On a widely held characterization, triadic joint attention is the capacity to perceptually attend to an object or event together with another subject. In the last four decades, research in developmental psychology has provided increasing evidence of the crucial role that this capacity plays in socio-cognitive development, early language acquisition, and the development of perspective-taking. Yet, there is a striking discrepancy between the general agreement that joint attention is critical in various domains, and the lack of theoretical consensus on how (...) to account for it. This paper pursues three interrelated aims: (i) it examines the contrast between reductive and non-reductive views of (triadic) joint attention, by bringing into focus the notion of recursive mindreading; (ii) it assembles, advances, and discusses a number of arguments against reductive views; (iii) finally, in dialogue with some prominent non-reductive views, it outlines the case for a non-reductive view that gives pride of place to the idea that co-attenders relate to one another as a ‘you’. (shrink)

The philosophy of perception has been mostly focused on vision, to the detriment of other modalities like audition or olfaction. In this paper I focus on olfaction and olfactory experience, and raise the following questions: is olfaction a perceptual-representational modality? If so, what does it represent? My goal in the paper is, firstly, to provide an affirmative answer to the first question, and secondly, to argue that olfaction represents odors in the form of olfactory objects, to which olfactory qualities are (...) attributed. In order to do this I develop an empirically adequate notion of olfactory object that is sensitive to the peculiarities of olfaction, and defend it against various objections. (shrink)

This volume has 41 chapters written to honor the 100th birthday of Mario Bunge. It celebrates the work of this influential Argentine/Canadian physicist and philosopher. Contributions show the value of Bunge’s science-informed philosophy and his systematic approach to philosophical problems. The chapters explore the exceptionally wide spectrum of Bunge’s contributions to: metaphysics, methodology and philosophy of science, philosophy of mathematics, philosophy of physics, philosophy of psychology, philosophy of social science, philosophy of biology, philosophy of technology, moral philosophy, social and political (...) philosophy, medical philosophy, and education. The contributors include scholars from 16 countries. Bunge combines ontological realism with epistemological fallibilism. He believes that science provides the best and most warranted knowledge of the natural and social world, and that such knowledge is the only sound basis for moral decision making and social and political reform. Bunge argues for the unity of knowledge. In his eyes, science and philosophy constitute a fruitful and necessary partnership. Readers will discover the wisdom of this approach and will gain insight into the utility of cross-disciplinary scholarship. This anthology will appeal to researchers, students, and teachers in philosophy of science, social science, and liberal education programmes. 1. Introduction Section I. An Academic Vocation Section II. Philosophy Section III. Physics and Philosophy of Physics Section IV. Cognitive Science and Philosophy of Mind Section V. Sociology and Social Theory Section VI. Ethics and Political Philosophy Section VII. Biology and Philosophy of Biology Section VIII. Mathematics Section IX. Education Section X. Varia Section XI. Bibliography. (shrink)

Replicability is widely taken to ground the epistemic authority of science. However, in recent years, important published findings in the social, behavioral, and biomedical sciences have failed to replicate, suggesting that these fields are facing a “replicability crisis.” For philosophers, the crisis should not be taken as bad news but as an opportunity to do work on several fronts, including conceptual analysis, history and philosophy of science, research ethics, and social epistemology. This article introduces philosophers to these discussions. First, I (...) discuss precedents and evidence for the crisis. Second, I discuss methodological, statistical, and social-structural factors that have contributed to the crisis. Third, I focus on the philosophical issues raised by the crisis. Finally, I discuss proposed solutions and highlight the gaps that philosophers could focus on. (shrink)

The reward system of science is the priority rule. The first scientist making a new discovery is rewarded with prestige, while second runners get little or nothing. Michael Strevens, following Philip Kitcher, defends this reward system, arguing that it incentivizes an efficient division of cognitive labor. I argue that this assessment depends on strong implicit assumptions about the replicability of findings. I question these assumptions on the basis of metascientific evidence and argue that the priority rule systematically discourages replication. My (...) analysis leads us to qualify Kitcher and Strevens’s contention that a priority-based reward system is normatively desirable for science. (shrink)

There are two ways to approach political representation. We can view each type of representation or each site of representation – namely a representative actor or institution – on an individual basis and study its internal dynamics. Alternatively, we can look at how different forms of representation and representative actors and institutions interact in a system of representation. In this article, I develop the second view. I make three contributions to the theory of representation from systemic thinking. Methodologically, I explain (...) the contours of a systemic approach to political representation. Descriptively, I propose a definition of a system of representation that captures representative pluralism, distribution of representative work and different levels of representation. Normatively, I set criteria for judging the system of representation and its individual components with systemic criteria. (shrink)

