The main thesis defended in this paper is that Hildebrand’s distinction between what we could call quiddities—or “quasi-essences,” endowed with chaotic and accidental unity—and genuine essences possessing an intrinsically necessary unity, grounds the radical distinction between analytic and synthetic a priori knowledge. This thesis has not been expressly emphasized by Hildebrand himself. In order to prove it, we: (1) relate the three types of unities distinguished by Hildebrand with the three kinds of judgments discriminated by Kant; (2) outline what we (...) can call the “crux of empiricism”; (3) analyze four characteristic examples of synthetic a priori judgements; and (4) elaborate a provisional typology of synthetic a priori propositions, trying to include in it Hildebrand’s favorite examples. (shrink)

The main thesis defended in this paper is that Hildebrand’s distinction between what we could call quiddities—or “quasi-essences,” endowed with chaotic and accidental unity—and genuine essences possessing an intrinsically necessary unity, grounds the radical distinction between analytic and synthetic a priori knowledge. This thesis has not been expressly emphasized by Hildebrand himself. In order to prove it, we: relate the three types of unities distinguished by Hildebrand with the three kinds of judgments discriminated by Kant; outline what we can call (...) the “crux of empiricism”; analyze four characteristic examples of synthetic a priori judgements; and elaborate a provisional typology of synthetic a priori propositions, trying to include in it Hildebrand’s favorite examples. (shrink)

In a 1793 essay, J. Ch. Schwab claimed that Kant's distinction between analytic and synthetic judgments was already known to the Megarian philosopher Stilpo. Schwab's essay was criticised as early as 1794 by J. F. Ch. Gräffe. In a 1789 essay, J. A. Eberhard had also denied the originality of Kant's division of judgments and made certain indications suggesting that Aristotle was aware of the distinction. In this paper, I propose a fresh examination of why Schwab is wrong to attribute (...) knowledge of Kant's division of judgments to Stilpo – a second look which, however, does not disregard Gräffe's contributions to the discussion. Second, I argue that, in a precise sense, Kant's division of judgments is indeed original, but that the analytic – synthetic distinction was nevertheless in a sense known to Aristotle. The assessment of these alleged precedents sheds light no only on the novelty of Kant's philosophical project but also on what may be called the "the paradox of the discovery of an evident philosophical distinction". (shrink)

Shortly after the appearance of the Critique of Pure Reason, Kant’s claim that the ontological proof of God’s existence contains all the probative force of the cosmological argument was discussed at great length by J. F. Flatt, J. F. v. Abel and J. A. Eberhard. These early criticisms do not seem to have received the attention they deserve, even though they are extremely relevant, cogent, and difficult to dispute. Regardless of whether their assumptions are accepted, these objections point out certain (...) obscurities and flaws in Kant’s argument, casting doubt, from a logical standpoint, on the success of the main Kantian criticism of the cosmological proof. (shrink)

Information can be public among a group. Whether or not information is public matters, for example, for accounts of interdependent rational choice, of communication, and of joint intention. A standard analysis of public information identifies it with (some variant of) common belief. The latter notion is stipulatively defined as an infinite conjunction: for p to be commonly believed is for it to believed by all members of a group, for all members to believe that all members believe it, and so (...) forth. This analysis is often presupposed without much argument in philosophy. Theoretical entrenchment or intuitions about cases might give some traction on the question, but give little insight about why the identification holds, if it does. The strategy of this paper is to characterize a practical-normative role for information being public, and show that the only things that play that role are (variants of) common belief as stipulatively characterized. In more detail: a functional role for “taking a proposition for granted” in non-isolated decision making is characterized. I then present some minimal conditions under which such an attitude is correctly held. The key assumption links this attitude to beliefs about what is public. From minimal a priori principles, we can argue that a proposition being public among a group entails common commitment to believe among that group. Later sections explore partial converses to this result, the factivity of publicity and publicity from the perspective of outsiders to the group, and objections to the aprioricity of the result deriving from a posteriori existential presuppositions. (shrink)

En su Crítica de la Razón Pura, Kant discute dos doctrinas de origen aristotélico: la definición de la verdad como adaequatio intellectus et rei y la doctrina de los trascendentales, condensada en la fórmula quodlibet ens est unum, verum, bonum. El filósofo español Antonio Millán-Puelles ha llevado a cabo en dos de sus libros un examen del valor de esta discusión kantiana. El objetivo de este trabajo es comentar el análisis de Millán-Puelles y completar algunos de sus puntos con objeto (...) de mostrar su interés filosófico y su originalidad. (shrink)

Esta investigación pretende aportar datos para determinar en qué medida el feedback influye en el rendimiento académico.Se ha realizado una experimentación con estudiantes universitarios de los grados de marketing y de educación física. Se ha dividido la muestra en tres grupos en función del tipo de información -feedback- que se les proporcionaba.Los resultados muestran que hay correlación entre la información facilitada y los resultados obtenidos. El rendimiento mejora en función de la información cuando ésta es correcta. Estos resultados han de (...) servir para reforzar el compromiso del docente en ofrecer retroalimentación con responsabilidad y rigor. (shrink)

As a comparative politics scholar, it is more than a challenge to read and comment on the work of political theorists. The reason for this lies in the fact that comparative politics and political t...

