What kind of reference (if any) do terms such as “pencil,” “chair,” “television,” and so on have? On the matter, a de-bate between directly referential theorists and descriptiv-ist theorists is open. It is largely acknowledged that natural kind terms (such as “water,” “gold,” “tiger,” etc.) are directly referential expressions (cf. Putnam,1975). That is, they are expressions whose reference is determined by their refer-ents' nature, independent of whether we know or will ever know what this nature is. However, it does not (...) seem like-wise convincing that all artifactual kind terms (like “pen-cil,” “chair,” “television,” etc.) semantically behave the same. Terms for artifactual kinds seem more likely to be subjected to a descriptivist view, that is, definable not by links to their extensions' nature but in terms of conjunctions or clusters of properties. In his celebrated “The Meaning of ‘Meaning’” (1975), Hilary Putnam originated the mentioned debate by arguing that artifactual kind terms also refer directly. Thus, the discussion ultimately revolves around establishing whether artifactual and natural kind terms are both directly referential expressions. The authors engaged in this debate have tried to argue in favor of (or against) Putnam's proposal by highlighting the similarities (or differences) between nat-ural vis-à-vis artifactual kind words and their respective ref-erents. This paper aims to provide a thorough and reasoned overview of the debate at stake, pointing out trends and problems associated with each proposed account. (shrink)

Putnam’s suggestion of extending the scope of his semantic theory has opened an ongoing debate. The majority seem to agree with Putnam as long as he restricts his analysis to natural kind terms, whereas many doubts have arisen about whether or not it can be applied to artifactual kind terms as well. Specifically, this disagreement originated with the thought experiment that Putnam laid out in order to prove his controversial thesis. Here I analyze it in detail in order to evaluate (...) whether it proves what it has been alleged to prove. Unlike the other authors engaged in the debate, I point out that this particular argument cannot demonstrate that artifactual words refer externalistically. I claim that, on closer inspection, Putnam’s thought experiment only shows that an artifactual term like ‘pencil’ can turn out to be a natural kind word, but, in the end, it tells us little about how our “actual” artifactual kind terms work. In order to make my point, I also bring out the two fundamental requirements that a genuine externalist argument about artifactual words ought to meet. Finally, I report, albeit briefly, the main externalist accounts in this respect, illustrating how none of them actually meet the challenge. (shrink)

The “nature” of an artifact is often equated with its function. Clearly, an artifactual function must be an extrinsic property. This feature of functions has important implications on the semantics of artifactual kind terms: it enables us to vindicate that artifactual kind terms have an externalist semantics. Any alleged externalist theory, indeed, must show that the referents of the considered terms share a common nature (i.e., an extrinsic property), whether we know or could possibly ever know what that nature is. (...) However, the state of the art shows that function is not enough to represent such “nature”: function does not exhaustively account for important phenomena that characterize artifacts and artifactual kinds, nor does it thoroughly define what they are. Thus, extending the scope of externalism to artifactual kind terms seems doomed to fail. Pace opposite views, it could even be argued that artifacts are a sub-class of social kinds. If so, not only social but also artifactual kind terms cannot refer externalistically, since their referents constitutively depend on human intentions and norms. Either way, externalism fails to apply to those kinds of terms. (shrink)

Kants kritische Philosophie hat der traditionellen Metaphysik so gründlich die Flügel gestutzt, dass das Transzendente weitgehend aus dem Blickfeld der Kant-Forschung geraten ist. Der vorliegende Band will dieser Entwicklung entgegenwirken. Er fragt in interdisziplinärer Perspektive (Philosophie, Politikwissenschaft, Theologie) nach den transzendenten Geltungsgründen politischer Ordnungen einerseits und nach der Gültigkeit und dem Sinn einer epistemisch unverfügbaren Transzendenz andererseits. Inwiefern ist unsere Praxis durch Transzendenz fundiert und welchen Sinn verleihen wir der uns unverfügbaren Transzendenz in unseren lebensweltlichen Vollzügen? Diese Fragen werden entlang (...) der politischen Philosophie sowie der religionsphilosophischen Philosophie Kants untersucht. Sie weisen jedoch über den Rahmen der Kantischen Philosophie hinaus, indem sie Begriffe von politischer Ordnung mit Transzendenz konfrontieren sowie den kritischen Begriff der Transzendenz mit seinen religiösen Sinnfiguren in Beziehung setzen. (shrink)

Philosophy Compass, Volume 17, Issue 9, September 2022.