The experimental interventions that provide evidence of causal relations are notably similar to those that provide evidence of constitutive relevance relations. In the first two sections, I show that this similarity creates a tension: there is an inconsistent triad between Woodward’s popular interventionist theory of causation, Craver’s mutual manipulability account of constitutive relevance in mechanisms, and a variety of arguments for the incoherence of inter-level causation. I argue for an interpretation of the views in which the tension is merely apparent. (...) I propose to explain inter-level relations without inter-level causation by appealing to the notion of fat-handed interventions, and an argument against inter-level causation which dissolves the problem. (shrink)

Advocates of the self-corrective thesis argue that scientific method will refute false theories and find closer approximations to the truth in the long run. I discuss a contemporary interpretation of this thesis in terms of frequentist statistics in the context of the behavioral sciences. First, I identify experimental replications and systematic aggregation of evidence (meta-analysis) as the self-corrective mechanism. Then, I present a computer simulation study of scientific communities that implement this mechanism to argue that frequentist statistics may converge upon (...) a correct estimate or not depending on the social structure of the community that uses it. Based on this study, I argue that methodological explanations of the “replicability crisis” in psychology are limited and propose an alternative explanation in terms of biases. Finally, I conclude suggesting that scientific self-correction should be understood as an interaction effect between inference methods and social structures. (shrink)

Do we have control over the content of our imaginings? More precisely: do we have control over what our imaginings are about? Intentionalists say yes. Until recently, intentionalism could be taken as the received view. Recently, authors like Munro & Strohminger (2021) have developed some arguments against it. Here, I tentatively join their ranks and develop a new way to think about the way in which imaginings develop their contents that also goes against intentionalism. My proposal makes use of what (...) we may call a ballistic framework for mental dynamics, which I sketch to some length. In this model, imaginings are articulated by ballistic events sensitive to constraints that modify the trajectories that imaginings trace in a special working space. This framework leaves room for alternatives to pre-assigned-content models, such as Kung’s (2016). In the ballistic-based models sketched here, and against intentionalism, imaginings can fail to be about what we intend them to be about. The framework also has applications beyond the intentionalism debate, some of which I will sketch. (shrink)

In this paper, I give an overview of different models of understanding attribution and advance a contextualist account of understanding attribution. Whereas other contextualist accounts make the degree in which the epistemic states of the relevant agents satisfy certain invariant conditions context-sensitive, the proposed account makes the conditions themselves context-sensitive.

Recently, much attention has been given to Buddhism as a precursor to contemporary holistic theories, and more specifically to the Huayan school’s radical holistic metaphysics (often given the metaphorical name of The Net of Indra), as well as to Huayan’s most elaborate theoretician, Fazang. Nevertheless, contemporary interpretations of Fazang have been weighted by either too strict an adherence to atomistic logic or by unfortunate translations. In this paper, I present new translations of the key passages of Fazang’s The Rafter Dialogue, (...) as well as a philosophical commentary that his departure from atomism. I then proceed to argue that the six characteristics Fazang attributes to a whole that cannot be reduced to its parts are both sufficient and necessary for holism. (shrink)

One way to theorize about we-identities—the identities that individual subjects have as ‘one of us’—is in terms of the uniformity, interchangeability, and prototypicality of group members. The social-psychological theory of self-categorization epitomizes this approach, which has strongly influenced contemporary phenomenological research on the we. This paper argues that this approach has one important and largely overlooked limitation: the we-identities tied to close personal relationships—exemplified by long-term friendships and romantic partnerships—are based on patterns of interpersonal interaction and integration through which individuals (...) tend to grasp their non-substitutability and complementarity. This limitation suggests that another approach is needed to tackle the we-identities characteristic of close personal relationships. I outline such an approach, by combining resources from classical phenomenology and ongoing research on the socially extended mind. (shrink)

I argue that modal epistemology should pay more attention to questions about the structure and function of modal thought. We can treat these questions from synchronic and diachronic angles. From a synchronic perspective, I consider whether a general argument for the epistemic support of modal though can be made on the basis of modal thoughs’s indispensability for what Enoch and Schechter (2008) call rationally required epistemic projects. After formulating the argument, I defend it from various objections. I also examine the (...) possibility of considering the indispensability of modal thought in terms of its components. Finally, I argue that we also need to approach these issues from a diachronic perspective, and I sketch how to approach this task. (shrink)

