En este trabajo se analiza el problema de la reducción en el contexto de la actual ciencia cognitiva y también, otros conceptos asociados como los de leyes especiales, relaciones interteóricas, análisis funcional, interdisciplinariedad, etc. Se pone de relieve el carácter paradigmático que para la filosofía de la ciencia ba de tener la ciencia cognitiva a la hora de elaborar un enfoque adecuado de los mismos. En este sentido, la concepción estructuralista de la ciencia encontraría algunas de sus más serias limitaciones.

O'Brien et al. reported that readers generated elaborative inferences only when a text contained characteristics that made it easy to predict the specific inference that a reader would draw, and virtually eliminated the possibility of the inference being discon-firmed. Garrod et al., however, offered two qualifications to these conclusions. First, the two text characteristics manipulated may have produced different types of elaborative inferencing: a biasing context results in a passive form of elaborative inferencing, involving setting up a context of interpretation, (...) whereas the presence of a demand sentence invites the reader to actively predict a subsequent expression. Secondly, clear evidence for either type of inference will be apparent only with truly anaphoric materials. This work describes how a passive form of elaborative inferencing, reported by Garrod et al, may be implemented in a connectionist manner. We take the connectionist model proposed by Shastri and Ajjanagadde in order to represent a text in the form of a network. Next we analyze and discuss how an attentional focus could operate with the proposed reasoner system in order to deal with inference control and anaphora resolution, during text understanding. Our own suggestion is that the system proposed by Shastri and Ajjanagadde could be extended by incorporating focus in order to apply it to some open problems related to text processing. However, this extension presents implementational problems due to its local character. Distributed models seem to be in a better position to deal with the shift of the attentional states, given that these systems can learn. Particularly, the model proposed by Sun is close to our aims, and so we will discuss its implications in order to design a cognitive architecture for text comprehension. (shrink)

O'Brien et al. reported that readers generated elaborative inferences only when a text contained characteristics that made it easy to predict the specific inference that a reader would draw, and virtually eliminated the possibility of the inference being discon-firmed. Garrod et al., however, offered two qualifications to these conclusions. First, the two text characteristics manipulated may have produced different types of elaborative inferencing: a biasing context results in a passive form of elaborative inferencing, involving setting up a context of interpretation, (...) whereas the presence of a demand sentence invites the reader to actively predict a subsequent expression. Secondly, clear evidence for either type of inference will be apparent only with truly anaphoric materials. This work describes how a passive form of elaborative inferencing, reported by Garrod et al, may be implemented in a connectionist manner. We take the connectionist model proposed by Shastri and Ajjanagadde in order to represent a text in the form of a network. Next we analyze and discuss how an attentional focus could operate with the proposed reasoner system in order to deal with inference control and anaphora resolution, during text understanding. Our own suggestion is that the system proposed by Shastri and Ajjanagadde could be extended by incorporating focus in order to apply it to some open problems related to text processing. However, this extension presents implementational problems due to its local character. Distributed models seem to be in a better position to deal with the shift of the attentional states, given that these systems can learn. Particularly, the model proposed by Sun is close to our aims, and so we will discuss its implications in order to design a cognitive architecture for text comprehension. (shrink)

Taking into account the difficulties that all attempts at a solution of the problem of causal-explanatory exclusion have experienced, we analyze in this paper the chances that mind-body causation is a case of overdetermination, a line of attack that has scarcely been explored. Our conclusion is that claiming that behaviors are causally overdetermined cannot solve the problem of causal-explanatory exclusion. The reason is the problem of massive coincidence, that can only be avoided by establishing a relation between mind and body; (...) that is, by denying overdetermination. The only way to defend that mind-body causation is a case of overdetermination would be by denying any modal force whatever to the principle of the causal closure of the physical, and this is a claim we would not like to reject. (shrink)

Taking into account the difficulties that all attempts at a solution of the problem of causal-explanatory exclusion have experienced, we analyze in this paper the chances that mind-body causation is a case of overdetermination, a line of attack that has scarcely been explored. Our conclusion is that claiming that behaviors are causally overdetermined cannot solve the problem of causal-explanatory exclusion. The reason is the problem of massive coincidence, that can only be avoided by establishing a relation between mind and body; (...) that is, by denying overdetermination. The only way to defend that mind-body causation is a case of overdetermination would be by denying any modal force whatever to the principle of the causal closure of the physical, and this is a claim we would not like to reject. (shrink)