The literary genesis of Einbahnstraße by Walter Benjamin represents a very special case of the use of the procedures of surrealism in the philosophical-literary production of the author. The process of evolution of thinking that ended up in the writing of this piece is unveiled throughout the present analysis. This is a sign of both waiver and restart; the opening for a new productive dimension in the career of one of the most important —and misunderstood— philosophers of the 20th century. (...) More than enlightening a small master piece of philosophy from a literary perspective, or analyzing a small master piece of literature from the philosophy, what is being problematized here is the division, cultivated or figured throughout the years, between both disciplines. This work is intended to recover what is insoluble from the philosophical-literary labor of Walter Benjamin, besides tracing a possible reconfiguration for an interdisciplinary field of work to come up and contribute in the understanding of the problem called The Retreat of Metaphor by Jacques Derrida. (shrink)

La théorie de l’extase de Sergueï Eisenstein propose le paradoxe de représenter la « sortie de la représentation ». À partir d’un projet artistique iconoclaste, proche de celui des avant-gardes des années 1910-1920, qui concevaient la représentation ( Vorstellung ) comme un « mur » à détruire, Eisenstein pense cet objectif possible seulement en sauvegardant la mimésis. Il conçoit alors une esthétique à la fois organique et pathétique qui développe les possibilités expressives et donc une nouvelle et plus puissante représentation (...) ( Darstellung ). (shrink)

Patagonia: Land of Giants captures the wonders of the Patagonian landscape in hundreds of stunning color photographs by famed Argentine nature photographer Daniel Rivademar.

The thought of Pierre Klossowski, praised by Foucault, Blanchot, Deleuze, has been scarcely addressed by the philosophical community. We argue in this article that this is largely due to the frequent difficulty of understanding his work as a whole: both his artistic and literary production and his interpretations of Nietzsche or Sade form a coherent whole, whose significance has a deeply critical political scope. The notion of unproductive spending, which occupies a central place in Bataille's work, will be rearticulated in (...) Klossowski's reflections through the concepts of drive, phantasm, simulacrum, value and consumption. In The Living Currency, the political dimension of these terms appears clearly: relying on a rereading of Fourier and Sade, the author shows the extreme degree of deformation of what we assume as a reality in modern industrial society. In this sense, his thinking takes on special relevance today, as a revelation of the excess and unhingedness of a society in which production and consumption are reproduced without limit through the infinite reflections produced by the game between drives, ghosts and simulacra. (shrink)

Desde la convivencia de "distintos" se construye lo político dimensión antagónica, sustancialmente trágica, ineludible campo de hostilidad en las sociedades humanas. Sobre estas consideraciones, reflexionamos sobre el asunto de la sociología que hacemos, sobre cómo construimos y leemos nuestras real..

The River of the Plate has been from mid century XVII a pole of great attraction of native migrante population of Spain. Numerous studies have determined the influence and importance of Navarrese, Basque or Castilian immigration in Buenos Aires. Between these families, those of origin Andalusian they occupied un important place. The ports of Seville and Cadiz were witnesses of that human, cultural and economic interchange between the Metropolis and the New World. The object of this work is to approach (...) us that migratoy reality being determined the human and economic bows between Andalusia and the distant River of the Plate throughout century XV111. (shrink)

In 2015 the first mass migration and the first geopolitical and transnational crisis of the digital age began. This brought along the awakening of a new phase in slavery trade and trafficking of human beings (THB) at the European borders. In this article I introduce an ongoing field study I began in January 2016, in collaboration with experts from Spanish and European institutions, that so far has taken me to hotspots and borders, and to the accumulation of a vast multimedia (...) archive. This led to the creation of zonaautonomamilitarizada.eu, an immersive/360°, interactive and reactive audio-visual performative system conceptually rooted in military technologies, second-order cybernetics and mass media developments. (shrink)

In a recent issue of the Journal of Business Ethics, Filipe M. Santos posits that social entrepreneurs maximize not on value capture, but on value creation, only satisficing on value capture to fuel operations, reinvesting in growth, whatever the specific combination of institutional means is deemed appropriate. No doubt the analytical framework of value creation and value capture casts new light on the phenomenon of social entrepreneurship, but we think Santos is asking too much by advocating a shift in focus (...) away from the organization. On the contrary, we maintain that by refocusing the theory on the organizational level and away from the system it is possible to understand that not all organizational solutions available to social entrepreneurs are able to create value and not all value capture strategies can serve a social goal. Indeed, there is only one form of organization that fulfills the criteria of maximizing on value creation, while satisficing on value capture and that is the social enterprise. (shrink)