This article investigates the relationship between for-me-ness and sociality. I start by pointing out some ambiguities in claims pursued by critics that have recently pressed on the relationship between the two notions. I next articulate a question concerning for-me-ness and sociality that builds on the idea that, occasionally at least, there is something it is like ‘for us’ to have an experience. This idea has been explored in recent literature on shared experiences and collective intentionality, and it gestures towards the (...) question of the extent to which some social interactions make a difference in the phenomenal character of their participants’ experiences. Finally, I present a construal of for-us-ness that complements the received understanding of for-me-ness, by drawing on Alfred Schutz’ concept of the we-relationship, and on the idea of second-personal awareness, i.e. awareness of a ‘you’. The current proposal provides a suitable account of some basic forms of phenomenally manifest social connectedness, in a way that is cognitively undemanding and without incurring the costs of a sui generis plural pre-reflective self-awareness. (shrink)

A key premise of the kalam cosmological argument is that the universe began to exist. However, while a number of philosophers have offered powerful criticisms of William Lane Craig’s defense of the premise, J.P. Moreland has also offered a number of unique arguments in support of it, and to date, little attention has been paid to these in the literature. In this paper, I attempt to go some way toward redressing this matter. In particular, I shall argue that Moreland’s philosophical (...) arguments against the possibility of traversing a beginningless past are unsuccessful. (shrink)

. Scientists, for the most part, want to get it right. However, the social structures that govern their work undermine that aim, and this leads to nonreplicable findings in many fields. Because the social structure of science is a decentralized system, it is difficult to intervene. In this article, I discuss how we might do so, focusing on self-corrective-labor schemes. First, I argue that we need to implement a scheme that makes replication work outcome independent, systematic, and sustainable. Second, I (...) use these three criteria to evaluate extant proposals, which place the responsibility for replication on original researchers, consumers of their research, students, or many labs. Third, on the basis of a philosophical analysis of the reward system of science and the benefits of the division of cognitive labor, I propose a scheme that satisfies the criteria better: the professional scheme. This scheme has two main components. First, the scientific community is organized into two groups: discovery researchers, who produce new findings, and confirmation researchers, whose primary function is to do confirmation work. Second, a distinct reward system is established for confirmation researchers so that their career advancement is separated from whether they obtain positive experimental results. (shrink)

A tese principal deste artigo é que se nos perguntarmos pela referência do conceito “alienação”, nos encontraremos na posição de ter que admitir que ela é ambígua. Faço uso do termo ambiguidade referencial para apontar duas fontes de ambiguidade: (i) pode se referir ao trabalho como objeto ou sujeito da alienação; (ii) pode designar ou não uma referência. Argumento a literatura marxista de apoio não explicitou essa ambiguidade, pois está presa no paradigma de uma “leitura genitivo-subjetiva”. Não se trata, porém, (...) de defender uma “leitura genitivo-objetiva”, mas mostrar que a sua plausibilidade ajuda a esclarecer que os textos do “jovem Marx” eram ambíguos. Para isso, procuro mostrar o que uma “leitura genitivo-objetiva” diria sobre três contextos específicos de uso de “alienação” e “estranhamento”: Manuscritos de 1844 (parte 1), A Sagrada Família e A Ideologia Alemã (parte 2). Busco também explicitar como essa leitura só faz sentido sob a pressuposição de um nominalismo semântico. (shrink)

The final chapter of Elgin’s defends the claim that some mistakes mark significant epistemic achievements. Here, I extend Elgin’s analysis of the informativeness of mistakes for epistemic policing. I also examine the type of theory of competence that Elgin’s view requires, and suggest some directions in which this can be taken.

Is there a distinction between social theory and sociology? Perhaps one of the most general features in sociological thinking is that it is an inquiry to develop holistic explanations for social reality. In this sense, there is a kind of universality of social knowledge in its scientific and philosophical dimensions, and is one of its main purposes for the operation of sociology as a "science of modernity". Next, I will develop a brief reconstruction of meaning which is attributed to science (...) in the modern world, followed by the emergence of an specialized explanation of social reality under the name of social theory, as a result of philosophical conclusions that finish it with Hegel on the one side, and it focuses on a differentiated scientific knowledge as a product of modernity itself, on the other hand. Finally, and following this, I will establish the specific role played by sociology and social theory in this context, by considering that the first describes itself as a science of society-modernity and the second has a critical direction to sociability answers and is specifically linked with political-normative approaches. ¿Existe una diferencia entre teoría social y sociología? ¿Se trata de aproximaciones diferentes a un mismo problema o de problemas con tradiciones diferentes que suelen confundirse? Probablemente el elemento que más caracteriza al pensar sociológico sea su búsqueda o pretensión por desarrollar explicaciones holísticas de la realidad. En este sentido la universalidad en el conocimiento sobre lo social en particular resulta uno de los temas de base para el operar de la sociología en tanto ciencia de la sociedad. A continuación y a través de la observación de pasajes específicos de la tradición inaugurada con Hegel, se desarrollará, por un lado, una breve reconstrucción del sentido que se le atribuye a la ciencia en el mundo moderno, seguido, por otro, de la emergencia de un saber especializado de la realidad social bajo el nombre de teoría social de una parte y sociología de otra. Siguiendo lo anterior, se establecerá el papel específico que juega la sociología y la teoría social, entendiendo que a la primera se le entrega el apelativo de ciencia de la sociedad-modernidad y a la segunda una orientación más marcada a las preguntas por la sociabilidad y específicamente vinculada a orientaciones político-normativas. (shrink)

