ésumé : Les domaines de la philosophie et de la théorie politique ont connu un certain nombre de changements au cours des quarante dernières années. L'un attire notre attention tout particulièrement ; le basculement d'un point de vue national, cristallisé par le contrat social rawlsien, vers un point de vue non-national. En effet, plusieurs penseurs abordent un ensemble de phénomènes considérés comme nouveaux, tels que les traités de libre commerce et l'économie globale, les entreprises et les institutions supra et transnationales, (...) l'immigration et les contrôles frontaliers etc. Ces changements sont intéressants puisqu'ils obéissent, principalement, à une évolution majeure du terrain politique et social que l'on appelle mondialisation. Les théoriciens travaillant dans le domaine de la justice globale semblent s'adresser à deux questions différentes mais reliées. La première concerne la justice globale : dans quelle mesure et pourquoi l'ordre mondial est-il juste ou injuste ? Qu'est-ce qu'un ordre global juste ? La deuxième est dans un sens corollaire à la première, et concerne la responsabilité : qui devrait être blâmé ou digne d'éloge pour l'ordre mondial ? Est-ce que les citoyens sont responsables de l'ordre mondial ? Qui devrait redresser ses éventuelles conséquences injustes ? Face à l'économie mondialisée et aux institutions politiques et économiques internationales et trans-nationales, cette interrogation devient légitime et nécessaire : suis-je responsable à l'égard des travailleurs des sweat shop lorsque j'achète des habits à Auchan ou bien à l'égard des caféiculteurs très mal payés lorsque je prends un capuccino dans un café Starbucks ? Est-ce que les citoyens sont responsables des traités de libre commerce que leurs gouvernements signent ? Ces questions sur la responsabilité des individus dans le contexte de la mondialisation seront l'enjeu de ce travail de recherche. Nous interrogerons plus exactement la responsabilité d'un agent lorsqu'il fait partie d'un chaîne causale complexe, lorsqu'il participe d'une injustice structurelle. Ainsi, il ne s'agit pas seulement d'une chaîne causale, mais de connexions qui sont l'issue d'un changement des modes de productions, de consommation et de la concurrence dans un marché mondialisé. Plus important encore, il ne s'agit pas simplement de la responsabilité individuelle mais plutôt de la responsabilité individuelle en tant que citoyen, et donc d'une responsabilité politique. Elle peut certes être individuelle, mais nous devons tenir compte du fait qu'elle doit être pensée en tant que responsabilité politique, et pas uniquement morale, puisque l'individu et ses actions sont déterminés par des communautés politiques dans lesquelles il participe, ou dans lesquelles il est représenté. Ainsi, la mondialisation nous invite à repenser la responsabilité individuelle pour pouvoir rendre compte des intuitions morales et politiques qui guident une bonne partie du champ de la justice globale. Pour cela, nous verrons dans un premier temps la manière dont les théories de la justice globale essaient de répondre à ce défit. Grâce à cela nous dégagerons l'hypothèse qui nous guidera, l'idée que dans la mondialisation, un agent peut être responsable, avec d'autres, des raisons pour lesquelles il n'est pas considéré comme responsable. C'est-à-dire qu'il sera méta-responsable. Dans un second temps, nous essaierons de déterminer un model de responsabilité individuelle, et de comprendre comment la responsabilité est attribuée. Ensuite, nous essaierons de formuler une manière de concevoir la responsabilité politique. Grâce à ces deux éléments, la responsabilité individuelle et la responsabilité politique, nous pourrons parvenir à formuler une conception de la méta-responsabilité comme forme de penser l'agentivité traversée par la mondialisation. -/- . (shrink)

ABSTRACT – Epistemic Injustice in the Education of People with Mental Disabilities. This article offers a perspective on inclusive education based on Fricker’s conception of epistemic injustice. What is the relationship be- tween inclusive education and epistemic injustice in the case of students with mental deficiencies? By adapting Fricker’s thesis to this extreme case, epistemic injustice can be explored via the social model of disability (SMD). Accordingly, we propose that epistemic injustice harms the entire educa- tional community and society. -/- (...) . (shrink)

Resumen Con el presente artículo se pretende analizar la colonialidad del poder como eje central de las relaciones de dominación que marcaron la primera década del siglo XXI en Colombia, más específicamente estudiando los casos del clientelismo político en zonas periféricas como el Casanare, y el caso Carimagua. Para desarrollar esta investigación, se realizó un análisis documental tomando como referente autores de la filosofía política latinoamericana como Anibal Quijano y Santiago Castro- Gómez quienes a su vez se apoyan en Michel (...) Foucault para definir el concepto de relaciones de poder, y la propuesta de Fernán González en torno a la necesidad de un análisis multiescalar del poder y la violencia, con el fin de proponer una alternativa al análisis tradicional de las relaciones de poder en Colombia. -/- . (shrink)

