenomenal consciousness is experience. Experience covers perceptions, e.g., when we see, hear, touch, smell, and taste, we typically have experiences, such as seeing colors and smelling odors. It also covers bodily awareness, e.g., we typically have experiences of our own bodily temperature and positions of limbs. Consciousness is primarily about this experiential aspect of our mental lives. (shrink)

In a recent article in this journal, Abram Brummett argues that new and future assisted reproductive technologies will provide challenging ethical questions relating to lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) persons. Brummett notes that it is likely that some clinicians may wish to conscientiously object to offering assisted reproductive technologies to LGBT couples on moral or religious grounds, and argues that such appeals to conscience should be constrained. We argue that Brummett's case is unsuccessful because he: does not adequately interact (...) with his opponents’ views; equivocates on the meaning of ‘natural’; fails to show that the practice he opposes is eugenic in any non‐trivial sense; and fails to justify and explicate the relevance of the naturalism he proposes. We do not argue that conscience protections should exist for those objecting to providing LGBT people with artificial reproductive technologies, but only show that Brummett's arguments are insufficient to prove that they should not. (shrink)

As many as you know, the title of this article was also the title of an international philosophy for children symposium held at the Menger Hotel in downtown San Antonio on April 12-14, 1989. The symposium was the culminating event of a year-long project in which third, fourth, and fifth grade teachers from four area schools implemented the philosophy for children program in their schools. In addition to a brief history of this project and a summary of the symposium and (...) related events, the paper concludes with reactions to this year long project from both teachers and students involved in the program. (shrink)

In the presentation I will analyse Kant’s conception of modalities and consider its relevance to his critical metaphysics. With his Tables of Judgements and of Categories Kant makes an important division between two kinds of modality, of which the former is only logical and the latter transcendental, i.e., objective. Only judgements that are necessary in both ways are properly metaphysical. This distinction is important for Kant’s distinction between Transcendental Analytic and Transcendental Dialectic, i.e., between acceptable and unacceptable metaphysics. I submit (...) that not only is Kant’s theory of modality useful for properly understanding his arguments in the Dialectic, but that only by distinguishing between the two types of modality can one can make sense of his theory that the ideas of reason are simultaneously inevitable and erroneous. This modal analysis thus offers a new and important point of view to Kant’s metaphysics and its critique. (shrink)

The topic of this paper is the complex interaction between attention, fixation, and one species of change blindness. The two main interpretations of the target phenomenon are the ‘blindness’ interpretation and the ‘inaccessibility’ interpretation. These correspond to the sparse view (Dennett 1991; Tye, 2007) and the rich view (Dretske 2007; Block, 2007a, 2007b) of visual consciousness respectively. Here I focus on the debate between Fred Dretske and Michael Tye. Section 1 describes the target phenomenon and the dialectics it entails. Section (...) 2 explains how attention and fixation weigh in these debates, and argues that Dretske’s hyper-rich view fails precisely because he overlooks certain effects of attention and fixation. Section 3 explains why Tye’s view is also unsatisfying, mainly because he misconceives the degree of access. Section 4 then puts forward the positive model covariance, which has it that the degree of cognitive access tracks the degree of phenomenology, and contrasts it with Block’s view on the Sperling iconic memory paradigm. The paper ends with a discussion of levels of seeing, which involve crowding, indexing, and other visual phenomena. Change ‘blindness’ is a set of phenomena that was discovered about two decades ago, yet an entirely satisfying understanding is still lacking. To move forward, a more detailed understanding of attention and fixation is called for. (shrink)