Misremembering is a systematic and ordinary occurrence in our daily lives. Since it is commonly assumed that the function of memory is to remember the past, misremembering is typically thought to happen because our memory system malfunctions. In this paper I argue that not all cases of misremembering are due to failures in our memory system. In particular, I argue that many ordinary cases of misremembering should not be seen as instances of memory’s malfunction, but rather as the normal result (...) of a larger cognitive system that performs a different function, and for which remembering is just one operation. Building upon extant psychological and neuroscientific evidence, I offer a picture of memory as an integral part of a larger system that supports not only thinking of what was the case and what potentially could be the case, but also what could have been the case. More precisely, I claim that remembering is a particular operation of a cognitive system that permits the flexible recombination of different components of encoded traces into representations of possible past events that might or might not have occurred, in the service of constructing mental simulations of possible future events. So that imagination and memory are but one thing, which for diverse considerations hath diverse names.Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan 1.2. (shrink)

It’s constitutive of classical theism that there is a necessarily existent personal god who is also the creator of the universe, where the latter claim includes at least the following three theses: (i) God is wholly distinct from the natural world; (ii) God is the originating or sustaining cause of the natural world; and (iii) God created the natural world ex nihilo, i.e., without the use of pre-existing materials. Call this tripartite component of classical theism the classical view of creation. (...) In this paper, I offer a new argument against classical theism. In particular, I argue that creation ex nihilo is prima facie impossible, and that since the doctrine of creation ex nihilo is constitutive of classical theism, classical theism is false. (shrink)

Demonstrative thoughts are distinguished by the fact that their contents are determined relationally, via perception, rather than descriptively. Therefore, a fundamental task of a theory of demonstrative thought is to elucidate how facts about visual perception can explain how these thoughts come to have the contents that they do. The purpose of this paper is to investigate how cognitive psychology may help us solve this metasemantic question, through empirical models of visual processing. Although there is a dispute between attentional and (...) non-attentional models concerning the best metasemantic mechanism for demonstrative thoughts, in this paper I will argue in favor of a hybrid model, which combines both types of processes. In this picture, attentional and non-attentional mechanisms are not mutually exclusive, and each plays a specific role in determining the singular content of demonstrative thoughts. (shrink)

This paper makes a conceptual prescription: it argues that judges and lawyers should adopt a positivist concept of law, on normative grounds. The positivist view, I will argue, is more consistent with reasonable disagreement and majority rule than nonpositivist views, offers a better view of law’s moral standing, and is more consistent with what Dworkin called ‘integrity’ than non-positivism. As the paper explains, this is an argument about what I call the ‘operative’ concept of law. As such, the argument avoids (...) potential problems for conceptual prescription, and shows why even those who adopt non-positivist views about the nature of law might accept it. (shrink)

In this commentary I present five corollaries that follow the target article “How molecules became signs” by Terrence W. Deacon and also two outstanding questions the article rises. The corollaries revolve around the notion of interpretation as a form of thermodynamic work—specifically, non-expansion or “useful” work. This specific form of work, along with its path-dependent nature, may be critical for the fundamental understanding of semiotic processes, the subjective character of interpretation, and even the nature of viruses.

RESUMEN: El presente trabajo examina Anarquía, Estado y utopía de Robert Nozick a la luz de los mitos y ficciones sobre los cuales se construye. En este sentido, se sostendrá que es posible identificar dos mitos principales: el estado de naturaleza lockeano, cuyo principio se deja resumir en la máxima volenti non fit iniuria; y la meta-utopía libertaria, que se deja explicar como una aplicación de la teoría evolutiva de Hayek y de la epistemología de Popper a la construcción de (...) una utopía. Se sostendrá además que existe una continuidad entre ambos mitos y que dicha continuidad viene dada por una intuición moral que Nozick formula al principio de la obra y que sirve también de inspiración al mito libertario: que la vida solo puede tener sentido cuando se deja a cada persona vivir la suya del modo en que estime conveniente. Dicha intuición, se concluirá, se traduce en el campo de la política y del derecho en el principio de que cada persona es dueña de sí misma y que, por consiguiente, esta forma particular de propiedad constituye el secreto hilo conductor de toda la obra. ABSTRACT: This paper examines Robert Nozick's Anarchy, State, and Utopia in the light of the myths and fictions upon which it is built. I hold that it is possible to identify two main myths: the Lockean state of nature, whose principle can be summarized by the maxim volenti non fit injuria, and the libertarian meta-utopia, that can be explained as an application of Hayek evolutive theory and of Popper's epistemology in order to construct an utopia. I also claim that there is a continuity between both myths, and that this continuity is granted by a moral intuition that Nozick presents at the beginning of this work, and that also inspires the libertarian myth: that life can only have sense when each person is allowed to live her own in the way she deems convenient. I will conclude that this intuition finds an expression, in the field of politics and law, in the principle that each person owns herself and, hence, that this peculiar form of ownership is the secret thread of the whole book. (shrink)