Los materiales que integran este libro provienen del II Encuentro de Egresados realizado en el verano de 2012 por la Maestría en Estética y Arte de la BUAP. Regresaban a su academia los que alguna vez fueron sus estudiantes. Venían con el propósito de reencontrarse con los avances investigativos de sus profesores y a traer ellos mismos los resultados de la continuidad de su trabajo de investigación. Algunos dejaron también en el encuentro una muestra de su arte. El ciclo de (...) conferencias impartido por profesores de la planta académica y por varios invitados encuentra su plasmación en la primera parte del libro intitulada “Desde la academia”. “De regreso a la academia”, la segunda parte, incluye trabajos que los egresados de la MEyA presentaron con sus avances investigativos posteriores a su egreso del programa. La tercera parte muestra el Catálogo de las obras que seis de los egresados-artistas presentaron en la exposición de artes plásticas “En las pupilas del que regresa”. (shrink)

El presente ensayo plantea la posibilidad de considerar nuevamente al diseño editorial como una actividad artística. Este campo no pudo escapar al fenómeno de la sociedad del espectáculo que hoy envuelve a casi toda actividad humana. Ello indiscutiblemente afecta la manera en que se valora esta actividad actualmente, vista las más de las veces como un simple aditamento utilitario con más fines comerciales que artísticos. A pesar de ello no deja de ser loable una revaloración de la disciplina que la (...) considere como una producción también transutilitaria, un fenómeno a la vez estético y extraestético y una actividad que, a través de su propia praxis, construye al ser histórico... (shrink)

En forma de síntesis reflexiva sobre la vida y la obra de Adolfo Sánchez Vázquez, el trabajo responde in inicialmente a una solicitud de la revista Casa de las Américas. Esta revista-institución había pedido, en justo homenaje a este genuino marxista, un comentario a dos volúmenes que celebraban desde México, con inteligente selección, abierta a la controversia, su 80 aniversario (1995). Se trataba de los libros Adolfo Sánchez Vázquez: los trabajos y los días y En torno a la (...) obra de Adolfo Sánchez Vázquez, editados por Federico Álvarez y Gabriel Vargas Lozano, respectivamente. Publicado originalmente con el título “La empecinada herejía de Adolfo Sánchez Vázquez” en la mencionada revista (núm. 203, La Habana,1996, pp.142-147), el texto fue revisado y actualizado para la presente edición. (shrink)

El texto constituye una reseña-comentario a dos volúmenes que celebraban desde México, con inteligente selección, abierta a la controversia, el 80 aniversario (1995) del destacado pensador hispano-mexicano. Se trataba de los libros Adolfo Sánchez Vázquez: los trabajos y los días y En torno a la obra de Adolfo Sánchez Vázquez, editados por Federico Álvarez y Gabriel Vargas Lozano, respectivamente. El título del comentario hace alusión a la permanente actitud de principios de Sánchez Vázquez, quien mantuvo, primero, (...) una actitud crítica ante el marxismo ortodoxo y dogmático que se difundía desde la URSS y el llamado socialismo real y, después, asumió estoicamente la defensa del marxismo cuando aquellos habían desaparecido. (shrink)

The deep influence of affectivity on learning is now widely acknowledged (Keefer et al., 2018; Sánchez-Álvarez et al., 2021). For instance, it has been shown that affect influences key learning-relevant processes, such as motivation, perception, behavior, and critical thinking (Izard, 2002; Mayer & Salovey, 1997). Evidence also shows that emotion and mood strongly influence attention, which in turn drives learning and memory (Elbertson et al., 2010; Elias et al., 1997). Intersubjective phenomena, such as the degree of affection and (...) respect between child and teacher, also affect the child’s learning processes, academic outcomes, and brain development (Kusché & Greenberg, 2006; Ryan & Patrick, 2001). However, the relevant literature is not paying attention to increasing evidence showing that affective phenomena are rooted in interoceptive and homeostatic self- and co-regulatory processes within and between people’s living bodies (Barrett, 2017; Carvalho & Damasio, 2021; Craig, 2015, 2018; Fotopoulou et al., 2022; Fotopoulou & Tsakiris, 2017; Seth & Friston, 2016). In this theoretical chapter, we explore this connection and its importance for learning. We argue that affective experience plays a fundamental role in learning, and that affective experience is rooted in the homeostatic self-/co-regulation of living bodies. Therefore, the homeostatic self-/co-regulation of living bodies plays a fundamental role in learning. In other words, there is an intra- and interpersonal somatic dimension of learning that demands explicit consideration in educational contexts. In this way, we aim to contribute to an understanding of learning and education that moves away from an individualistic, brain-centered information-processing conception toward one centered on sentient, interdependent living bodies. (shrink)