Space exploration and the search for a better understanding of life have never been entirely separate from one another. This is not simply a matter of policy, a decision by political administrations to combine the two. Rather, it is a matter of the ways in which both draw upon the same scientific culture and upon overlapping societal influences. Some of the latter are the political influences of particular times and particular places, others are of a far broader nature. Progress in (...) one field has tended to be combined with advances in the other. It is a familiar point that, in the very year that NASA was founded, i.e. 1958, the American molecular biologist Joshua Lederberg won a Nobel Prize for his discovery that bacteria can exchange genetic material (a process now known as ‘bacterial conjugation’). This, in turn, was only six years after the classicMiller-Urey experiment to replicate the production of some of the chemical precursors of life. And the Miller-Urey experiment, in turn, overlapped in time with the work of Watson, Crick and Rosalind Franklin in England, on the structure of DNA. Major breakthroughs came in both fields (activity in space and research into life) within the same time-frame, and drew upon at least some of the same background influences and interests. When Lederberg went on to work with NASA on the early programs to look for life on Mars, the progression was, in an everyday sense, natural. Interest in space and interest in life went together. They have always tended to do so. (shrink)

Este capítulo reflexiona sobre las vinculaciones entre filosofía de la educación y transdisciplinariedad, así como su incidencia en la formación de los futuros profesionales de la educación; al respecto, el autor considera que la filosofía de la educación como disciplina filosófica, aporta una perspectiva global, totalizante e integradora sobre el hecho educativo, pero respondiendo siempre a un contexto concreto; es decir, a la realidad educativa del sujeto que aprende, con sus necesidades, problemáticas y situaciones específicas. El autor explica la filosofía (...) de la educación como un saber práctico; identifica los puntos de convergencia entre filosofía de la educación y transdisciplinariedad; y analiza sobre la incidencia del modelo transdisciplinar en la formación profesional docente, en el papel de la universidad como espacio donde se integra ciencia, educación y sociedad, y en la consolidación del ecosistema integrado. Además, el capítulo presenta algunos enfoques y desafíos de la filosofía de la educación transdisciplinar que orientan la labor educativa en función del desarrollo, el progreso, la sostenibilidad y el diálogo con los saberes no convencionales. (shrink)

This paper develops the situational model of primate beliefs from the Prior-Lurz line of thought. There is a strong skepticism concerning primate beliefs in the analytic tradition which holds that beliefs have to be propositional and non-human animals do not have them. The response offered in this paper is twofold. First, two arguments against the propositional model as applied to other animals are put forward: an a priori argument from referential opacity and an empirical argument from varieties of working memory. (...) Second, the Prior-Lurz situational model based on state of affairs as opposed to propositions is introduced and defended with two significant modifications. With this model of primate beliefs we can make progress in understanding how other primates can have certain mindreading capacity. (shrink)

The debate on how to interpret Kant's transcendental idealism has been prominent for several decades now. In his book Kant's Transcendental Proof of Realism (2004) Kenneth R. Westphal introduces and defends his version of the metaphysical dual-aspect reading. But his real aim lies deeper: to provide a sound transcendental proof for (unqualified) realism, based on Kant's work, without resorting to transcendental idealism. In this sense his aim is similar to that of Peter F. Strawson – although Westphal's approach is far (...) more sophisticated. First he attempts to show that noumenal causation – on the reality of which his argument partly rests – is coherent in and necessary for Kant's transcendental idealism. Westphal then aims to undermine transcendental idealism by two major claims: Kant can neither account for transcendental affinity nor satisfactorily counter Hume's causal scepticism. Finally Westphal defends his alternative for transcendental idealism by showing that it solves these problems and thus offers a genuine transcendental proof for realism. In this paper I will show that all the three steps outlined above suffer from decisive shortcomings, and that consequently, regardless of its merits, Westphal's transcendental argument for realism remains undemonstrated. (shrink)

Rowlands’s case for attributing personhood to lower animals is ultimately convincing, but along the way he fails to highlight several distinctions that are crucial for his argument: Personhood vs. personal identity; the first person vs. its mental episodes; and pre- reflective awareness in general vs. one specific case of it.