Citizenship regimes are institutionalized systems of formal and informal norms that define access to membership, as well as associated rights and duties. This paper studies illegalized migration as one of the major tests to assess whether citizenship regimes are fair institutions, based on a historical analysis of legislation meant to reduce illegalized migration in the United States between 1995 and 2022. We build our empirical research starting from a simple observation: despite the great number of bills introduced to reduce illegalized (...) migration to the US, most of such initiatives fail to become law. In fact, 93.5% of all immigration initiatives did not even pass the chamber of Congress in which they were originally presented. Such a high rate of failure shows that these proposals are motivated by electoral aspirations, rather than coming from a genuine wish to help migrants or grant them citizenship. Furthermore, there is also an economic interest that justifies the maintenance of low-cost disposable immigrant labor, with no right to citizenship. Our analysis is an example of how state regulation processes seem to work to formalize, rather than alleviate or eradicate, the precarious legal statuses of illegalized migrants. We conclude that a globalized phenomenon such as citizenship requires going beyond merely institutional and formal conceptions. We need to rethink the institutional notion of citizenship, as a merely status held under the authority of a state and consider it from a cosmopolitan perspective and a multilateral basis. But as long as citizenship remains under the responsibility of states, illegalized migrants will continue to experience precarious citizenship. (shrink)

Para las empresas recolectoras de residuos sólidos es indispensable controlar los factores de riesgos asociados a la calidad del aire del entorno laboral de sus empleados con el objetivo de minimizar las afecciones de salud de sus trabajadores. El propósito del estudio es desarrollar un prototipo de un sensor inalámbrico de medición de calidad de aire. Este instrumento de medición será implementado en ambientes laborales para trabajadores de recolección de residuos sólidos. A partir del estudio se concluye que para empresas (...) de este sector es indispensable el control de factores de riesgos asociados a la exposición a gases y vapores. (shrink)

Teacher quality, its effect on students’ outcomes, and the association of these with economic growth, is the core of recent discussions in Latin America given the region’s weak results in international learning assessments. This paper investigates whether there is an effect of philosophy on the outcomes of critical reading for students in B.Ed. programs in Colombia. Relying on exact matching combined with propensity score matching with regression adjustment, we use national data from Colombia to show that students in B.Ed. in (...) philosophy outperformed students in other B.Ed. in critical reading test (0.401–0.124 SD), and, importantly, with higher effects observed for students with lower prior academic achievement (0.44 SD). This suggests that philosophy can help to narrow educational outcomes of students whose socioeconomic conditions are disadvantageous, contributing to social justice in education. (shrink)

This paper critically explores the ethical dimensions of Behavioral Public Policy (BPP), a domain grounded in the understanding that human rationality is bounded and that this limitation often leads to behaviors deemed irrational. By applying the behavioral lens, which posits that people operate under bounded rationality, BPP aims to craft interventions that safeguard individuals against their biases. However, this approach raises significant ethical concerns, both in the scientific underpinnings of BPP and its application through policy interventions. Accordingly, this paper examines (...) two distinct ethical dimensions of BPP, both as a scientific discipline and through its intervention methodologies. The analysis of the first dimension argues that, viewing bounded rationality as only instrumental in decision-making processes, risks oversimplifying ethical complexities. Such simplification may ignore the moral and value-based rationalities underlying decisions, potentially misattributing instances of immorality and akrasia (the failure to act according to one's judgment) to mere deficiencies in rational thinking. Secondly, the paper examines the impact of BPP on moral behavior and character development, addressing ethical concerns like the evidentiary basis of BPP research, the bounded rationality of choice architects themselves, and the morality of behavior changes induced by policy. Overall, this article provides a much-needed examination of the moral considerations associated with behavioral strategies in public policy and its epistemological foundations, contributing to a more comprehensive understanding of their ethical implications . (shrink)

Los interesantes aportes del Prof. Ramírez Gómez tratan sobre el papel que el mercado debe jugar en una sociedad democrática, y con este propósito sugiere que éste debería responder a las preferencias del gobierno y no a las preferencias individuales. Nuestra réplica amistosa plantea que este argumento debe ser ampliado para evitar interpretaciones que lo confundan con las fórmulas experimentadas por las economías de planificación total, que han mostrado su ineficiencia en la provisión de valores de uso pertinentes. En este (...) sentido, sostenemos que el mercado debe estar subordinado a las preferencias individuales facilitando la libertad de las personas en la elección de alternativas de inversión y consumo, hasta el punto en que tal ejercicio sólo pueda hacerse sobre el menoscabo de un razonable ejercicio de libertad por parte de las demás. (shrink)