Recently, many philosophers and psychologists have claimed that the explanation that grounds both passivity phenomena in the cognitive domain and passivity phenomena that occur with respect to overt actions is, along broad lines, the same. Furthermore, they claim that the best account we have of such phenomena in both scenarios is the “comparator” account. However, there are reasons to doubt whether the comparator model can be exported from the realm of overt actions to the cognitive domain in general. There is (...) a lingering worry concerning such explanations of thought insertion: the "What is compared to what?" problem. Here I examine two ways to tackle this problem. First: thought insertion consists of the misattribution of strings of inner speech which are not attenuated (thought insertion is thus another name for auditory verbal hallucinations). Second: thought insertion is misattributed inner speech which exhibits the same phenomenological characteristics as normal inner speech. After explaining the types of problem that each of these potential solutions faces, I conclude with a set of open questions that the comparator theorist has to tackle. (shrink)

Recent years have seen a heightened focus on the study of minimal forms of awareness during sleep to advance the study of consciousness and understand what makes a state conscious. This focus draws on an increased interest in anecdotical descriptions made by classic Indian philosophical traditions about unusual forms of awareness during sleep. For instance, in the so-called state of witnessing-sleep or luminosity sleep, one is said to reach a state that goes beyond ordinary dreaming and abide in a state (...) of just awareness, a state in which one is not aware of anything else other than one’s own awareness. Moreover, for these traditions, this state is taken to be the essence or background of consciousness. Reports on such a state opens the door to exciting new lines of research in the study of consciousness, such as inquiry into the so-called “objectless” awareness during sleep—states of awareness that lack an ordinary object of awareness. In this two-staged research project, we attempted to find the phenomenological blueprints of such forms of awareness during sleep in 18 participants by conducting phenomenological interviews, informed by a novel tool in qualitative research, the micro-phenomenological interview (MPI) method. Following a phenomenological analysis, we isolated a similar phase across 12 reported experiences labelled as ‘nothingness phase’ since it described what participants took to be an experience of ‘nothingness’. his common phase was characterised by minimal sense of self—a bodiless self, yet experienced as being ‘somewhere’—, the presence of non-modal sensations, relatively pleasant emotions, an absence of visual experience, wide and unfocused attention, and an awareness of the state as it unfolded. (shrink)

In this paper we address the question of what determines the content of our conscious episodes of thinking, considering recent claims that phenomenal character individuates thought contents. We present one prominent way for defenders of phenomenal intentionality to develop that view and then examine ‘sensory inner speech views’, which provide an alternative way of accounting for thought-content determinacy. We argue that such views fare well with inner speech thinking but have problems accounting for unsymbolized thinking. Within this dialectic, we present (...) an account of the nature of unsymbolized thinking that accords with and can be seen as a continuation of the activity of inner speech, while offering a way of explaining thought-content determinacy in terms of linguistic structures and representations. (shrink)

The renewed interest in concepts and their role in psychological theorizing is partially motivated by Machery’s claim that concepts are so heterogeneous that they have no explanatory role. Against this, pluralism argues that there is multiplicity of different concepts for any given category, while hybridism argues that a concept is constituted by a rich common representation. This article aims to advance the understanding of the hybrid view of concepts. First, we examine the main arguments against hybrid concepts and conclude that, (...) even if not successful, they challenge hybridism to find a robust criterion for concept individuation and to show an explanatory advantage for hybrid concepts. Then we propose such a criterion of individuation, which we will call ‘functional stable coactivation’. Finally, we examine the prospects of hybridism to understand what is involved in recent approaches to categorization and meaning extraction. 1 The Heterogeneity of Conceptual Representations2 Two Challenges for Hybrid Concepts: Individuation and Explanation2.1 The coordination criterion2.2 Concepts as constituents of thoughts3 Individuating Hybrids: Functional Stable Coactivation4 The Explanatory Power of Hybrid Concepts4.1 Categorization4.2 Meaning extraction4.2.1 Linguistic comprehension and rich lexical entries4.2.2 Polysemy and hybrid concepts5 Conclusion. (shrink)

Ignorance is often a perfectly good excuse. There are interesting debates about whether non-culpable factual ignorance and mistake subvert obligation, but little disagreement about whether non-culpable factual ignorance and mistake exculpate. What about agents who have all the relevant facts in view but fail to meet their obligations because they do not have the right moral beliefs? If their ignorance of their obligations derives from mistaken moral beliefs or from ignorance of the moral significance of the facts they have in (...) view, should they be excused for failing to meet their moral obligations? It is not obvious that they should. In this paper we argue that the best non-skeptical accounts of moral responsibility acknowledge that factual ignorance and mistake will diminish moral responsibility in a way that moral ignorance and mistake will not. That is because factual ignorance is often non-culpable so long as it meets certain merely procedural epistemic standards but the same is not true of moral ignorance. Our argument is that the assumption that it is gets the standards of culpability for moral ignorance wrong, and that the mistake is encouraged by the thought that culpability in general requires an instance of known wrongdoing: that acting wrongly requires de dicto unresponsiveness to one’s obligations at some stage. We deny this and conclude that, therefore, ignorance and mistaken belief are indeed often perfectly good excuses – but far less often than some philosophers claim. (shrink)