Research in cognitive science has often assumed the existence of a privileged level that unifies theoretical explanations arising from different disciplines. Philosophical accounts differ about the locus of those intertheory relations. In this paper, four different views are analyzed: classical, connectionist, pragmatist, and reductionist, as exemplified in the works of von Eckardt, Horgan and Tienson, Hardcastle, and Bickle, respectively. Their divergences are characterized in terms of the possibility of such a privileged level. The classical view favors a privileged computational level. (...) The connectionist revision tries to draw biological intuitions into computational models to provide a link between neurons and computations. The pragmatist approach rejects the idea of a privileged level and offers a more eclectic view of cognitive theory building. The reductionist account pursues theoretical unification by means of the reduction of higher level theories to basic level ones. /// La investigatión en ciencia cognitiva suele asumir la existencia de un nivel privilegiado que unifica las explicaciones teóricas provenientes de distintas disciplinas. Las interpretaciones filósoficas difieren respecto al locus de tales relaciones interteóricas. En este artículo se analizan cuatro concepciones: clásica, conexionista, pragmática y reduccionista, ejemplificadas respectivamente en las obras de von Eckardt, Horgan y Tienson, Hardcastle y Bickle. Sus divergencias se caracterizan en términos de la posible existencia del nivel privilegiado. El enfoque clásico propugna un nivel privilegiado computacional. La revisión conexionista importa intuiciones de la biología a los modelos computacionales, con la intentión de vincular lo neuronal con lo computacional. El enfoque pragmático rechaza la idea de un nivel privilegiado y ofrece una visión más ecléctica de la teorización cognitiva. La conceptión reduccionista promueve la unificatión teórica mediante la reductión de teorías de alto nivel a teorías de nivel básico. (shrink)

Classical approaches such as frames, scripts,... have been unable to deal with the kind of inferences necessary in natural language processing situations such as text comprehension. Shastri & Ajjanagadde (1993), proposed a local connectionist model for the sort of reasoning requiring such a fast inference. The problem with this system is that it controls only the adequacy of argument- fillers, leaving untouched the activation control issue, namely, why we perform certain inferences, and not others, in a given situation. The aim (...) of this paper is to examine how a focus, in the sense of Grosz (1981). could operate as a theoretic constraint with the above reasoner system to handle two aspects: inference control and anaphora resolution (i.e., antecedent activation), during text understanding. (shrink)

This book presents the Proceedings of the Second International Colloquium on Cognitive Science, held at San Sebastian in May, 1991, to discuss from an interdisciplinary point of view topics which are at the intersection of philosophy and cognitive science. With a total of eleven papers from leading scholars in the field, the volume provides many different theoretical approaches to the study of Categories, Consciousness and Reasoning. The book is addressed to researchers, specialists, advanced students and scholars in the fields of (...) epistemology, philosophy of mind, psychology, semantics, logic and artificial intelligence. (shrink)

Explicitness has usually been approached from two points of view, labelled by Kirsh the structural and the process view, that hold opposite assumptions to determine when information is explicit. In this paper, we offer an intermediate view that retains intuitions from both of them. We establish three conditions for explicit information that preserve a structural requirement, and a notion of explicitness as a continuous dimension. A problem with the former accounts was their disconnection with psychological work on the issue. We (...) review studies by Karmiloff-Smith, and Shanks and St. John to show that the proposed conditions have psychological grounds. Finally, we examine the problem of explicit rules in connectionist systems in the light of our framework. (shrink)

Explicitness has usually been approached from two points of view, labelled by Kirsh the structural and the process view, that hold opposite assumptions to determine when information is explicit. In this paper, we offer an intermediate view that retains intuitions from both of them. We establish three conditions for explicit information that preserve a structural requirement, and a notion of explicitness as a continuous dimension. A problem with the former accounts was their disconnection with psychological work on the issue. We (...) review studies by Karmiloff-Smith, and Shanks and St. John to show that the proposed conditions have psychological grounds. Finally, we examine the problem of explicit rules in connectionist systems in the light of our framework. (shrink)