Nudging and sludging are forms of choice architecture that shape behavior. While it is generally believed that nudging should improve well-being and sludging should decrease it, there has been debate about how to distinguish between the two. Some have suggested that the difference lies in the ease with which behaviors are facilitated or hindered, but this criterion does not consider the normative distinction (nudges have a positive connotation and sludges a negative one) or the impact on well-being. This paper proposes (...) a normative approach to defining nudging and sludging that takes into account both well-being and the principle of autonomy. According to our proposal, the concept of nudging should involve interventions that aim to increase well-being while respecting individuals’ freedom of choice, while sludging involves interventions that decrease well-being while also respecting autonomy, whether intentionally or unintentionally. (shrink)

Argumentation represents a way of reasoning over a knowledge base containing possibly incomplete and/or inconsistent information, to obtain useful conclusions. As a reasoning mechanism, the way an argumentation reasoning engine reaches these conclusions resembles the cognitive process that humans follow to analyze their beliefs; thus, unlike other computationally reasoning systems, argumentation offers an intellectually friendly alternative to other defeasible reasoning systems. LogicProgrammingisacomputationalparadigmthathasproducedcompu- tationallyattractivesystemswithremarkablesuccessinmanyapplications. Merging ideas from both areas, Defeasible Logic Programming offers a computational reasoning system that uses an argumentation engine (...) to obtain answers from a knowledge base represented using a logic programming language extended with defeasible rules. This combination of ideas brings about a computationally effective system together with a human-like reasoning model facilitating its use in applications. (shrink)

Una larga tradición le atribuye a Sócrates la preocupación por transformar la vida de quienes dialogan con él; atribución que se opone a la imagen, rastreable en los Diálogos de Platón, de su fracaso al momento de influir en la vida de sus interlocutores más recalcitrantes. Para disminuir esta tensión y, con ello, disolver la impresión de dicho fracaso, se examinan elementos de la representación platónica del élenchos en favor de la idea de que Sócrates no busca convertir a los (...) demás. Al final, se añade una crítica al optimismo con que Pierre Hadot sí le adjudica la función de agente de conversión. (shrink)

Epistemic Utility Theory is often identified with the project of *axiology-first epistemology*—the project of vindicating norms of epistemic rationality purely in terms of epistemic value. One of the central goals of axiology-first epistemology is to provide a justification of the central norm of Bayesian epistemology, Probabilism. The first part of this paper presents a new challenge to axiology first epistemology: I argue that in order to justify Probabilism in purely axiological terms, proponents of axiology first epistemology need to justify a (...) claim about epistemic value—what I label ‘Downwards Propriety’—much stronger than any they have offered justification. The second part of this paper offers an argument that this challenge cannot be met: that there is no hope for providing a purely axiological justification of Downwards Propriety, at least given widely accepted assumptions about epistemic value. (shrink)

Since the concept of “nudge” was introduced in 2008 by Thaler and Sunstein, proposing that small interventions based on changes in choice architectures can alter people’s behavior and make it easier for them to achieve their desired goals, the application in public policy of behavioral economics has gained significant attention. This has led to the emergence of different types of policies based on behavioral insights, which have been used in a variety of areas, including health or finance, with the goal (...) of promoting well-being and addressing social and economic issues. After providing a basic theoretical background as a frame of reference to understand gender violence, this study explores the use of tools from the field of behavioral economics as it is applied in public policy. Regulatory (paternalistic) and non-regulatory (libertarian) interventions based on behavioral insights will be considered: nudges, boosts, shoves, budges, or sludge audits, are examined as potential interventions to use in matters related to this type of violence. After evaluating these behavioral policy instruments and their potential effectiveness, the limitations of the behavioral perspective are recognized, and the need for a multifaceted approach to combating gender violence is acknowledged. The article concludes by arguing that public policies addressing gender violence should not only utilize behavioral tools but should also incorporate strategies related to education, legislation, and social norms. (shrink)

Political fact-checkers evaluate the truthfulness of politicians’ claims. This paper contributes to an emerging scholarly debate on whether fact-checkers treat political parties differently in a systematic manner depending on their ideology (bias). We first examine the available approaches to analyze bias and then present a new approach in two steps. First, we propose a logistic regression model to analyze the outcomes of fact-checks and calculate how likely each political party will obtain a truth score. We test our model with a (...) sample of fact-checks from Newtral, a major Spanish fact-checker. Our model would signal bias under two assumptions: a) all political parties are on average equally accurate in their statements; b) the verification method gives precise instructions and is implemented systematically. We investigate this second assumption with a series of interviews with Newtral fact-checkers. We show that standard verification protocols are so loosely implemented that fact-checks reflect a set of journalistic decisions, rather than a bias in the statistical sense. We call for a more rigorous definition of verification methods as a pre-requisite for an unbiased assessment of politician’s claims. (shrink)

In this essay I revise, based on the notion of the ‘enlightened ruler’ or mingzhu and his critique of the literati of his time, the common belief that Han Fei was an amoralist and an advocate of tyranny. Instead, I will argue that his writings are dedicated to advising those who ought to rule in order to achieve the goal of a peaceful and stable society framed by laws in accordance with the dao.