Recent years have seen renewed interest in the emergence issue. The contemporary debate, in contrast with that of past times, has to do not so much with the mind–body problem as with the relationship between the physical and other domains; mostly with the biological domain. One of the main sources of this renewed interest is the study of complex and, in general, far-from-equilibrium self-preserving systems, which seem to fulfil one of the necessary conditions for an entity to be emergent; namely, (...) that its causal powers are not predictable from the causal powers of basic physical properties. However, I argue that much of the current emergentism debate has misfired by focusing on the interpretation of self-maintaining systems. In contrast, I claim that if we want to find emergent properties, we should look not at complex systems, but at selection (natural selection, in particular). I argue that selection processes make the causal world ‘exuberant’ by making non-physical functional and relational properties enter the causal web of the world. (shrink)

Using the method of Descriptive Experience Sampling, some subjects report experiences of thinking that do not involve words or any other symbols [Hurlburt, R. T., and C. L. Heavey. 2006. Exploring Inner Experience. Amsterdam: John Benjamins; Hurlburt, R. T., and S. A. Akhter. 2008. “Unsymbolized Thinking.” Consciousness and Cognition 17 : 1364–1374]. Even though the possibility of this unsymbolized thinking has consequences for the debate on the phenomenological status of cognitive states, the phenomenon is still insufficiently examined. This paper analyzes (...) the main properties of unsymbolized thinking and advances an explanation of its origin. According to our analysis, unsymbolized thoughts appear as propositional states, that is, they are experienced as compositional conceptual phenomena, with semantic and syntactic features analogous to those of the contents of utterances. Based on this characterization, we hypothesize that UT is continuous with the activity of inner speech, in particular, it i... (shrink)

There is an ongoing debate about the meaning of lexical words, i.e., words that contribute with content to the meaning of sentences. This debate has coincided with a renewal in the study of polysemy, which has taken place in the psycholinguistics camp mainly. There is already a fruitful interbreeding between two lines of research: the theoretical study of lexical word meaning, on the one hand, and the models of polysemy psycholinguists present, on the other. In this paper I aim at (...) deepening on this ongoing interbreeding, examine what is said about polysemy, particularly in the psycholinguistics literature, and then show how what we seem to know about the representation and storage of polysemous senses affects the models that we have about lexical word meaning. (shrink)

Polysemy seems to be a relatively neglected phenomenon within philosophy of language as well as in many quarters in linguistic semantics. Not all variations in a word’s contribution to truth-conditional contents are to be thought as expressions of the phenomenon of polysemy, but it can be argued that many are. Polysemous terms are said to contribute senses or aspects to truth-conditional contents. In this paper, I will make use of the notion of aspect to argue that some apparently wild variations (...) in an utterance’s truth conditions are instead quite systematic. In particular, I will focus on Travis’ much debated green leaves case and explain it in terms of the polysemy of the noun; and in particular, in terms of the as-it-is and the as-it-looks aspects associated with kind words. (shrink)

Charles Travis has been forcefully arguing that meaning does not determine truth-conditions for more than two decades now. To this end, he has devised ingenious examples whereby different utterances of the same prima facie non-ambiguous and non-indexical expression type have different truth-conditions depending on the occasion on which they are delivered. However, Travis does not argue that meaning varies with circumstances; only that truth-conditions do. He assumes that meaning is a stable feature of both words and sentences. After surveying some (...) of the explanations that semanticists and pragmaticians have produced in order to account for Travis cases, I propose a view which differs substantially from all of them. I argue that the variability in the truth-conditions that an utterance type can have is due to meaning facts alone. To support my argument, I suggest that we think about the meanings of words (in particular, the meanings of nouns) as rich conceptual structures; so rich that the way in which a property concept applies to an object concept is not determined. (shrink)

The intuitive distinction between natural and unnatural properties (e.g., green vs. grue) informs our theorizing not only in fundamental physics, but also in non-fundamental domains. This paper develops a reductive account of this broad notion of naturalness that covers non-fundamental properties: for a property to be natural, I propose, is for it to figure in a law of nature. After motivating the account, I defend it from a potential circularity charge. I argue that a suitably broad notion of lawhood can (...) be defined independently of naturalness, if we help ourselves to the notion of a fundamental physical property. I end by showing how the notions of naturalness and lawhood that my account delivers help illuminate a number of other important philosophical notions, like causation, reference/meaning, and rational induction. (shrink)

