Online research in philosophy

This paper looks broadly at the theme of corporate governance in Mexico. It begins with a brief analysis of the historical corporate governance model in Mexico, including the governance structures, the banking and financial systems, ownership and control patterns, industrial policy, and industrial relations. The paper then examines how and why these various aspects of corporate governance have been changing with processes of economic liberalization currently under way. Finally, it analyzes the consequences of changes in the model of corporate governance (...) for the country's development (e.g. increased consumer goods for middle class consumers, increased disclosure by domestic corporations, less support for corporate social programs, etc.). (shrink)

Cardiology is characterized by its state-of-the-art biomedical technology and the predominance of Evidence-Based Medicine. This predominance makes it difficult for healthcare professionals to deal with the ethical dilemmas that emerge in this subspecialty. This paper is a first endeavor to empirically investigate the axiological foundations of the healthcare professionals in a cardiology hospital. Our pilot study selected, as the target population, cardiology personnel not only because of their difficult ethical deliberations but also because of the stringent conditions in which they (...) have to make them. Therefore, there is an urgent need to reconsider clinical ethics and Value-Based Medicine. This study proposes a qualitative analysis of the values and the virtues of healthcare professionals in a cardiology hospital in order to establish how the former impact upon the medical and ethical decisions made by the latter. (shrink)

Background: Waiving parent permission can be an option in some epidemiological and social research with adolescents. However, exemptions have not been uniformly considered or applied. Our aim is to critically assess the different factors that could be taken into account when making decisions about waiving active parental permission in observational research with adolescents.DiscussionIn some cases alternatives to parental permission could be applied to protect the rights of both adolescents and parents and also to assure the benefits to adolescents as a (...) group that can come from appropriately conducted studies. However, the criteria of ensuring minimal risk can be difficult to define and apply and a distinction between harm and discomfort is reviewed. Waiving active parental permission could be acceptable when the risk of harm is minimal; when the research questions are related to an activity for which adolescents are not legally considered to be children; when the risk of harm or discomfort may increase if parental permission is required; and when risk of discomfort is low because the questionnaire is not potentially offensive for some adolescents and/or for some parents.SummaryStringent rules concerning parental permission in some studies could be detrimental to adolescents. A framework and a decision tree guide are proposed to help researchers and Research Ethics Committees in their decisions on whether active parental permission must be obtained. (shrink)

In this paper I explore a positivist methodological tradition in early demand theory, as exemplified by several common traits that I draw from the works of V. Pareto, H. L. Moore and H. Schultz. Assuming a current approach to explanation in the social sciences, I will discuss the building of their various explanans, showing that the three authors agreed on two distinctive methodological features: the exclusion of any causal commitment to psychology when explaining individual choice and the mandate to test (...) the truth of demand theory on aggregate data by statistical means. However, I also contend, from an epistemological point of view, that the truth of demand theory was conceived of in three different ways by our authors. Inspired by Poincaré, Pareto assumed that many different theories could account for the same data on individual choice, coming close to a kind of conventionalism ? though I prefer to refer to this position as theoreticism. Moore was himself akin to Pearson's approach, which could be named descriptivist in so far as it resolved scientific laws into statistical descriptions of the data. Finally, Schultz tried to reconcile both approaches in an adequationist stance with no success, as we shall see. (shrink)

1. Cine y vanguardias : el cine como promesa estético-política desde Dziga Vertov y Jean Epstein -- 2. Deleuze y las potencias del cine : el acontecimiento de lo inorgánico -- 3. De la vida inorgánica a la vida histórica : recuperación del carácter narrativo del cine a partir de Jacques Ranciere.

A fines del siglo XIX y principios del XX un pedagogo mendocino C. N. Vergara (Mendoza, 1859-1929) hace experiencia en Buenos Aires, Argentina, de una república escolar animada por una política solidaria. Con este escrito pretendemos situar la experiencia para tensionar las nociones de república-institución educativa-política y solidaridad. Tomamos como pre-texto para acometer la cuestión, incidentes del siglo XXI. Algunos testimonios que dicen sobre la vida que circula hacia fuera y hacia dentro de las instituciones educativas. Incidentes que como ejercicios (...) de pensamiento nos dan qué pensar. La infancia literal de los primeros años de vida, la de Josefina y la de Milena, en los testimonios adultomorfos que se entregan a “experienciar” la posibilidad siempre abierta de la emergencia de un sujeto que eclipsa. Pero también de aquella infancia escolarizada a la que el devenir infante le ha sido intervenido institucionalmente. La institución educativa argentina, específicamente en la Escuela Normal Mixta de Mercedes se presenta en toda su potencia en la afirmación de un lugar en el filosofar y, para una filosofía movilizante y movilizadora que no permanezca dentro de los muros sino que los atraviese y se desborde en la calle en la renovación de los actores, de los actos y sus ejecuciones. (shrink)