This paper is focused on dismissive metaontological views about ontology. The paper's first section deals with radical dismissivism: a view which I interpret as Carnap's. The second section approaches moderate dismissivism: a view which I interpret as Hirsch's. My first claim is stated in section three: that there are significant differences between the mentioned authors. However, current literature on metaontology, not only does not emphasize such differences, but also insinuates that they do not exist. The authors I have in mind (...) here are Eklund and Bennett. In the fourth section, I compare Carnap's radical dismissivism with Hirsch's moderate dismissivism. My second claim is stated in section five: that Carnap's radical dismissivism is more persuasive than Hirsch's moderate one. (shrink)

O objetivo deste texto é analisar os argumentos de Jean-François Lyotard a respeito do filosofar enquanto transformação na obra intitulada Por que filosofar? Lyotard publicou esse livro em 1989, constituído por quatro conferências proferidas em 1964 intituladas i. Por que desejar?, ii. Filosofia e Origem; iii. Sobre a palavra filosófica e iv. Sobre filosofia e ação, durante a fase em que foi marxista crítico nos anos 60 e 70. Em 1986 Lyotard afirma que foi atacado injustamente por ter mudado sua (...) posição política a partir da publicação de 1971, a qual marca a ruptura em sua obra, intitulada Discurso, Figura, onde analisa o que é a figura e o que é o figural/figurativo. (shrink)

During the first half of the twentieth century, many philosophers of memory opposed the postulation of memory traces based on the claim that a satisfactory account of remembering need not include references to causal processes involved in recollection. However, in 1966, an influential paper by Martin and Deutscher showed that causal claims are indeed necessary for a proper account of remembering. This, however, did not settle the issue, as in 1977 Malcolm argued that even if one were to buy Martin (...) and Deutscher’s argument for causal claims, we still don’t need to postulate the existence of memory traces. This paper reconstructs the dialectic between realists and anti-realists about memory traces, suggesting that ultimately realists’ arguments amount to inferences to the best explanation. I then argue that Malcolm’s anti-realist strategy consists in the suggestion that causal explanations that do not invoke memory traces are at least as good as those that do. But then, Malcolm, I argue that there are a large number of memory phenomena for which explanations that do not postulate the existence of memory traces are definitively worse than explanations that do postulate them. Next, I offer a causal model based on an interventionist framework to illustrate when memory traces can help to explain memory phenomena and proceed to substantiate the model with details coming from extant findings in the neuroscience of memory. (shrink)

ABSTRACTIn joint episodic memory—or joint reminiscing—two or more individuals retrieve together an experience that they had previously encoded while socially engaged with one another. In this commentary, I focus on the question of how Ganeri's [2018] analysis of individual episodic memory might be applicable to joint reminiscing. I explore three topics that are of relevance for answering this question: intersubjectivity, attention, and the phenomenology of reminiscing.

De acuerdo con una influyente interpretación, ejemplificada por von Herrmann, la postura que se asuma con respecto a la metodología reflexiva marca el contraste entre una vertiente reflexiva y una vertiente hermenéutica de la investigación fenomenológica. Recientemente, autores como Zahavi, Crowell y Cai han cuestionado la legitimidad de establecer dicho contraste a partir del método de la reflexión. Mi propósito es discutir la crítica central que Heidegger, basándose en Paul Natorp, dirige a la reflexión fenomenológica. Luego de presentar tres posibles (...) interpretaciones de la crítica de Heidegger, y de sugerir la pertinencia de una de ellas, argumento que para contrarrestar dicha crítica es necesario ir más allá de la defensa de la metodología reflexiva que Husserl esboza en el § 79 de Ideas I, y apelar a una distinción entre una objetualidad cósica y una objetualidad temática, sugerida en textos husserlianos posteriores.According to an influential interpretation, epitomized by von Herrmann, the stance that one takes on the reflective methodology determines a contrast between a reflective and a hermeneutic understanding of the phenomenological investigation. In recent years, authors like Zahavi, Crowell, and Cai have challenged the validity of this interpretation. My aim in this article is to discuss the critique that Heidegger, drawing on ideas from Paul Natorp, addresses to phenomenological reflection. I first present three possible interpreta-tions of Heidegger’s critique, and suggest the superiority of one of them. Secondly, I argue that in order to respond to that critique one must go beyond the defense of reflection indicated by Husserl in § 79 of Ideas I, and appeal to a distinction between thing-objecthood and thematic objecthood, suggested in some of Husserl’s later writings. (shrink)