Esta obra literaria de Mario Vargas Llosa plasma una configuración asimétrica en sus personajes. Esta es distintiva de la condición moderna que justifica su inestabilidad ontológica, tal como lo constata Milagros Ezquerro. A su vez, se comprende por el contexto en el que se desarrolla: etapa dictatorial que se atraviesa en el Perú y Latinoamericana en la segunda mitad del siglo XX. Retomando esta premisa, este artículo tendrá como objetivo fundamentar cuáles son los enclaves que delimitan y convergen la (...) constitución de las jerarquías que adoptan las autoridades responsables y los cadetes que oscilan en el universo castrense de la novela. Para ello, se corroborará con la noción de violencia que fluctúa Walter Benjamín, la concepción de espacio de Iuri Lotman y el paradigma del universo militar que aborda Herbert Morote. Estas categorías se imbricarán para demostrar con triángulos jerárquicos la implicancia que se alcanzó con este tipo de instrucción. (shrink)

Este artículo fue bom como lección inaugural del curso académico 1996-1997 en el Instituto de Estudios Teológicos de Sevilla (C.E.T). Se parte de una serie de notas biográficas del Padre Haring necesarias, según el autor, para comprender el desarrollo intelectual del personaje y la evolución de su enseñanza moral. En la segunda parte. La contribución del Padre Haring a la TeologíaMoral renovada se revela: una moral fundada sobre el Custodio de Dios; un nuevo destinatario, es decir, el paso del confesionario (...) al "cristiano adulto": paso de la ley y del mandamiento a la "ley del Espíritu que da la vida en Cristo": diálogo con el hombre de hoy: diálogo ecuménico: cultura continua, que implica renovación continua: moral de tendencia comunitaria (ni individualista, ni perfeccionista), de la solidaridad salvífica; moral que libera al hombre, que no lo aprisiona ni lo encorseta. En conclusion. se muestra claramente la gran aportación del Padre Haring a la Teología Moral: el paso de una moral centrada en el objeto a una moral centrada en el hombre libre, responsable y fiel a Cristo. (shrink)

Music can reduce stress and anxiety, enhance positive mood, and facilitate social bonding. However, little is known about the role of music and related personal or cultural variables in maintaining wellbeing during times of stress and social isolation as imposed by the COVID-19 crisis. In an online questionnaire, administered in 11 countries, participants rated the relevance of wellbeing goals during the pandemic, and the effectiveness of different activities in obtaining these goals. Music was found to be the most effective activity (...) for three out of five wellbeing goals: enjoyment, venting negative emotions, and self-connection. For diversion, music was equally good as entertainment, while it was second best to create a sense of togetherness, after socialization. This result was evident across different countries and gender, with minor effects of age on specific goals, and a clear effect of the importance of music in people's lives. Cultural effects were generally small and surfaced mainly in the use of music to obtain a sense of togetherness. Interestingly, culture moderated the use of negatively valenced and nostalgic music for those higher in distress. (shrink)

Bringing together research from some of the most influential scholars in linguistics today, this Handbook provides a thorough guide to how context interacts with language. Surveying the latest work from a range of theoretical perspectives, it is essential reading for researchers and advanced students across a range of linguistic subfields.

In their recent book Radicalizing Enactivism. Basic minds without content, Dan Hutto and Erik Myin make two important criticisms of what they call autopoietic enactivism. These two criticisms are that AE harbours tacit representationalists commitments and that it has too liberal a conception of cognition. Taking the latter claim as its main focus, this paper explores the theoretical underpinnings of AE in order to tease out how it might respond to H&M. In so doing it uncovers some reasons which not (...) only appear to warrant H&M’s initial claims but also seem to point to further uneasy tensions within the AE framework. The paper goes beyond H&M by tracing the roots of these criticisms and apparent tensions to phenomenology and the role it plays in AE’s distinctive conception of strong life-mind continuity. It is highlighted that this phenomenological dimension of AE contains certain unexamined anthropomorphic and anthropogenic leanings which do not sit comfortably within its wider commitment to life-mind continuity. In light of this analysis it is suggested that AE will do well to rethink this role or ultimately run the risk of remaining theoretically unstable. The paper aims to contribute to the ongoing theoretical development of AE by highlighting potential internal tensions within its framework which need to be addressed in order for it to continue to evolve as a coherent paradigm. (shrink)