Carlos Pereda califica mi concepción de la moral de realismo particularista y objeta a mi defensa tanto del realismo como del particularismo. En mi respuesta trato de mostrar cómo nuestras discrepancias en torno al papel de los principios en la deliberación moral es, excepto en un punto crucial, cuestión de énfasis. No ocurre lo mismo, sin embargo, con mi reivindicación del realismo moral, pues parte de lo que intento mostrar en el libro es que los programas constructivistas de los (...) que habla Pereda no pueden pensarse coherentemente. \\\ Carlos Pereda presents my view about morality as a sort of particularist realism and objects both to my defence of realism and that of particularism. In my reply, I argue that our discrepancies about the role of principies in moral deliberation is, except in a crucial respect, a matter of emphasis. Something quite different happens, however, with my vindication of moral realism. For part of what I try to show in my book is that constructivist programs like the one suggested by Pereda cannot be coherently thought. (shrink)

Some authors have speculated about the fact that if the law were connected to morality, then it would not be relevant, because morality would be enough to regulate social life. A study of this objection to the connection thesis will be outlined in this paper. In other words, the possible answers to the question about the practical difference that law gives to morality will be analyzed. The work of the Argentine philosopher Carlos Nino will be taken as the starting (...) point for this task. (shrink)

Se busca rastrear la imagen que Platón tiene de Heráclito y articularla con la estructura argumentativa del Cratilo, para comprender las necesidades textuales a las que responde la doctrina del flujo perpetuo, es decir, la discusión sobre la corrección (ὀρθότης) del nombre. Gracias a la inclusión del testimonio heraclíteo, resulta posible rastrear la presunta consolidación de la tesis sobre los nombres primarios y los secundarios como el eje de la separación entre dos planos de realidad (uno estable y uno móvil) (...) y de la teoría de las Ideas -es decir, como la base de la epistemología platónica presente en los diálogos de madurez-. The article seeks to trace the image Plato has of Heraclitus and connect it with the argumentative structure of the Cratylus in order to understand the textual needs that give rise to the doctrine of perpetual flux, that is, the discussion regarding the correctness (ὀρθότης) of names. The inclusion of Heraclitus's testimony makes it possible to trace the alleged consolidation of the thesis regarding primary and secondary names as the axis of separation between two levels of reality (one stable, the other, changing) and the theory of Ideas -that is, as the basis of Plato's epistemology as set forth in the late dialogues-. (shrink)

Traduçáo. texto Normal 0 21 false false false MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Tabela normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0cm; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-ansi-language:#0400; mso-fareast-language:#0400; mso-bidi-language:#0400;} retirado de Carlos E. Caorsi (Ed.). Ensayos sobre Strawson . Universidad de la República/Faculdad de Humanidades y Ciencias de la Educación, Montevidéo,1992, p. 55-71.

I consider some themes and issues arising in recent work on moral responsibility, focusing on three recent books —Carlos Moya's Moral Responsibility, Al Mele's Free Will and Luck, and John Martin Fischer's My Way. I argue that these texts collectively suggest some difficulties with the way in which many issues are currently framed in the free will debates, including disputes about what constitutes compatibilism and incompatibilism and the relevance of intuitions and ordinary language for describing the metaphysics of free (...) will and moral responsibility. I also argue that each of the accounts raise more particular puzzles: it is unclear to what extent Moya’s account is properly an account of free will; Mele’s account raises questions about the significance of luck for compatibilist theories; and Fischer’s account of the value of responsibility as self-expression raises questions about the normative significance of moral responsibility. (shrink)

Don Juan said that my body was disappearing and only my head was going to remain, and in such a condition the only way to stay awake and move around was by becoming a crow ... He ordered me to straighten up my head and put it on my chin. He said that in the chin were the crow's legs. He commanded me to feel the legs and observe that they were coming out slowly. He then said ... that the (...) tail would come out of my neck. He ordered me to extend the tail like a fan, and to feel how it swept the floor ...I had no difficulty whatsoever eliciting the corresponding sensations to each one of his commands. I had the perception of growing bird's legs, which were weak and wobbly at first. I felt the tail coming out of the back of my neck and wings out of my cheekbones. . (shrink)

Taking for granted that Marx’s economic theory enjoys a scientific status and, furthermore, that it installed a real Copernican revolution in sociology, the present paper explores the possibility of deriving a system of law deserving the name of “scientific” in so far as it would be in keeping with the theses of the latter scientific theory. In this context, the paper argues against a claim recently sustained by Fernández Liria and Alegre Zahonero, for whom a system of right compatible with (...) Marx’s theory would be compatible, too, with the classic juridical formulations conceived during the Enlightenment. The main reason why this paper testifies against such compatibility is that the enlightened concepts of “equality”, “liberty” and “autonomy” count with the individual as the realm for their juridical application. However, Marx’s subject matter being the social means of production (and not the individuals’ production of value), we conclude that the only juridical subject that could justifiably be derived from his economic investigation would be the “social class”. Finally, the paper suggests that the only way a scientific system of law could grant a juridical status to the individual would be by taking into account the other theory that also installed a Copernican revolution in the social sciences, though this time in the field of psychology: Freud’s psychoanalysis. Key words: Copernican revolution, science, scientific. (shrink)