Open peer commentary on the article “The Plasticity of the Bodily Self: Head Movements in Bodily Illusions and Their Relation to Gallagher’s Body Image and Body Schema” by Marte Roel Lesur, Michael Gaebler, Philippe Bertrand & Bigna Lenggenhager.: In my commentary, I raise some questions about the applicability of Gallagher’s distinction between body image and body schema to the experimental research reported and discussed in the target article. I suggest that the distinction between body image and body schema is of (...) limited help in this context, and that Gallagher’s distinction between sense of ownership and sense of agency provides a more natural and fruitful theoretical framework to discuss that research. (shrink)

The thought experiment is a seemingly indispensable tool in the armchair philosopher’s toolbox. One wonders, for example, how philosophers could come to think that justified true belief isn’t knowledge, that reference isn’t determined by an expression’s associated description, or that moral responsibility doesn’t require the ability to do otherwise, without the use of thought experiments. But even if thought experiments play an integral role in philosophical methodology, their legitimacy is at least initially puzzling: one would think that significant knowledge of (...) the world requires extensive empirical investigation. But since thought experiments are done from the armchair, how can they tell us about the world? -/- A standard account of the nature and utility of thought experiments provides an answer to this question, and in a way that fits naturally with a standard picture of the nature of the facts philosophers investigate: Philosophers are about the business of investigating the essences of things and kinds. But a thing’s essential and accidental properties are modal properties. Thus, one can discern a thing’s essence by discovering its modal profile. But if so, then thought experiments are naturally suited as tools for the armchair philosopher. For thought experiments shed light on modal facts. Therefore, since philosophers investigate essences, facts about essence are modal facts, and the thought experiment is one of the few tools they have for discerning such facts, thought experiments play a legitimate and indispensable role in philosophical methodology. In my dissertation, I argue that the standard account of the nature and utility of thought experiments is inadequate, and sketch a more promising account. -/- First, I argue that our knowledge of possibility is restricted to the relatively humdrum. And if so, then since the standard account ties the utility of thought experiments to our knowledge of possibility, too many thought experiments will be ruled out as useless, which raises serious concerns about the significance, and perhaps even the legitimacy, of armchair philosophy. Thus, there is pressure for armchair philosophers to reject the standard account. -/- Second, I sketch an alternative picture of the nature of facts philosophers investigate – one that’s more fine-grained than the standard modal-profile picture. Relatedly, I sketch a correspondingly fine-grained semantics for claims about such facts. This alternative picture underwrites the legitimacy of a hitherto underappreciated sort of thought experiment, which I call the non-modal thought experiment. Such thought experiments shed light on facts about the world that are more fine-grained than what can be discerned by merely examining their modal profiles. I argue that non-modal thought experiments often succeed at just the points where the more familiar modal thought experiments fail, and thus that the two are naturally suited to complement one another in the philosopher’s practice. -/- Finally, I exploit the points mentioned above to sketch an account of the variety and utility of thought experiments that’s much more nuanced than that of the standard account. I then illustrate some of its virtues by indicating its ability to account for a wide range of epistemically forceful thought experiments – both humdrum and exotic –, and by demonstrating how it can be used to make progress in debates that have reached a stalemate due to conflicting modal intuitions. -/- . (shrink)

En este trabajo se analizarán las nociones de “Espacio aliento” y “Espacio cualquiera” desarrolladas por el filósofo francés Gilles Deleuze (1925-1995) en Cine I: La imagen-movimiento, Cine II: La imagen-tiempo y en sus lecciones de Cine dictadas en la Universidad de Vicennes entre 1982 y 1984. La hipótesis principal es que estos espacios tienen la característica de ser pro-nominales, puesto que las personas se desintegran en ellos, perdiendo si individualidad, luego de un proceso de absorción e interacción con la atmósfera (...) del mismo. Esta desterritorialización sería análoga a aquella del paisaje pictórico, debido a lo cual un análisis de los espacios cualesquiera y espacios-aliento es pertinente para abordar la estética deleuziana. (shrink)