A fundamental tension exists between Rawls's ideal Kantian conception of justice as fairness (JAF), which requires respecting people as ends, and his realistic non-Kantian consequentialist conception of a supreme emergency in a just war. By justifying the targeting of objectively innocent noncombatants during a supreme emergency exception, Rawls allows for treating them as means only. Hence, his appeal to a supreme emergency is insufficient to avoid this tension. First, since for him JAF is ideal but also practical, one might argue (...) that his fictional people in the original position must reflect on the justification for using force on behalf of JAF. And second, since Rawls justifies targeting objectively innocent people during a supreme emergency exemption, he justifies what one might conceive of as emergency terrorism. Emergency terrorism, however, treats people as means only. Therefore, Rawls's Kantian conception of JAF is in tension with his consequentialist justification of a supreme emergency in a just war and hence with emergency terrorism. (shrink)

In Origins of Objectivity, Burge presents three arguments against what he calls ‘deflationism’: the project of explaining the representational function in terms of the notion of biological function. I evaluate these arguments and argue that they are not convincing.

In this paper I try to show that semantics can explain word-to-world relations and that sentences can have meanings that determine truth-conditions. Critics like Chomsky typically maintain that only speakers denote, i.e., only speakers, by using words in one way or another, represent entities or events in the world. However, according to their view, individual acts of denotations are not explained just by virtue of speakers’ semantic knowledge. Against this view, I will hold that, in the typical cases considered, semantic (...) knowledge can account for the denotational uses of words of individual speakers. (shrink)

In 1969 Harry Frankfurt published his hugely influential paper 'Alternate Possibilities and Moral Responsibility' in which he claimed to present a counterexample to the so-called 'Principle of Alternate Possibilities' ('a person is morally responsible for what he has done only if he could have done otherwise'). The success of Frankfurt-style cases as counterexamples to the Principle has been much debated since. I present an objection to these cases that, in questioning their conceptual cogency, undercuts many of those debates. Such cases (...) all require a counterfactual mechanism that could cause an agent to perform an action that he cannot avoid performing. I argue that, given our concept of what it is for someone to act, this requirement is inconsistent. Frankfurt-style alleged counterexamples are cases where an agent is morally responsible for an action he performs even though, the claim goes, he could not have avoided performing that action. However, it has recently been argued, e.g. by John Fischer, that a counterexample to the Principle could be a 'Fischer-style case', i.e. a case where the agent can either perform the action or do nothing else. I argue that, although Fischer-style cases do not share the conceptual flaw common to all Frankfurt-style cases, they also fail as counterexamples to the Principle. The paper finishes with a brief discussion of the significance of the Principle of Alternate Possibilities. (shrink)

The debate concerning prostitution is centered around two main views: the liberal view and the radical feminist view. The typical liberal view is associated with decriminalization and normalization of prostitution; radical feminism stands in favor of prohibition or abolition. Here, I argue that neither of the views is right. My argument does not depend on the plausible (or actual) side effects of prohibition, abolition, or normalization; rather, I am concerned with the ideals involved. I will concede to liberals their claim (...) that prostitution is not harmful in itself. Yet, I will argue that prostitution cannot be thought of as “just another job”. Even if prostitution is not harmful in itself, it can do much harm. I will argue that a policy of vigilance is the most adequate one to adopt with regard of prostitution, given the risk of harm associated with prostitution. A policy of vigilance tries to discriminate between those who take a certain course of action willingly and those who do not. It puts no restraints on those who exercise their genuine will, but protects those who are openly or subtly coerced. (shrink)

'. . . this book will be valuable to upper-division and graduate students interested in the validity of SC theories.'-PERSPECTIVES ON POLITICAL SCIENCE.

Vitoria and Suárez defend the categorical immunity of the innocent not to be intentionally killed. But they allow for inflicting collective punishment on the innocent and the noninnocent alike during and after a just war. So they allow for deliberately harming them. Inflicting harm on the innocent can often result in their death. Hence, holding both claims seems incoherent. First, the objections against using the term “innocent” are explained. Second, their views on just war are explored. And third, by appealing (...) to Aquinas' double-effect reasoning, it is shown how they try to avoid the above-mentioned incoherence. Still, their appeal might be insufficient to palliate the tension between the above-mentioned claims. If just wars are possible, the deliberate harming of the innocent is reasonably unavoidable for defeating and punishing those who wage them. Hence, defenders of just wars, whether from a religious or a secular perspective, must live with such a tension. (shrink)