This paper presents an outline of Carlos Vaz Ferreira's moderate anti-intellectualism, paying special attention to the relations between science and philosophy as complementary aspects of human knowledge. Explicitly opposing William James's radical anti-intellectualism, and thus apparently anti-Pragmatist, Vaz is in fact very close to the central ideas of Pragmatism. A defense of reason as a valuable help for penetrating into reality, combined with the recognition of extra-rational elements that contribute to human apprehension of reality, results in a position that (...) can be characterized by its anti-rationalism, fallibilism and pluralism. (shrink)

We are strongly inclined to believe in moral responsibility, that some human agents truly deserve moral praise or blame for some of their actions. However, recent philosophical discussion has put this natural belief in the reality of moral responsibility under suspicion. There are important reasons to think that moral responsibility is incompatible with both determinism and indeterminism, possibly rendering moral responsibility an impossibility. This book lays out the major arguments for skepticism about moral responsibility and subjects them to sustained and (...) penetrating critical analysis. Moral Responsibility lays out the intricate dialectic involved in these issues in a helpful and accessible way. The book goes on to suggest a way in which skepticism can be avoided, arguing that an excessive pre-eminence given to the will might lie at the root of skepticism of moral responsibility. Carlos Moya offers an alternative to skepticism, showing how a cognitive approach to moral responsibility which stresses the importance of belief would rescue our natural and centrally important faith in the reality of moral responsibility. (shrink)

“Epistemic Dexterity: A Ramseyian Account of Epistemic Virtue” by Abrol Fairweather & Carlos Montemayor: A modification of F.P. Ramsey’s (1927) success semantics supports a naturalized theory of epistemic virtue that includes motivational components (desires) and can potentially explain both epistemic reliability and responsibility with a single normative-explanatory principle. An “epistemic Ramsey success” will also provide a better account of the “because of” condition central to virtue-reliabilist accounts of knowledge from Greco, Sosa and Pritchard. Ramsey said that the truth condition (...) of a belief is the condition that guarantees the success of desires based on that belief. Taken as a theory of epistemic achievements, the truth condition for the attribution of an epistemic achievement is the condition that guarantees the success of epistemic desires and is also a success based on abilities attributable to the agent. One of its major advantages is that it may be the best way to achieve a naturalistic version of the etiologcal requirement on knowledge in virtue epistemology while also supporting important responsibilist desiderata. The account defended is robustly agent-centered in the straightforward sense that individual desires are partly constitutive of epistemic successes like having a rational belief, justified belief, and even of knowledge once we see the both the reliabilist and repsonsibilist desiderata are met. Another important aspect of the paper is that it provides a plausible psychology for virtue epistemology that is grounded in important empirical findings on agency, and thus constitutes a form of naturalized virtue epistemology. (shrink)

: American Trypanosomiasis, known as Chagas disease, was discovered in 1909 under peculiar circumstances: its discoverer, Carlos Chagas, was sent to a small village of Central Brazil to carry out an anti-malaria campaign when he came across a blood sucking insect--the vector for the parasite infection. He had been alerted to the coincidence of peculiar symptoms and the presence of this insect in the wood and earth dwellings of the region. He was deeply involved in theoretical controversies in international (...) protozoology; he was engaged in the consolidation of a scientific role and corresponding institutional conditions in Brazil, and equally immersed in the nationalist sanitary struggles of his days. In these contexts, Chagas assembled a remarkable discovery discourse, regarding the biology of the parasite, its life cycle and mode of transmission. Furthermore, he provided the clinical description of a new disease. Despite immediate international recognition, however, the unstable institutional arrangements surrounding his work damaged its local legitimacy for decades. His authority was widely recognized abroad, but rejected at home. (shrink)

DISSERTAÇÃO DE MESTRADO ITABORAHY, Luiz Carlos. O horizonte da juventude na educação e pastoral populares : história, diálogo e configuração de Medellín a Puebla (1968-1979). 2012. 207 folhas. Dissertação (Mestrado) – Pontifícia Universidade Católica de Minas Gerais, Programa de Pós-graduação em Ciências da Religião, Belo Horizonte.