En 1953 Deleuze publica su primer libro, llamado Empirisme et subjetivité. Essai sur la nature humain selon Hume. Deleuze señala en primer lugar una afirmación distinta con respecto al empirismo de Hume, es decir, señalar que el empirismo es definible a partir de una relación intrínseca con los sentidos, y que el conocimiento, en primera instancia, proviene de ellos. Lo que advertirá Deleuze es que el empirismo debe ser definido, antes que todo, en relación con el problema de la subjetividad. (...) El empirismo constituirá una doctrina que plantea que la subjetividad no está dada, sino que, más bien, debe ser producida o constituida (a esto le llamaremos una génesis de la subjetividad). ¿De qué manera se produce la génesis? A través de la acción de ciertos principios que son extensivos a la naturaleza humana: la pasión y la asociación. El Hume de Deleuze versará sobre dicho movimiento, y le permitirá al autor francés elaborar un primer índice de su metafísica, o lo que llamará, unos años después, empirismo trascendental. (shrink)

Most people's intuitive reaction after considering Nozick's experience machine thought-experiment seems to be just like his: we feel very little inclination to plug in to a virtual reality machine capable of providing us with pleasurable experiences. Many philosophers take this empirical fact as sufficient reason to believe that, more than pleasurable experiences, people care about “living in contact with reality.” Such claim, however, assumes that people's reaction to the experience machine thought-experiment is due to the fact that they value reality (...) over virtual experiences—an assumption that has seldom (if ever) been questioned. This paper challenges that very assumption. I report some experimental evidence suggesting that the intuition elicited by the thought-experiment may be explainable by the fact that people are averse to abandon the life they have been experiencing so far, regardless of whether such life is virtual or real. I use then an explanatory model, derived from what behavioral economists and psychologists call the status quo bias, to make sense of these results. Finally, I argue that since this explanation also accounts for people's reaction toward Nozick's thought-experiment, it would be wrong to take such intuition as evidence that people value being in touch with reality. (shrink)

ABSTRACTA longstanding tradition in philosophy distinguishes between knowthatand know-how. This traditional “anti-intellectualist” view is soentrenched in folk psychology that it is often invoked in supportof an allegedly equivalent distinction between explicit and implicitmemory, derived from the so-called “standard model of memory.”In the last two decades, the received philosophical view has beenchallenged by an “intellectualist” view of know-how. Surprisingly, defenders of the anti-intellectualist view have turned to the cognitivescience of memory, and to the standard model in particular, todefend their view. Here, (...) I argue that this strategy is a mistake. As it turns out, upon closer scrutiny, the evidence from cognitivepsychology and neuroscience of memory does not support theanti-intellectualist approach, mainly because the standard modelof memory is likely wrong. However, this need not be interpretedas good news for the intellectualist, for it is not clear that theempirical evidence necessarily supp... (shrink)

In this paper I offer a critical reading of some aspects of Heidegger’s late philosophy and evaluate how these relate to his nationalist claim that we need to stay rooted in the soil of our homeland. In response to this claim, Žižek suggests thet being-rootless is the primordial state of being-human and that what we represent as our roots are secondary attempts to obfuscate this dimension. First, I will present Heidegger’s philosophy of technology to elucidate his thesis that the essence (...) of modern technology determinates the way we come to experience the totality of beings in our times as “standing reserve”. In the second section, I expound his aesthetics where art is seen as a mode of approaching entities that follows a different logic to that of the Gestell. However, this analysis of Heidegger’s philosophy of art will reveal a political dimension to the concept of earth which I take to be a reactionary attempt to neutralize the eventual dimension of the Gestell. In the third section, I offer a critical re-interpretation of Heidegger’s philosophy following Žižek’s clue. I argue that modern art is characterized by its self-reflexive character which can be deemed transcendental once we accept the ontological dimension of art following Heidegger. These works offer a rooting in our own rootless condition analogous to the grounding in the Abgrund of Hegel’s absolute knowledge. Finally, I offer an analysis of Quentin Tarantino’s Inglorius Basterds from the perspective of the conceptual framework developed in the previous pages. (shrink)

Stephen Grimm defends the idea that for understanding people, we need to think of understanding not only in terms of grasp of structure but also in terms of a notion of understanding-as-taking-to-be-good. In this paper, I critically examine this idea. First, I argue that in some cases, understanding-as-taking-to-be-good can be explained in terms of understanding-as-grasp-of-structure. Then, I consider one further way in which understanding-as-taking-to-be-good could be obtained through something which is not a form of grasp of structure, which narrows and (...) refines Grimm’s understanding-as-taking-to-be-good concept. (shrink)

Loughlin’s (2018) uses Wittgenstein’s remarks in Philosophical Investigations to motivate his ‘wide’ view of cognition. In opposition to other accounts of extended cognition, his view presents a negative solution to the location problem. Here, I argue that, if we consider Wittgenstein’s remarks on the notion of ability, the support for the wide view is not as straightforward. The criteria for using the concept of ability are highly context-dependent, and there is not a single account for them. This shows that at (...) best, a moderate form of anti-individualism for cognitive capacities can be defended on Wittgensteinian grounds. Furthermore, the suggestion that ontological questions can be bypassed is questioned. (shrink)