This paper deals with the question of whether uncertainty regarding model structure, especially in climate modeling, exhibits a kind of “chaos.” Do small changes in model structure, in other words, lead to large variations in ensemble predictions? More specifically, does model error destroy forecast skill faster than the ordinary or “classical” chaos inherent in the real-world attractor? In some cases, the answer to this question seems to be “yes.” But how common is this state of affairs? Are there precise mathematical (...) results that can help us answer this question? And is dependence on model structure “sensitive” in that arbitrarily small errors can destroy forecast skill? We examine some efforts in the literature to answer this last question in the affirmative and find them to be unconvincing. (shrink)

The goal of this paper is to present an accentual rule for a combination of locations of the Homeric hexameter, the fourth and the sixth metra. The author shows that, when there is a trochaic word ending in the fourth trochee, the location of Hermann’s bridge, there is a change in the distribution of accent types in the sixth metron, favoring what he calls “barytone falls”, that is, post-acute long syllables. After presenting the regular distribution of accents in the sixth (...) metron, the author shows how that distribution is modified when there is a trochaic ending word in the fourth trochee. The results are later revised for possible formulaic interferences. Finally, he considers the implications of this phenomenon for the interpretation of Hermann’s law and speculates on its influence on current explanations of that rule. (shrink)

The goal of this paper is to present an accentual rule for a combination of locations of the Homeric hexameter, the fourth and the sixth metra. The author shows that, when there is a trochaic word ending in the fourth trochee, the location of Hermann’s bridge, there is a change in the distribution of accent types in the sixth metron, favoring what he calls “barytone falls”, that is, post-acute long syllables. After presenting the regular distribution of accents in the sixth (...) metron, the author shows how that distribution is modified when there is a trochaic ending word in the fourth trochee. The results are later revised for possible formulaic interferences. Finally, he considers the implications of this phenomenon for the interpretation of Hermann’s law and speculates on its influence on current explanations of that rule. (shrink)

El presente artículo es la primera parte de un estudio sobre dos problemas de la prosodia del griego antiguo vinculados a la relación entre el acento tonal del lenguaje y la estructura silábica de las palabras. Luego de un resumen de algunos conceptos básicos de prosodia del griego que son utilizados a lo largo del trabajo, se analiza el problema de las palabras con sílabas cerradas con acento agudo. La principal novedad del análisis es que el corpus de estudio es (...) la poesía homérica, fuente antes desatendida como evidencia del acento. (shrink)

El presente artículo es la segunda parte de un estudio sobre dos problemas de la prosodia del griego antiguo vinculados a la relación entre el acento tonal dellenguaje y la estructura silábica de las palabras. En él, luego de una introducción general y un resumen de la primera parte, se analiza el problema de las palabrascon acento barítono sobre sílabas cerradas. La principal novedad del análisis es que el corpus de estudio es la poesía homérica, fuente antes desatendida comoevidencia del (...) acento. (shrink)

Garrett W. Brown has argued that donor voting caucuses produce a deliberative deficit between donor and non-donor members in the Global Fund International Board. Although we agree with this assessment, in our research on low-transaction cost alternatives to cope with consistent deliberative conditions we have found that deliberation and interest-based preference maximisation are not necessarily mutually exclusive, as long as we manage to stop donor members from behaving like monopolists. To this end, we have to open up the Board from (...) its present state of non-transparency, so that new input can be obtained from new constituents. This will also soften the current principal-agent structure that links members to their donors, easing the transition to market-driven governance rules that provide for the replacement of Board members if they do not fulfil the new constituents' expectations. (shrink)

In a series of recent papers, two of which appeared in this journal, a group of philosophers, physicists, and climate scientists have argued that something they call the `hawkmoth effect' poses insurmountable difficulties for those who would use non-linear models, including climate simulation models, to make quantitative predictions or to produce `decision-relevant probabilites.' Such a claim, if it were true, would undermine much of climate science, among other things. Here, we examine the two lines of argument the group has used (...) to support their claims. The first comes from a set of results in dynamical systems theory associated with the concept of `structural stability.' The second relies on a mathematical demonstration of their own, using the logistic equation, that they present using a hypothetical scenario involving two apprentices of Laplace's omniscient demon. We prove two theorems that are relevant to their claims, and conclude that both of these lines of argument fail. There is nothing out there that comes close to matching the charac. (shrink)