La historia personal y profesional de Carlos París discurre al hilo de la convulsa historia de España del último medio siglo, y la narra con una honestidad de la que muy pocos pueden hacer gala. Así, sin ira y sin tapujos, describe, por ejemplo, cómo pasó de una adhesión inicial a presupuestos falangistas a ser candidato del PCE, valorando cada etapa y cada motivo de cambio con un gran sentido crítico. Por su pluma desfilan también personajes fundamentales en la (...) vida española de los últimos cincuenta años con quienes Carlos París ha tenido una sólida relación, como Manuel Fraga, Javier Solana, Manuel Castells, Rosa Regàs, Ricardo de la Cierva, José Antonio Maravall, José María Valverde, Nicolás Sartorius y un largo etcétera. De la lectura de estas memorias se desprende, en fin, el retrato de una gran figura intelectual y humana que jamás se ha limitado a ser convidado de piedra ni en su país ni en el tiempo que le ha tocado vivir.Carlos París (Bilbao, 1925) es Catedrático Emérito de la Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, en la que fundó su Departamento de filosofía y de cuya Facultad de Filosofía y Letras fue elegido decano en las primeras elecciones. Es Doctor Honoris Causa por la Universidad de Valencia y ha sido Presidente de la Sociedad Española de Filosofía y del Ateneo Científico, Literario y Artístico de Madrid. Su obra ha sido objeto de diversos estudios y congresos internacionales, y recientemente se ha creado un Foro dedicado al análisis y difusión de su pensamiento. Hay que destacar, sobre todo, sus ensayos: Física y filosofía, 1952; Crítica de la civilización nuclear, 1985 o Fantasía y razón moderna-Don Quijote, Odiseo y Fausto, 2001, entre muchos otros; y también sus obras de creación literaria: la novela Bajo constelaciones burlonas (1981) o el libro de relatos La machina speculatrix-Cuatro sarcasmos sobre el mundo actual (1989). (shrink)

La vida entera de muchos ensayistas transcurre sin dar jamás con un tema. Este ensayo no sólo se topa con un tema, sino que incluso se da el lujo de aprovecharlo. El tema es la felicidad. Sin embargo, La herida de Spinoza es un libro de ?losofía, no de autoayuda. Parte de algunas conclusiones recientes de la neurología, en particular de las investigaciones de Antonio Damasio acerca de la impertinencia de la secular división entre mente y cuerpo. El propio Damasio (...) vincula sus investigaciones con las ideas que Spinoza expuso en su Ética. Para Damasio, la tranquila aceptación de la muerte, una de las señas de identidad de la ética de Spinoza –de hecho, la «herida» de Spinoza–, resulta «irritante». Ese comentario de Damasio parece inocuo, pero para Vicente Serrano no lo es, sino que apunta a una especie de «desajuste», a una extraña incomprensión de la diferencia última de la ética spinozista. A partir de ahí el autor no se propone criticar solamente esa y otras lecturas de Spinoza, sino que plantea además una amplia crítica a la modernidad, y también a la posmodernidad. La herida de Spinoza se convierte entonces en una revisión de la historia entera de la ?losofía en esa zona en que ética y metafísica (u ontología) se superponen. Aunque el proyecto parece apabullante, el autor se asegura de estar bien equipado. Por una parte suprime el aparato académico, lo que le permite ser más breve y directo, y por otra echa mano de una erudición notable y, sobre todo, de una capacidad absolutamente inusual de explicación. Si hubiera que buscar parangones a esa capacidad, no quedaría más remedio que acudir a Rüdiger Safranski. El autor, sin embargo, no hace biografías, ni siquiera historia de la ?losofía como tal, sino que intenta ?losofar de la mano de los más grandes pensadores de la historia. El ensayo se completa con la inclusión de una pieza maestra: los afectos. Los afectos serían la respuesta posible de la ?losofía al problema de la biopolítica. La progresión de la modernidad no sólo implica la desaparición de la naturaleza, sino la sustitución absoluta de los afectos por la voluntad (de voluntad). Si la vuelta a la naturaleza es imposible, e incluso indeseable –dado que la naturaleza no fue nunca más que una metáfora–, Serrano se inspira en Foucault para proponer una «vuelta» a los afectos como la pieza fundamental que cierra la reflexión sobre el poder. «Un ensayo en el sentido más ágil del término, obra a mitad de camino entre lo reflexivo y lo literario… Bien pensado y bien escrito, muchísimo más de lo que se ha vuelto habitual en nosotros» (Gabriel Albiac, Leer). «La cuestión de fondo teórica –a qué responde la religión y qué problemas de comprensión existencial atiende o atendía– es algo mucho más complejo y creo que más apasionante. Un buen tratamiento filosófico de la cuestión es el que ofrece Vicente Serrano en La herida de Spinoza, reciente ganador del Premio Anagrama de Ensayo… Serrano explora las consecuencias posmodernas del abandono de las religiones: un tema más sugestivo que la refutación de las iglesias...» (Fernando Savater, El País). «Iniciado como un arroyo para abrirse en un delta que abarca toda la modernidad filosófica, la obra de Serrano analiza, sin pedantería ni falsas oscuridades, las inflexiones que han tenido los conceptos de religión, deseo, naturaleza, esperanza, progreso, poder y felicidad» (Juan Malpartida, ABC). «Entre quienes lo lean sumará cientos de fascinados. Ojalá miles» (Félix Soria, La Voz de Galicia). «La vida entera de muchos ensayistas transcurre sin dar jamás con un tema. Este ensayo no sólo se topa con un tema, sino que incluso se da el lujo de aprovecharlo. El tema es la felicidad… Plantea una amplia crítica a la modernidad, y también a la posmodernidad. La herida de Spinoza se convierte entonces en una revisión de la historia entera de la filosofía en esa zona en que ética y metafísica (u ontología) se superponen» (Diario de León). (shrink)