In this paper I defend a pluralistic approach in understanding function, both in biological and other contexts. Talks about function are ubiquitous and crucial in biology, and it might be the key to bridge the “manifest image” and the “scientific image” identified by Sellars (1962). However, analysis of function has proven to be extremely difficult. The major puzzle is to make sense of “time-reversed causality”: how can property P be the cause of its realizer R? For example, “pumping blood” is (...) a property of hearts, but a property of hearts cannot be the cause of the presence of hearts, since properties cannot predate their realizers and be causes of them. In section 2 I discuss Wright’s etiological analysis, Cummins’ causal-role analysis, and their critics. In section 3 I defend a version of the “consensus without unity” strategy proposed by Godfrey-Smith from Christopher Boorse’s recent critique (2002). In Section 4 I conclude by reflecting on the relation between functional discourses and physicalism. (shrink)

This paper is about compositionality, belief reports, and related issues. I begin by introducing Putnam’s proposal for understanding compositionality, namely that the sense of a sentence is a function of the sense of its parts and of its logical structure (section 1). Both Church and Sellars think that Putnam’s move is superfluous or unnecessary since there is no relevant puzzle to begin with (section 2). I will urge that Putnam is right in thinking that there is indeed a puzzle with (...) a discussion of translation and belief individuation (section 3). Later Salmon (2001/ 2007) reinforces Church’s position, but I will argue that it is still possible to make my case by clarifying the nature of my proposal, i.e., understanding explanations of action from the third-person point of view (section 4). Now, Fine (2007) agrees with Putnam that there is indeed a puzzle to be solved, but he argues that Putnam’s solution of it is problematic, and that his own semantic relationism is a better view. In response to this, I will recast the notion of compositionality based on a certain conception of belief individuation, namely that the semantic content of a sentence is a function of the semantic contents of its parts and of the structure of intensional discourses (sections 3 and 5). Finally the paper will end with a reconsideration of the recalcitrant Kripke’s puzzle about belief (1979/1988), since it might seem to put some pressure on my account. It turns out that my understanding of this puzzle is again different from Fine’s perspective (section 6). (shrink)

In the course of his philosophy, in various contexts, Kant comes to reject three theses about existence: (i) that the thoroughgoing determination of a thing implies its existence, (ii) that existence is a real predicate or determination of a thing, and (iii) that existence is the complement of inner possibility or essence. Kant’s target here is Baumgarten, who advocates these theses as the criterion, classification, and definition of existence. In this article I seek to clarify Kant’s elusive theory of existence (...) through its opposition to Baumgarten. I will show that Kant’s refutation of (i)–(iii) does not stand alone but is grounded on his own definition of existence as (absolute) positing. Thus contrary to common practice, Kant’s negative claims about what existence is not cannot be understood in isolation but must be taken as jointly dependent on Kant’s positive claim of what existence is. I will show that the theses (i)–(iii) fail because they presuppose that existence contributes to the intension or content of a concept, whereas according to Kant existence in fact posits a (non-empty) extension to the concept. (shrink)

In the present article, I attempt to relate Saul Kripke's “sceptical paradox” to some issues about the self; specifically, the relation between the self and its mental states and episodes. I start with a brief reconstruction of the paradox, and venture to argue that it relies crucially on a Cartesian model of the self: the sceptic regards the Wittgensteinian “infinite regress of interpretation” as the foundation of his challenge, and this is where he commits the crucial mistake. After the diagnosis, (...) I attempt to sketch my own model of the self and its mental states and episodes. This tentative picture binds meaning and the self together, stressing the subjective aspect of meaning without committing the same fallacy. The solution ventured here is relatively independent of the secondary literatures on the sceptical paradox of following rules, for it aims to provide a new angle to understand and meet the challenge presented by the sceptic. (shrink)

