In philosophy, as in any other theoretical endeavor, it is not rare to find conflicting but equally well grounded positions. Besides defending one of the positions and criticizing the other, philosophers can opt for pursuing other, more sophisticated, approaches aimed at incorporating the insights, intuitions, and arguments from both sides of the debate into a unified theory: Dialetheism, Analetheism, Gradualism, Pluralism and Relativism. The purpose of this article is to present each strategy's basic argumentative structure, relative strengths, and challenges, trying (...) to determine in which situations one is more appropriate than the others. Despite substantial differences between them, all four options have deep structural similarities; and which option is better for which dilemma or paradox will depend ultimately on a combination of epistemological, linguistic, and metaphysical factors. (shrink)

La falibilidad es una condición ubicua de nuestras empresas, la cual emana del hecho de que, comúnmente, las cosas que más nos interesan, como el descubrir la verdad, referirnos a cosas que de hecho existen, evitar dañar a los otros, etc., escapan nuestro alcance y, sin embargo, no dejamos de hacer grandes esfuerzos para conseguirlas. Es posible que hagamos todo lo que está en nuestras manos para actuar de manera cuidadosa y responsable y aun así nuestros actos tengan consecuencias negativas; (...) e igualmente es posible que nuestros actos tengan consecuencias positivas sin que podamos cobrar crédito por ellas como un logro. En este volumen, el autor se propone no solo explicar qué caracteriza a los casos de buena y mala suerte, sino también por qué valoramos más un logro que podemos atribuir al esfuerzo propio que el obtener lo que deseamos de manera accidental. (shrink)

The similarities between the philosophical debates surrounding assessment sensitivity and moral luck run so deep that one can easily adapt almost any argument from one debate, change some terms, adapt the examples, and end up with an argument relevant to the other. This article takes Brian Rosebury's strategy for resisting moral luck in “Moral Responsibility and ‘Moral Luck' ” (1995) and turns it into a strategy for resisting assessment sensitivity. The article shows that one of Bernard Williams's examples motivating moral (...) luck is very similar to one of the examples John MacFarlane uses to motivate the assessment sensitivity of epistemic modals, and in particular the assessment sensitivity of the auxiliary verb “might.” This means that, if Rosebury is right and we do not actually need moral luck to explain Williams's example, we may not need assessment sensitivity to account for the semantic behaviour of the epistemic modal verb “might” either. (shrink)

Using conjunction as an example, I show a technical and philosophical problem when trying to conciliate the currently prevailing views on the meaning of logical connectives: the inferientialist (also called 'syntactic') one based on introduction and elimination rules, and the representationalist (also called 'semantic') one given through truth tables. Mostly I show that the widespread strategy of using the truth theoretical definition of logical consequence to collapse both definitions must be rejected by inferentialists. An important consequence of my argument is (...) that there are different notions of conjunction at play in standard first order logic, and that the technical and philosophical connections between them are far from well established. (shrink)

This dissertation looks to make sense of the role 'grammar' plays in Wittgenstein's philosophy of mathematics during the middle period of his career. It constructs a formal model of Wittgenstein's notion of grammar as expressed in his writings of the early thirties, addresses the appropriateness of that model and then employs it to test Wittgenstein's claim that mathematical propositions are ultimately grammatical. ;In order to test Wittgenstein's claim that mathematical propositions are grammatical, the dissertation provides a formalized theory of grammatical (...) analysis and applies it to a portion of language big enough to contain numerical expressions. It attempts to prove that, if the object language contains the appropriate numerical expressions, the resulting grammar will include at least some rules with a natural mathematical interpretation. In particular, it tries to show that Wittgenstein's grammatical analysis of the ordinary use of numerical expressions yields familiar theorems of arithmetic. ;The dissertation also endeavors to extend these results to a coherent picture of Wittgenstein's peculiar view of mathematics as grammar. It fits the formal results into the larger picture of Wittgenstein's philosophy of mathematics during this period. A large portion of the dissertation explains how, by combining the notions of grammar and mathematics, Wittgenstein allowed himself to offer original answers to some central questions in the philosophy of mathematics. In this regard, the dissertation pays special attention to four main issues: Wittgenstein's use of the term 'grammar' in his philosophical writings of this period, in comparison with traditional understandings of 'grammar', mathematics as part of the syntax of language, his explanation of mathematical application, and Wittgenstein's account of mathematical necessity. Taking these points in consideration situates the dissertation's results in the larger philosophical discussion of these themes. (shrink)

Para concretar el proyecto naturalista de Penelope Maddy, sería necesario, pues, contar con un criterio que nos permita decidir cuándo la argumentación es en favor o en contra de revisar los criterios de existencia y justificación en matemáticas es ella misma matemática y cuando es más bien filosófica o metafísica. Esto pone a Maddy en una posición particularmente difícil. Por un lado, quiere que la matemática sea considerada tan científica como para merecer el mismo tipo de autonomía epistémica, pero no (...) tan científica como para requerir el mismo tipo de justificación. Esto la hace blanco de críticas tanto de parte de naturalistas (quienes criticarían la autonomía que le otorga a la matemática), como de positivistas (quienes cuestionarían el carácter científico de la matemática). (shrink)