According to an increasing number of authors, the best, if not the only, argument in favour of physicalism is the so-called 'overdetermination argument'. This argument, if sound, establishes that all the entities that enter into causal interactions with the physical world are physical. One key premise in the overdetermination argument is the principle of the causal closure of the physical world, said to be supported by contemporary physics. In this paper, I examine various ways in which physics may support the (...) principle, either as a methodological guide or as depending on some other laws and principles of physics. (shrink)

The polemic was an important cultural event in 19th-century Cuba. From 1838 to 1840, issues of metaphysics, epistemology, ethics, pedagogy, and the influence of Victor Cousin’s eclecticism were discussed in the island’s leading newspapers. A brief historical account preceding the polemic is offered. It is argued that the predominant view of the polemic as motivated by a widespread desire for Cuba’s independence from Spain is misleading — promoting an emancipatory myth. Lastly, it is argued that José de la Luz y (...) Caballero’s appeal to patriotism during the polemic unwittingly established a dangerous precedent for self-appointed guardians of patriotism to condition public debates. (shrink)

We very often discover ourselves engaged in inner speech. It seems that this kind of silent, private, speech fulfils some role in our cognition, most probably related to conscious thinking. Yet, the study of inner speech has been neglected by philosophy and psychology alike for many years. However, things seem to have changed in the last two decades. Here we review some of the most influential accounts about the phenomenology and the functions of inner speech, as well as the methodological (...) problems that affect its study. (shrink)

Reasons can play a variety of roles in a variety of contexts. For instance, reasons can motivate and guide us in our actions (and omissions), in the sense that we often act in the light of reasons. And reasons can be grounds for beliefs, desires and emotions and can be used to evaluate, and sometimes to justify, all these. In addition, reasons are used in explanations: both in explanations of human actions, beliefs, desires, emotions, etc., and in explanations of a (...) wide range of phenomena involving all sorts of animate and inanimate substances. This diversity has encouraged the thought that the term 'reason' is ambiguous or has different senses in different contexts. Moreover, this view often goes hand in hand with the claim that reasons of these different kinds belong to different ontological categories: to facts (or something similar) in the case of normative/justifying reasons, and to mental states in the case of motivating/explanatory reasons. In this paper I shall explore some of the main roles that reasons play and, on that basis, I shall offer a classification of kinds of reasons. As will become clear, my classification of reasons is at odds with much of the literature in several respects: first, because of my views about how we should understand the claim that reasons are classified into different kinds; second, because of the kinds into which I think reasons should be classified; and, finally, because of the consequences I think this view has for the ontology of reasons. (shrink)

Physicalism is the claim that that there is nothing in the world but the physical. Philosophers who defend physicalism have to confront a well-known dilemma, known as Hempel’s dilemma, concerning the definition of ‘the physical’: if ‘the physical’ is whatever current physics says there is, then physicalism is most probably false; but if ‘the physical’ is whatever the true theory of physics would say that there is, we have that physicalism is vacuous and runs the risk of becoming trivial. This (...) article has two parts. The first, negative, part is devoted to developing a criticism of the so-called via negativa response to Hempel’s dilemma. In the second, more substantial, part, I propose to take the first horn of Hempel’s dilemma. However, I argue for a broad construal of ‘current physics’ and characterize ‘the physical’ accordingly. The virtues of the broad characterization of ‘the physical’ are: first, it makes physicalism less likely to be false; and second, it ties our understanding of ‘the physical’ to the reasons we have for believing in physicalism. That is, it fulfills the desideratum of construing our theses according to the reasons we have to believe in them. (shrink)

For many years, it has been common-ground in semantics and in philosophy of language that semantics is in the business of providing a full explanation about how propositional meanings are obtained. This orthodox picture seems to be in trouble these days, as an increasing number of authors now hold that semantics does not deal with thought-contents. Some of these authors have embraced a “thin meanings” view, according to which lexical meanings are too schematic to enter propositional contents. I will suggest (...) that it is plausible to adopt thin semantics for a class of words. However, I’ll also hold that some classes of words, like kind terms, plausibly have richer lexical meanings, and so that an adequate theory of word meaning may have to combine thin and rich semantics. (shrink)

En este artículo sostengo que los tres filósofos/pedagogos cubanos del siglo XIX, Félix Varela y Morales, José de la Luz y Caballero y Enrique José Varona, fueron responsables de superar la enseñanza de la escolástica tardía en la Real y Pontificia Universidad de San Jerónimo de La Habana. Contra los filósofos y pedagogos escolásticos tardíos que preferían la lógica silogística y la autoridad de la tradición sobre la inducción, argumentaron a favor de esta última sobre la primera. Puesto que defendían (...) las ideas liberales y republicanas, también argumentaban en contra de aquellos que apelan a la autoridad de la tradición en lugar de a nuestras experiencias cotidianas. Su espíritu liberal desafió no sólo al régimen tiránico impuesto por España, sino a cualquier otro régimen cuya autoridad dependiera de la fuerza más que de la libre voluntad del pueblo a escoger sus gobernantes. (shrink)