The notion of cognitive system is widely used in explanations in cognitive psychology and neuroscience. Traditional approaches define cognitive systems in an agent-relative way, that is, via top-down functional decomposition that assumes a cognitive agent as starting point. The extended cognition movement challenged that approach by questioning the primacy of the notion of cognitive agent. In response, [Adams, F., and K. Aizawa. 2001. The Bounds of Cognition. Oxford, UK: Wiley-Blackwell.] suggested that to have a clear understanding of what a cognitive (...) system is we may need to solve “the demarcation challenge”: the problem of identifying a reliable way to determine which mechanisms that are causally responsible for the production of a certain cognitive process constitute a cognitive system responsible for such process and which ones do not. Recently, [Rupert, R. 2009. Cognitive Systems and the Extended Mind. Oxford: Oxford University Press.] offered a solution based on the idea that the mechanisms that constitute a cognitive system are integrated in a particular sense. In this paper I critically review Rupert’s solution and argue against it. Additionally, I argue that a successful account of cognitive system must accommodate the fact that the neural mechanisms causally responsible for the production of a cognitive process are diachronically dynamic and yet functionally stable. At the end, I offer a suggestion as to how to accommodate this diachronic dynamicity without losing functional stability. I conclude by drawing some implications for the discussion on cognitive ontologies. (shrink)

El pensar cobra gran importancia en la obra tardía de Martin Heidegger, momento en que sus meditaciones se plasman en un gran número de cartas, conferencias y ensayos dirigidos a la posibilidad de reflexionar sobre el ser, apartándose de la tradición filosófica de Occidente agotada en la metafísica. Es en esta época cuando aparece el discurso Serenidad, cuya relevancia radica en la actitud frente a la época técnica, cimentada en el pensar meditativo que se enfrenta al calculador. Será significativo, para (...) estas consideraciones sobre el discurso mencionado, prestar especial atención a los recursos metafóricos y lingüísticos empleados por Heidegger, de modo tal que el concepto de autoctonía toma gran peso. Dicho concepto revela la posibilidad de pensar meditativamente en nuestros días y viene a enriquecer la reflexión acerca del carácter de este pensar en el discurso de Heidegger. (shrink)

Envy is pervasive in academia. What are its epistemic effects? I present a characterization of envy that captures some of its essential features according to the philosophical literature. I use this characterization to illustrate a classic argument that views envy as collectively disadvantageous. Then, based on insights from the social epistemology of science, I evaluate this argument in the context of academic research. I argue that given the nature of epistemic goods, the best strategies available to the envious academic typically (...) lead to collective epistemic benefits. I conclude by presenting a challenge for the design of epistemic institutions: it is difficult to restructure institutions to reduce envy without severe epistemic drawbacks. (shrink)

"Do I believe to understand or do I understand to believe? From an analysis of chapters II and III of Fides et ratio, and the texts of St. Thomas Aquinas, an analysis is sought that aims to offer a response that reconciles these two ambits within an anthropological perspective.".

La regla lógica que prohíbe inferir conclusiones morales o normativas desde premisas fácticas fue atribuida a David Hume por los primeros autores analíticos que se ocuparon de esta cuestión, llegando a ser conocida, esta regla, como la ley de Hume. Sin embargo, esta atribución ha sido fuertemente discutida desde entonces. El propósito de este trabajo es sistematizar los argumentos de esta discusión desde su origen -que se encuentra en un trabajo de A.C. MacIntyrehasta la intervención de J.M. Finnis, en razón (...) de que en tal período, aunque no se cierra la discusión en cuestión, quedan ya enunciados todos los problemas centrales que envuelve la interpretación del texto de Hume. (shrink)

The present article proposes an Informational-Theoretic interpretation of logical analysis applied to natural language in Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. Natural language is characterized by descriptive definitions in order to compress information according to empirical regularities. However, notations fitted to empirical patterns do not explicitly reflect the logical structure of language that enables it to represent those very patterns. I argue that logical analysis is the process of obtaining incompressible and uniformly distributed codes, best fitted to express the possible combinations of facts instead (...) of eventual empirical regularities. That implies mutual translatability between different representations of the same facts, which justifies the possibility to decompose natural language and to rebuild it in mathematized ideographical languages, such as physics. Logical analysis decomposition process, then, results in a reductionism that sets the basis for conceptions of logic and language not only in Tractatus, but also in Some Remarks on Logical Form, which, in turn, is shown to be unattainable in Philosophical Remarks. That posterior book introduces a fragmentation of linguistic systems and analytical methods that can no longer be interpreted under computation theory alone. (shrink)