I never met Gian-Carlo Rota but I have often made references to his writings on the philosophy of mathematics, sometimes agreeing, sometimes disagreeing. In this paper I will discuss his views concerning four questions: the existence of mathematical objects, definition in mathematics, the notion of proof, the relation of philosophy of mathematics to mathematics.

In the 1960s molecular population geneticists used Monte Carlo experiments to evaluate particular diffusion equation models. In this paper I examine the nature of this comparative evaluation and argue for three claims: first, Monte Carlo experiments are genuine experiments: second, Monte Carlo experiments can provide an important meansfor evaluating the adequacy of highly idealized theoretical models; and, third, the evaluation of the computational adequacy of a diffusion model with Monte Carlo experiments is significantlydifferent from the evaluation of the emperical adequacy (...) of the same diffusion model. (shrink)

The article is the consequence of some critical notes to the contribution of Paolo Bellan, arising from reading of essays of Francesco Emmolo and Carlo Sini and the assumption of a purely phenomenological perspective in the interpretation of the processes of acquisition of scientific knowledge.

This paper reviews and enhances numerical models for determining thermal, elastic and electrical properties of carbon nanotube-reinforced polymer composites. For the determination of the effective stress–strain curve and thermal conductivity of the composite material, finite-element analysis (FEA), in conjunction with the embedded fibre method (EFM), is used. Variable nanotube geometry, alignment and waviness are taken into account. First, a random morphology of a user-defined volume fraction of nanotubes is generated, and their properties are incorporated into the polymer matrix using the (...) EFM. Next, incremental and iterative FEA approaches are used for the determination of the nonlinear properties of the nanocomposite. For the determination of the electrical properties, a spanning network identification algorithm is used. First, a realistic nanotube morphology is generated from input parameters defined by the user. The spanning network algorithm then determines the connectivity between nanotubes in a representative volume element. Then, interconnected nanotube networks are converted to equivalent resistor circuits. Finally, Kirchhoff's current law is used in conjunction with FEA to solve for the voltages and currents in the system and thus calculate the effective electrical conductivity of the nanocomposite. The model accounts for electrical transport mechanisms such as electron hopping and simultaneously calculates percolation probability, identifies the backbone and determines the effective conductivity. Monte Carlo analysis of 500 random microstructures is performed to capture the stochastic nature of the fibre generation and to derive statistically reliable results. The models are validated by comparison with various experimental datasets reported in the recent literature. (shrink)

The essay examines both the dances and the dance notation of renowned nineteenth century choreographer Carlo Blasis. It looks in detail at Blasis major treatise The Code of Terpsichore in an effort to evaluate how Blasis linked a science of movement to a conception of the body oriented around the prevailing aesthetics informing all of the fine arts. Identifying Blasis as both a philosopher and a mechanist, this essay analyzes his approach to teaching basic ballet vocabulary, and in particular the (...) arabesque. Whereas Kleist, with his Marionettentheater, proposes the puppet as a figure of grace, located somewhere between animal and doll, Blasis brings together the movement science of mechanics and the descriptive theory of grace (as mimesis) in a poetics of the arabesque, a synthesis of elevation and evanescence, which we see when we conjure up pictures of nineteenth century Romantic ballet. (shrink)

Exploring how people represent natural categories is a key step toward developing a better understanding of how people learn, form memories, and make decisions. Much research on categorization has focused on artificial categories that are created in the laboratory, since studying natural categories defined on high-dimensional stimuli such as images is methodologically challenging. Recent work has produced methods for identifying these representations from observed behavior, such as reverse correlation (RC). We compare RC against an alternative method for inferring the structure (...) of natural categories called Markov chain Monte Carlo with People (MCMCP). Based on an algorithm used in computer science and statistics, MCMCP provides a way to sample from the set of stimuli associated with a natural category. We apply MCMCP and RC to the problem of recovering natural categories that correspond to two kinds of facial affect (happy and sad) from realistic images of faces. Our results show that MCMCP requires fewer trials to obtain a higher quality estimate of people’s mental representations of these two categories. (shrink)