In one of his recent articles published in this JOURNAL, Alvin J. Goldman argues that since one must counts epistemic rules among the factors that help to fix the justificational status of agents (generally called J-factors), not all J-factors are internalist i.e. intrinsic to the agent whose justificational status they help to fix. After all, for an epistemic rule to count as a genuine J-factor, it must be objectively correct, and therefore, “independent of any and all minds” (p.9). Consequently, it (...) cannot be intrinsic to any particular epistemic agent. In this brief commentary, I will argue that Goldman’s argument misunderstands what it takes for epistemic justification to be internalist and, therefore, fails to guarantee his externalist conclusion. In particular, I want to demonstrate that Goldman’s argument trivializes the difference between intrinsic and extrinsic properties that lays at the basis of the internalist/externalist debate. I will show that, if sound, simple variations on Goldman’s argument could be used to prove the absurd conclusion that all properties are extrinsic. Now, since the intrinsic/extrinsic distinction is fundamental for debates in several areas of philosophy, not only the internalist/externalist debate in epistemology, I conclude that Goldman’s argument cannot be sound. (shrink)

I can make no sense of a true, literal application of the notion of proper (nontemporal) components or parts to things that occupy no space. Others apparently can, and some construct elaborate theories of propositional structure… Perhaps I am blind to a possibility that other, cognitively better endowed philosophers see. From my unseeing perspective, though, it is more likely that the appearance of sight deceives.

En esta nota critico la teoría de la interpretación de Mota Pinto, arguyendo que predice significados donde intuitivamente no debería haberlos. De paso, critico su presentación de la perspectiva comunitarista del significado, distinguiendo entre dos tipos diferentes de hechos semánticos: el que una palabra signifique lo que significa en vez de significar otra cosa, y el que una expresión signifique lo que significa en vez de no significar nada. In this brief commentary, I argue that Mota Pinto's theory of interpretation (...) predicts meanings where there are none. I also criticize his presentation of the communal perspective on meaning, drawing a distinction between two different kinds of semantic facts: a word meaning what it does rather than meaning something else, and such word meaning what it does rather than not meaning anything at all. (shrink)

Stainton argues that since sub-sentential speech acts lack the proper syntactic structure to have logical form, it is not from them that subsententially propositions conveyed derive their logical form, in this brief comment, I develop an argument for the claim that sub-sentential speech acts not only do have the proper syntactic structure, but that according to Stainton's own general pragmatic account of sub-sentential speech, they also satisfy all the criteria put forward by him to be the primary bearers of logical (...) form. Stainton arguye que, dado que los actos de habla suboracionales carecen de la estructura sintáctica apropiada para tener forma lógica, las proposiciones comunicadas de manera suboracional no derivan su forma lógica de ellos. En este breve comentario desarrollo un argumento a favor de la tesis de que los actos de habla suboracionales, no sólo tienen la estructura sintáctica apropiada, sino que — de acuerdo con la propia teoría pragmática general de Stainton sobre el habla suboracional— también satisfacen todos los criterios mencionados por el propio Stainton para ser los portadores básicos de forma lógica. (shrink)

En un artículo reciente, García-Ramírez ha argumentado que el análisis contrafáctico de la causalidad de Lewis tiene la indeseable consecuencia de hacer posible la causalidad transmundana. En este artículo argumento que, contrario a lo que García-Ramírez sostiene, la causalidad transmundana no se deriva de la teoría de Lewis de la causalidad intramundana, ya que no se puede extender la relación de cercanía entre mundos de Lewis a pares de mundo de una manera que no sea trivial o ad hoc.

Using conjunction as an example, I show a technical and philosophical problem when trying to conciliate the currently prevailing views on the meaning of logical connectives: the inferientialist (also called 'syntactic') one based on introduction and elimination rules, and the representationalist (also called 'semantic') one given through truth tables. Mostly I show that the widespread strategy of using the truth theoretical definition of logical consequence to collapse both definitions must be rejected by inferentialists. An important consequence of my argument is (...) that there are different notions of conjunction at play in standard first order logic, and that the technical and philosophical connections between them are far from well established. (shrink)

En este ensayo exploramos una perspectiva epistemológica en la que el elemento social y colectivo del conocimiento juega un papel fundamental en la explicación de su producción y transmisión. Primero presentamos y criticamos una posición individualista que ha sido dominante en la epistemología contemporánea y cuyas raíces pueden trazarse, al menos, hasta Descartes. Posteriormente introducimos y defendemos nuestra propia mirada, una en la que el conocimiento es un proceso constituido por un conjunto de actividades y prácticas que tiene un carácter (...) material. (shrink)