With an extensive amount of research on the social lives of primates, Frans de Waal has been a pioneering advocate for the continuity of human and non-human minds, putting forward the idea that these creatures exhibit rudimentary political and moral behaviors. One of the traits which de Waal focuses on is animal normativity, a set of behaviors functionally defined as adherence to social standards. Recently, some philosophers have endorsed this position, holding that animals show a psychological capacity called normative cognition (...) underlying those and other social behaviors. In this paper, I assess whether advocacy for animal normativity is an exercise of theory construction in comparative cognition. To that end, I present three features of this kind of theory construction. First, the explanatory goal of building functional analyses of cognitive capacities. Second, the conceptual aid of comparative thinking for theory construction. Third, the heuristic value of theory in specifying possible roads of inquiry. Taking these features into account, I assess whether the claims advocates make regarding animal normativity consider them. My answer is negative. First, since some advocates focus on behavioral traits and not on psychological capacities, they are not producing theory in comparative cognition, although, as I argue, they should. Second, there is a disregard for hypothesis testing and no evolutionary considerations to support their views. Finally, the claim that non-human animals exhibit normativity does not seem to have heuristic value. (shrink)

In a recent paper, Bird (in: Groff (ed.) Revitalizing causality: Realism about causality in philosophy and social science, 2007 ) has argued that some higher-order properties—which he calls “evolved emergent properties”—can be considered causally efficacious in spite of exclusion arguments. I have previously argued in favour of a similar position. The basic argument is that selection processes do not take physical categorical properties into account. Rather, selection mechanisms are only tuned to what such properties can do, i.e., to their causal (...) powers. This picture seems ultimately untenable in the light of further exclusion problems; but at the same time, it meets our explanatory demands. My purpose is therefore to show that there is a real antinomy with regard to evolved emergent properties. I develop a physicalist exclusion argument and then I go on to consider an argument that seems to establish that evolved emergent properties are causally efficacious, and propose a compatibilist solution. Finally, I very briefly consider what the proposed model may imply for the issue of mental causation. (shrink)

Hamas’s deliberate attack on October 7th against innocent civilians is absolutely wrong. Therefore, it should be universally condemned. And yet, I wonder how a universal recognition of an absolute duty of respect for human dignity can help solving the existential conflict confronting Israelis and Palestinians. Ideally, a two-state solution proposed by the international community can be seen as a reasonable and fair compromise. Nevertheless, the reality on the ground is different. Thus far the existence of one state has precluded the (...) existence of another with no end in sight to their mutually destructive violence. Their conflict demands that people who are reasonable and fair-minded try to understand it holistically and to offer an impartial assessment of this intractable conflict without relativizing the undeserved human suffering of all those involved and affected by it. (shrink)

El artículo consta de cuatro partes. En la primera parte, la introducción, señalo algunos aspectos de la importancia del proyecto. Segundo, describo y evalúo como Varela interpreta la filosofía. Tercero, exploro su eclecticismo dentro de su filosofía. Por último, explico el concepto de utilidad en el quehacer filosófico de Varela. Estos tres conceptos: filosofía, eclecticismo y utilidad están correlacionados en su obra. La filosofía con la recta razón. El eclecticismo, o lo que Varela llama la “verdadera filosofía,” con la sabia (...) selección de argumentos, incluyendo diversos métodos para explorar nuestras experiencias cotidianas, y la utilidad con la mesurada evaluación de nuestra conducta, incluyendo el bien común. Dado que estos tres conceptos son polisémicos, ellos pueden ser manipulados, y de hecho han sido tergiversados, por pensadores que han tratado de explicar el pensamiento filosófico vareliano con fines partidistas, ya sea con buenas intenciones o con fines ideológicos tendenciosos. (shrink)

El ataque deliberado de Hamás el 7 de octubre contra civiles inocentes es absolutamente inicuo. Por lo tanto, debe ser condenado universalmente. Y, sin embargo, me pregunto cómo un reconocimiento universal de un deber absoluto de respeto por la dignidad humana puede ayudar a resolver el conflicto existencial al que se enfrentan israelíes y palestinos. Idealmente, una solución de dos Estados propuesta por la comunidad internacional puede ser vista como un compromiso razonable y justo. Sin embargo, la realidad sobre el (...) terreno es diferente. Hasta ahora, la existencia de un Estado ha impedido la existencia de otro, sin que se vislumbre el final de su violencia mutuamente destructiva. Su conflicto exige que las personas razonables e imparciales traten de entenderlo de manera holística y de ofrecer una evaluación justa de este conflicto insoluble sin relativizar el sufrimiento humano inmerecido de todos los involucrados y afectados por él. (shrink)