This paper extends earlier work by its authors on formal aspects of the processes of contracting a theory to eliminate a proposition and revising a theory to introduce a proposition. In the course of the earlier work, Gardenfors developed general postulates of a more or less equational nature for such processes, whilst Alchourron and Makinson studied the particular case of contraction functions that are maximal, in the sense of yielding a maximal subset of the theory (or alternatively, of one of (...) its axiomatic bases), that fails to imply the proposition being eliminated. In the present paper, the authors study a broader class, including contraction functions that may be less than maximal. Specifically, they investigate "partial meet contraction functions", which are defined to yield the intersection of some nonempty family of maximal subsets of the theory that fail to imply the proposition being eliminated. Basic properties of these functions are established: it is shown in particular that they satisfy the Gardenfors postulates, and moreover that they are sufficiently general to provide a representation theorem for those postulates. Some special classes of partial meet contraction functions, notably those that are "relational" and "transitively relational", are studied in detail, and their connections with certain "supplementary postulates" of Gardenfors investigated, with a further representation theorem established. (shrink)

The received view of dynamical explanation is that dynamical cognitive science seeks to provide covering law explanations of cognitive phenomena. By analyzing three prominent examples of dynamicist research, I show that the received view is misleading: some dynamical explanations are mechanistic explanations, and in this way resemble computational and connectionist explanations. Interestingly, these dynamical explanations invoke the mathematical framework of dynamical systems theory to describe mechanisms far more complex and distributed than the ones typically considered by philosophers. Therefore, contemporary dynamicist (...) research reveals the need for a more sophisticated account of mechanistic explanation. (shrink)

The science of complexity is based on a new way of thinking that stands in sharp contrast to the philosophy underlying Newtonian science, which is based on reductionism, determinism, and objective knowledge. This paper reviews the historical development of this new world view, focusing on its philosophical foundations. Determinism was challenged by quantum mechanics and chaos theory. Systems theory replaced reductionism by a scientifically based holism. Cybernetics and postmodern social science showed that knowledge is intrinsically subjective. These developments are being (...) integrated under the header of “complexity science”. Its central paradigm is the multi-agent system. Agents are intrinsically subjective and uncertain about their environment and future, but out of their local interactions, a global organization emerges. Although different philosophers, and in particular the postmodernists, have voiced similar ideas, the paradigm of complexity still needs to be fully assimilated by philosophy. This will throw a new light on old philosophical issues such as relativism, ethics and the role of the subject. (shrink)

The purpose of the paper is to present a logical framework that allow to formalize a kind of prima facie duties, defeasible conditional duties, indefeasible conditional duties and actual (indefeasible) duties, as well as to show their logical interconnections.

We would like to thank all the commentators who responded to our target review paper for their thought-provoking ideas and for their initially positive characterization of our theorizing. Our position provoked a broad range of reactions, from enthusiastic support to some kind of opposition. Regardless of the type of the response, one common factor appears to be the plausibility of a presented attempt to apply insights from physics, biology (neuroscience), and phenomenology of mind to form a unified theoretical framework of (...) Operational Architectonics of brain-mind functioning. (shrink)

Elsewhere, I proposed a libertarian-based account of freedom and moral blameworthiness which like Harry Frankfurt's 1969 account rejects the principle of alternative possibilities (which I call, Frankfurt-friendly libertarianism). In this paper I develop this account further (a) by responding to an important objection to it raised by Carlos Moya; (b) by exploring the question why, if unavoidability per se does not exonerate from blame, the Frankfurt-friendly libertarian is justified in exculpating an agent under determinism; (c) by arguing that some (...) main compatibilist alternatives to the account are unsatisfactory; and finally (d) by defending it against a general criticism of certain libertarian theories made by Derk Pereboom. (shrink)

Maimon once described the philosophical project underlying his Essay on Transcendental Philosophy as an attempt “to unify Kantian philosophy with Spinozism ”. But in the only reference to Spinoza in the Essay , he stresses that Spinoza was not the source of his argument. In this paper I will argue that, notwithstanding the disclaimer, Maimon's solution for the problems that in his view haunted Kant's theory of knowledge was indeed significantly influenced by Spinoza, as well as by the medieval Jewish (...) Aristotelian Maimonides. Since the key concept in the solution proposed by Maimon is the metaphysical doctrine of the “infinite intellect”, my focus will be on clarifying how this doctrine is related to Maimonides' doctrine of the divine intellect and to Spinoza's doctrine of Deus sive Natura . My main contention is that important aspects of Maimon's doctrine of the “infinite intellect” are based on a Spinozistic interpretation of Maimonides' doctrine of the divine intellect. (shrink)