Timothy Williamson’s Knowledge and its Limits has been highly influential since the beginning of this century. It can be read as a systematic response to scepticism. One of the most important notions in this response is the notion of «evidence,» which will be the focus of the present paper. I attempt to show primarily two things. First, the notion of evidence invoked by Williamson does not address the sceptical worry: he stipulates an objective notion of evidence, but this begs the (...) question against his opponent. Second, his related thesis «Evidence equals Knowledge» does not sit well with his own content externalism: he promises to relate epistemology to philosophy of mind, but he fails to live up to this commitment in his crucial chapter on scepticism. Other minor problems concerning evidence will also be discussed in due course. (shrink)

Kant’s view that freedom is a “kind of causality” seems to conflict with his claim that the categories of the understanding – including causality – can only be applied objectively to sensible phaenomena, never to supersensible noumena, as freedom is only possible for the latter. I argue that only Kant’s theory of symbolic presentation, according to which the category of cause is applied merely analogically to freedom, can dispel this threatening inconsistency. Unlike it is commonly thought, one cannot here use (...) the category of cause in its unschematised form to think freedom as causality, for its mere logical significance does not suffice for the practical reality of freedom. Symbolic cognition in turn is not unschematised but indirect schematized presentation. Ultimately I will show that symbolic cognition is a necessary condition of moral agency – but not of morality itself – for without it we could not cognize and hence self-consciously use our freedom to act from the moral law. (shrink)

In a series of works Hubert Dreyfus argues that phenomenological considerations can show the falsity of John McDowell’s claim that ours actions are permeated with rationality. Dreyfus changes the details of his objections several times in this debate, but I shall argue that there is an implicit false assumption lurking in his thinking throughout his exchanges with McDowell. Originally Dreyfus proposed a distinction between “detached rule-following” and “situation-specific way of coping,” and later he replaces it with the distinction between “subjectivity” (...) and “absorbed coping.” He then uses this framework to interpret some examples, attempting to show that they cannot be accommodated by McDowell’s position. I shall argue that in doing so Dreyfus presupposes too narrow conceptions of “rationality” and “mindedness,” and if these notions are understood appropriately, we can see that phenomenological considerations can be good supplements, rather than objections, to McDowell’s claim that our mindedness is pervasive in actions. (shrink)

El presente trabajo surge de la reflexión acerca del fracaso de modelos educativos exteriores aplicados en contextos emergentes sin considerar la realidad de cada pueblo. A juicio de Carnoy (1974) en los países subdesarrollados existe una fuerte tradición en copiar las formas culturales y modelos de sociedades de primer mundo, sin analizar las condiciones objetivas y subjetivas que determinarán el éxito o el fracaso. El objetivo de este documento es analizar los fundamentos ontológicos presentes en el sistema educativo finlandés con (...) la finalidad de identificar los principales referentes que servirán de base para superar problemáticas de la realidad educativa en sociedades emergentes. El documento presenta una revisión de tipo exploratoria, descriptiva y comparativa que por la naturaleza del estudio es de carácter bibliográfico y cualitativo apoyado en el uso de los métodos lógico-científicos (deductivo-inductivo) con sus respectivos procedimientos, y fortalecido con la aplicación de los métodos filosóficos fenomenológico-hermenéutico. La tendencia a la imitación y a la copia de modelos educativos ajenos a nuestra realidad ha dado como resultado sistemas educativos deficientes y que no responden a las necesidades concretas propias de la realidad educativa de las sociedades emergentes. Es preciso determinar el ser, el sentido y el significado del sistema educativo finlandés con miras a la localización de aspectos esenciales que podrían convertirse en pautas para repensar otros modelos educativos. (shrink)

Moral Psychology spans both philosophy and psychology: it addresses questions concerning the role of emotions in moral judgment, the nature of moral motivation, whether human beings are ultimately...

This article draws upon the epistemology of testimony to analyse recent English case law on expert evidence. It argues that the courts are implicitly committed to an internalist epistemology and an inferentialist view of testimony, and draws a distinction between testimony which is treated as authoritative (where the fact-finder accepts the inferences drawn by the expert without attempting to assess their validity) and that which is treated as merely persuasive.