This is a critical review of Susana Nuccetelli’s book: An Introduction to Latin America Philosophy. While I am sympathetic to Professor Nuccetelli’s conception of Latin American philosophy as applied philosophy, I tried to underscore a tension that exists between those of us who do philosophy from an analytic perspective broadly construed, and those who engage in postmodernist, decoloniality, and liberationist perspectivism. I also bring to the attention of the audience the neglected but important role that Victor Cousin’s eclecticism played in (...) promoting philosophy in the Americas. (shrink)

In this paper, it is argued that terrorism undermines the justification of perspective relativism. The cliché, “one person’s terrorist is another person’s freedom fighter,” is offered as an example of perspective relativism. Perspective relativists argue that moral principles and judgments have no universal moral import. Those who defend the cliché expression presuppose that the evaluation of terrorism is necessarily perspectival. For them, there are no morally objective differences, e.g., between deliberately killing combatants and deliberately killing innocent noncombatants. Yet there are (...) morally objective differences between these two acts. While the first act might be justified, the second act is considered murder. Hence, the evaluation of terrorism is not necessarily perspectival. Therefore, in the face of the evil that terrorists bring about, it is argued that perspective relativists have a substantive burden of proof to show that there are no transcultural moral values. (shrink)

In this paper we examine different answers to the question of what we are, focusing in particular on eliminative and reductivist proposals about persons or selves. We conclude that, as of today, dualism seems more reasonable than naturalism, if by naturalism we understand the thesis that psychological entities can be reduced or eliminated.

This article deals with the relationship between language and thought, focusing on the question of whether language can be a vehicle of thought, as, for example, Peter Carruthers has claimed. We develop and examine a powerful argument—the "argument from explicitness"—against this cognitive role of language. The premises of the argument are just two: (1) the vehicle of thought has to be explicit, and (2) natural languages are not explicit. We explain what these simple premises mean and why we should believe (...) they are true. Finally, we argue that even though the argument from explicitness shows that natural language cannot be a vehicle of thought, there is a cognitive function for language. (shrink)

In my replies to some of my critics I argue that while the practice of terrorism is never justified, I concede that it is rarely but sometimes excused. As result, those who engage in excusable terrorism has a substantial burden of proof. They need to offer a compelling argument to show that the harm caused by their terrorist violence is actually excused by the extenuating circumstances and the goal that they are trying to achieve, so they will not be morally (...) or legally blameworthy for bringing about such harm. I am assuming that they will need to demonstrate that the alleged harm is excusable because it is necessary to accomplish a worthy goal and there is no other reasonable way to obtain such a worthy goal without deliberately harming those who can be reasonably conceived of as impeccably or objectively innocent. That is, those who are innocent beyond reasonable doubt. (shrink)

Impairments in pragmatic abilities, that is, difficulties with appropriate use and interpretation of language – in particular, non-literal uses of language – are considered a hallmark of Autism Spectrum Conditions (ASC). Despite considerable research attention, these pragmatic difficulties are poorly understood. In this paper, we discuss and evaluate existing hypotheses regarding the literalism of ASC individuals, that is, their tendency for literal interpretations of non-literal communicative intentions, and link them to accounts of pragmatic development in neurotypical children. We present evidence (...) that reveals a developmental stage at which neurotypical children also have a tendency for literal interpretations and provide a possible explanation for such behaviour, one that links it to other behavioural, rule-following, patterns typical of that age. We then discuss extant evidence that shows that strict adherence to rules is also a widespread feature in ASC, and suggest that literalism might be linked to such rule-following behaviour. (shrink)

Two conceptions of motivating reasons, i.e. the reasons for which we act, can be found in the literature: (1) the dominant 'psychological conception', which says that motivating reasons are an agent's believing something; and (2) the 'non-psychological' conception, the minority view, which says that they are what the agent believes, i.e. his beliefs. In this paper I outline a version of the minority view, and defend it against what have been thought to be insuperable difficulties - in particular, difficulties concerning (...) 'error cases' (cases where what the agent believes is false); and difficulties concerning the explanation of action. Concerning error cases, I argue that if we are motivated by something believed that is true, what motivates us to act is a motivating reason. By contrast, if we are motivated by something believed that is false, then what motivates us to act is merely an apparent motivating reason. Either way, what motivates us is, as the non-psychological conception says, what we believe and not our believing it. I offer an account of the relation between motivating reasons and the explanation of action, and argue that this account helps bring out two important points. One is that the fact that we often do, and indeed sometimes must, use explanations such as 'He did it because he believed that p' does not vindicate the psychological conception of motivating reasons. The other is that endorsing the non-psychological conception of motivating reasons does not commit one to a non-factive view of explanations of action. (shrink)