: In this paper I explain how Spinoza's ontological monism is related to the monotheism of a distinct tradition in medieval Aristotelianism exemplified by Maimonides. My main contention is that Maimonides' God, conceived as intellectual activity has the same structure as Spinoza's Deus sive Natura. The main difference between them is that Maimonides' God is confined to cognitive activity, whereas Spinoza's God is extensive activity as well. I trace the impact of the medieval doctrine of God on Spinoza's thought from (...) the Cogitata Metaphysica to the Ethics, establishing conceptual parallels, literary links, and an explanation of the steps leading from the former to the latter. (shrink)

In our contribution we will observe phenomenal architecture of a mind and operational architectonics of the brain and will show their intimate connectedness within a single integrated metastable continuum. The notion of operation of different complexity is the fundamental and central one in bridging the gap between brain and mind: it is precisely by means of this notion that it is possible to identify what at the same time belongs to the phenomenal conscious level and to the neurophysiological level of (...) brain activity organization, and what mediates between them. Implications for linguistic semantics, self-organized distributed computing algorithms, artificial machine consciousness, and diagnosis of dynamic brain diseases will be discussed briefly. (shrink)

I have presented a Frankfurt-style argument (Pereboom 2000, 2001, 2003) against the requirement of robust alternative possibilities for moral responsibility that features an example, Tax Evasion , in which an agent is intuitively morally responsible for a decision, has no robust alternative possibilities, and is clearly not causally determined to make the decision. Here I revise the criterion for robustness in response to suggestions by Dana Nelkin, Jonathan Vance, and Kevin Timpe, and I respond to objections to the argument by (...) Carlos Moya and David Widerker, in the process of which I refine the Tax Evasion example. (shrink)

Why does art matter to us, and what makes good art? Why is the role of imagination so important in art? Illustrated with carefully chosen color and black-and-white plates of examples from Michelangelo to Matisse and Poussin to Jackson Pollock, Revealing Art explores some of the most important questions we can ask about art. Matthew Kieran clearly but forcefully asks how art inspires us and disgusts us and whether artistic judgment is simply a matter of taste, and if art can (...) be immoral or obscene, should it be censored? He brings such abstract issues to life with fascinating discussions of individual paintings, photographs and sculptures, such as Michelangelo's Pietà, Andres Serrano's Piss Christ and Jackson Pollock's Summertime. He also suggests some answers to problems that any one in an art gallery or museum is likely to ask themselves: what is a beautiful work of art, and can art really reveal something true about our own nature? Revealing Art is ideal for anyone interested in debates about art today, or who has simply stood in front of a painting and felt baffled. (shrink)

This article elaborates on foundational issues in the social sciences and their impact on the contemporary theory of belief revision. Recent work in the foundations of economics has focused on the role external social norms play in choice. Amartya Sen has argued in [Sen93] that the traditional rationalizability approach used in the theory of rational choice has serious problems accommodating the role of social norms. Sen’s more recent work [Sen96, Sen97] proposes how one might represent social norms in the theory (...) of choice, and in a very recent article [BS07] Walter Bossert and Kotaro Suzumura develop Sen’s proposal, offering an extension of the classical theory of choice that is capable of dealing with social norms. The first part of this article offers an alternative functional characterization of the extended notion of rationality employed by Bossert and Suzumura in [BS07]. This characterization, unlike the one offered in [BS07], represents a norm-sensitive notion of rationality in terms of a pure functional constraint unmediated by a notion of revealed preference (something that is crucial for the application developed in the second part of this article). This functional characterization is formulated for general domains (as is Bossert and Suzumura’s characterization) and is therefore empirically more applicable than usual characterizations of rationality. Interestingly, the functional constraint we propose is a variant of a condition first entertained in [AGM85] by Carlos Alchourr´on, Peter Gärdenfors and David Makinson in the area of belief change. (shrink)

Education stands at the intersection of Noam Chomsky's two lives as scholar and social critic: As a linguist he is keenly interested in how children acquire language, and as a political activist he views the education system as an important lever of social change. Chomsky on Democracy and Education gathers for the first time his impressive range of writings on these subjects, some previously unpublished and not readily available to the general public. Raised in a progressive school where his father (...) was principal, Chomsky outlines a philosophy of education steeped in the liberal tradition of John Dewey, more concerned with cultivating responsible citizens than feeding children facts. The goal of education, Chomsky argues, is to produce free human beings whose values are not accumulation and domination, but rather free association on terms of equality. Spanning issues of language, power, policy and method, this collection includes seminal theoretical works like Language and Freedom , a social analysis of the role of schools and universities in the American polity, and specific critiques of language instruction in America's classrooms today, along with new interviews conducted by Carlos Otero that serve to encapsulate Chomsky's views. Engaging and incisive, Chomsky on Democracy and Education makes accessible the key insights that have earned Chomsky such a committed following. (shrink)