According to robust versions of virtue epistemology, the reason why knowledge is incompatible with certain kinds of luck is that justified true beliefs must be achieved by the agent . In a recent set of papers, Pritchard has challenged these sorts of views, advancing different arguments against them. I confront one of them here, which is constructed upon scenarios affected by environmental luck, such as the fake barn cases. My objection to Pritchard differs from those offered until now by Carter (...) , Jarvis or Littlejohn in that it is based on the claim that cognitive performances may not be properly considered as achievements beyond the scope of the agent’s intentional action—an idea that confers more explanatory power on my argument, and contributes to stregthening links between knowledge and agency. (shrink)

This paper advances new theses about the relationship between luck and risk, using recent work by Duncan Pritchard (2014, 2015, 2016) as its foil. Once Pritchard’s views are introduced in section 1, the rest of the paper completes two different tasks, one critical and one constructive. By focussing on some epistemological cases that Pritchard’s model would fail to identify, section 2 shows that it relies on a difference that is in fact inessential: the one between the occurrence and the non‐occurrence (...) of an event. Section 3 sketches and defends an alternative account of the luck/risk distinction, based on the consideration of situations (instead of events) from different temporal perspectives: luck assessments track a situation’s past, considering it the actual outcome of some previous event, whereas risk assessments look at the situation’s future, regarding it as the initial condition of some unsettled event. (shrink)

We are witnessing a certain tendency in epistemology to account for the anti-luck intuition in terms of risk. I.e., instead of the traditional anti-luck diagnosis of Gettier cases and fake barn cases, a new anti-risk diagnosis seems to be preferable by many. My goal in this paper is twofold: first, I contribute to motivate that drift; and second, I defend that we ought to partially resist it. An anti-risk diagnosis is valid and preferable for fake barn cases, but we still (...) need an anti-luck diagnosis for classic Gettier cases. The paper thus defends the Solomon-like result that we need both concepts—epistemic luck and epistemic risk—to deal with all the cases where knowledge is undermined. (shrink)

We are witnessing a certain tendency in epistemology to account for the anti-luck intuition in terms of risk. I.e., instead of the traditional anti-luck diagnosis of Gettier cases and fake barn cases, a new anti-risk diagnosis seems to be preferable by many. My goal in this paper is twofold: first, I contribute to motivate that drift; and second, I defend that we ought to partially resist it. An anti-risk diagnosis is valid and preferable for fake barn cases, but we still (...) need an anti-luck diagnosis for classic Gettier cases. The paper thus defends the Solomon-like result that we need both concepts—epistemic luck and epistemic risk—to deal with all the cases where knowledge is undermined. (shrink)

We may succeed in the fulfillment of our desires but still fail to properly own our practical life, perhaps because we acted as addicts, driven by desires that are alien to our will, or as “wantons,” satisfying the desires that we simply happen to have (Frankfurt, 1988). May we equally fail to own the outcomes of our epistemic life? If so, how may we attain epistemic ownership over it? This paper explores the structural parallelism between practical and epistemic rationality, building (...) on Williamson’s (2002) suggestion that we should commence with successful performances as the foundation for both domains, be it action or knowledge. By highlighting the limitations of higher-order regulative approaches in epistemology, exemplified by Sosa (2007, 2011, 2015, 2021), the paper introduces a form of teleological epistemic constitutivism inspired by Velleman (2000, 2009). The proposal is that epistemic ownership is not attained in the mere pursuit of truth or knowledge, but requires furthermore a struggle to understand what we know. (shrink)

In this paper, an attempt is made to solve various problems posed to current theories of verisimilitude: the problem of linguistic variance; the problem of which are the best scientific methods for getting the most verisimilar theories; and the question of the ontological commitment in scientific theories. As a result of my solution to these problems, and with the help of other considerations of epistemological character, I conclude that the notion of 'Tarskian truth' is dispensable in a rational interpretation of (...) the scientific enterprise. As a logical result, however, falsificationism will be vindicated. (shrink)