: "We are invisible": this melancholic assertion alludes to the "non-place" that we occupy as Latin American philosophers or, in general, as philosophers in the Spanish or Portuguese languages. We tend to survive as mere ghosts teaching courses and writing texts, perhaps some memorable ones, which, however, seldom spark anybody's interest, among other reasons, because almost no one takes the time to read them. In saying this, I do not mean to call upon a useless pathos, nor do I mean (...) to complain, or thrust forth a challenge. I am simply confirming a fact, and a widely acknowledged one at that. I wish to inquire a little into this invisibility. Later I will look into how the experience of our much acclaimed essay may help in fighting it. (shrink)

Concepts of space and time are widely developed in physics. However, there is a considerable lack of biologically plausible theoretical frameworks that can demonstrate how space and time dimensions are implemented in the activity of the most complex life-system – the brain with a mind. Brain activity is organized both temporally and spatially, thus representing space-time in the brain. Critical analysis of recent research on the space-time organization of the brain’s activity pointed to the existence of so-called operational space-time in (...) the brain. This space-time is limited to the execution of brain operations of differing complexity. During each such brain operation a particular short-term spatio-temporal pattern of integrated activity of different brain areas emerges within related operational space-time. At the same time, to have a fully functional human brain one needs to have a subjective mental experience. Current research on the subjective mental experience offers detailed analysis of space-time organization of the mind. According to this research, subjective mental experience (subjective virtual world) has definitive spatial and temporal properties similar to many physical phenomena. Based on systematic review of the propositions and tenets of brain and mind space-time descriptions, our aim in this review essay is to explore the relations between the two. To be precise, we would like to discuss the hypothesis that via the brain operational space-time the mind subjective space-time is connected to otherwise distant physical space-time reality. (shrink)

Carlo Rovelli's relational interpretation of quantum mechanics holds that a system's states or the values of its physical quantities as normally conceived only exist relative to a cut between a system and an observer or measuring instrument. Furthermore, on Rovelli's account, the appearance of determinate observations from pure quantum superpositions happens only relative to the interaction of the system and observer. Jeffrey Barrett ([1999]) has pointed out that certain relational interpretations suffer from what we might call the ‘determinacy problem', but (...) Barrett misclassifies Rovelli's interpretation by lumping it in with Mermin's view, as Rovelli's view is quite different and has resources to escape the particular criticisms that Barrett makes of Mermin's view. Rovelli's interpretation still leaves us with a paradox having to do with the determinacy of measurement outcomes, which can be accepted only if we are willing to give up on certain elements of the ‘absolute’ view of the world. (shrink)

David Widerker, long an opponent of Harry Frankfurt’s attack on the Principle of Alternative Possibilities (PAP), has recently come up with his own Frankfurt-style scenario which he claims might well be a counterexample to PAP. Carlos Moya has argued that this new scenario is not a counterexample to PAP, because in it the agent is not really blameworthy, since he lacks weak reasons-responsiveness (WRR), a property that John Fischer has argued is a necessary condition of practical rationality, and hence (...) of moral responsibility. I argue that in Widerker’s scenario the agent is indeed blameworthy, even though he lacks WRR; and that therefore this scenario is a counterexample not only to PAP, but also to Fischer’s claim that WRR is necessary for blameworthiness. (shrink)

In Joseph Butler, we have an account of human beings as moral beings that is, as this essay demonstrates, being supported by the recently emerging findings of the neurosciences. This applies particularly to Butler's portrayal of our empathic emotions. Butler discovered their moral significance for motivating and guiding moral decisions and actions before the neurosciences did. Butler has, in essence, added a sixth sense to our five senses: this is the moral sense by means of which we perceive what we (...) ought or ought not do. The moral sense yields relatively reliable moral perceptions when we love our neighbors as ourselves, and when our love for ourselves is genuine. Accurate moral perceptions will be thwarted by self-deceit—that is, by a self-partiality devoid of neighbor love, a condition that thwarts genuine self-love. This essay explores the parallels between Butler's understanding of self-deceit and Robert J. Lifton's understanding of "doubling.". (shrink)

Instead of using low-level neurophysiology mimicking and exploratory programming methods commonly used in the machine consciousness field, the hierarchical Operational Architectonics (OA) framework of brain and mind functioning proposes an alternative conceptual-theoretical framework as a new direction in the area of model-driven machine (robot) consciousness engineering. The unified brain-mind theoretical OA model explicitly captures (though in an informal way) the basic essence of brain functional architecture, which indeed constitutes a theory of consciousness. The OA describes the neurophysiological basis of the (...) phenomenal level of brain organization. In this context the problem of producing man-made “machine” consciousness and “artificial” thought is a matter of duplicating all levels of the operational architectonics hierarchy (with its inherent rules and mechanisms) found in the brain electromagnetic field. We hope that the conceptual-theoretical framework described in this paper will stimulate the interest of mathematicians and/or computer scientists to abstract and formalize principles of hierarchy of brain operations which are the building blocks for phenomenal consciousness and thought. (shrink)