Although 'populism' has become something of a buzzword in discussions about politics, it tends to be studied by country or region. This is the first book to offer a genuine cross-regional perspective on populism and its impact on democracy. By analyzing current experiences of populism in Europe and the Americas, this edited volume convincingly demonstrates that populism can be both a threat and a corrective to democracy. The contributors also demonstrate the interesting similarities between right-wing and left-wing populism: both types (...) of populism are prone to defend a political model that is not against democracy per se, but rather at odds with liberal democracy. Populism in Europe and the Americas offers new insights into the current state of democracy from both a theoretical and an empirical point of view. (shrink)

Should we regard Jennifer Lackey’s ‘Creationist Teacher’ as understanding evolution, even though she does not, given her religious convictions, believe its central claims? We think this question raises a range of important and unexplored questions about the relationship between understanding, factivity and belief. Our aim will be to diagnose this case in a principled way, and in doing so, to make some progress toward appreciating what objectual understanding—i.e., understanding a subject matter or body of information—demands of us. Here is the (...) plan. After some ground clearing in §1, §2 outlines and motivates a plausible working model—moderate factivity—for characterising the sense in which objectual understanding should be regarded as factive. §3 shows how the datum that we can understand false theories can, despite initial suggestions to the contrary, be assimilated straightforwardly within the moderate factivity model. §4 highlights how the inverse kind of case to that explored in §3—viz., a variant of Lackey’s creationist teacher case—poses special problems for moderate factivity. With reference to recent work on moral understanding by Hills, §5 proposes a solution to the problem, and §6 attempts to diagnose why it is that we might originally have been led to draw the wrong conclusion. (shrink)

This article analyses the forms of dividuation workers undergo when they are linked to technologies, such as algorithms or artificial intelligence. It examines functionalities and operations deployed by certain types of Talent Management software and apps—UKG, Tribepad, Afiniti, RetailNext and Textio. Specifically, it analyses how talented workers materialise in relation to the profiles and the statistical models generated by such artificial intelligence machines. It argues that these operate as a nooscope that allows the transindividual plane to be quantified through a (...) process known as dividuation. Finally, by way of conclusion, the notion of the dividual is presented as the logic that characterises the human–machine relationship in the case of artificial intelligence and as the horizon of what Felix Guattari called “machinic capitalism”. (shrink)

Macroscopic irreversible processes emerge from fundamental physical laws of reversible character. The source of the local irreversibility seems to be not in the laws themselves but in the initial and boundary conditions of the equations that represent the laws. In this work we propose that the screening of currents by black hole event horizons determines, locally, a preferred direction for the flux of electromagnetic energy. We study the growth of black hole event horizons due to the cosmological expansion and accretion (...) of cosmic microwave background radiation, for different cosmological models. We propose generalized McVittie co-moving metrics and integrate the rate of accretion of cosmic microwave background radiation onto a supermassive black hole over cosmic time. We find that for flat, open, and closed Friedmann cosmological models, the ratio of the total area of the black hole event horizons with respect to the area of a radial co-moving space-like hypersurface always increases. Since accretion of cosmic radiation sets an absolute lower limit to the total matter accreted by black holes, this implies that the causal past and future are not mirror symmetric for any spacetime event. The asymmetry causes a net Poynting flux in the global future direction; the latter is in turn related to the ever increasing thermodynamic entropy. Thus, we expose a connection between four different “time arrows”: cosmological, electromagnetic, gravitational, and thermodynamic. (shrink)

El objeto de este trabajo es exponer la enseñanza de los comentarios neoplatónicos griegos sobre el carácter completo del catálogo aristotélico de las categorías en sí mismo considerado. Esta enseñanza puede contribuir a la clarificación del debate actual sobre el problema de la naturaleza de las categorías y su número. Se analizan y discuten los comentarios a las Categorias debidos a Porfirio, Dexipo, Ammonio, Simplicio, Olimpiodoro, Elías y Filopón.

El proceso de construcción de una escuela de calidad es un reto permanente que intentan abordar tanto los sistemas educativos como los centros y los profesionales que trabajan en ambos. Sirven a este propósito las recientes muestras de evaluación externa y las experiencias de autoevaluación interna, que a menudo se acompañan de programas de innovación y cambio con o sin soporte externo. Sin embargo, lograr cambio no es fácil, dado el dinamismo de los sistemas educativos, las respuestas que no se (...) dan a una realidad sociocultural cambiante y el desencanto docente. (shrink)

Quantum Mechanics is a fundamental physical theory about atomic-scale processes. It was built between 1920 and 1940 by the most distinguished physicists of that time. The accordance between the predictions of the theory and experimental results is remarkable. The physical interpretation of its mathematical constructs, however, raised unprecedented controversies. Ontological, semantic, and epistemic vagueness abound in the orthodox interpretations and have resulted in serious misunderstandings that are often repeated in textbooks and elsewhere. In this work, we identify, criticize, and clarify (...) the most spread ones. (shrink)

Name der Zeitschrift: Kant-Studien Jahrgang: 108 Heft: 3 Seiten: 401-426.

«El humano puede ser feliz.» Con esa afirmación arranca la travesía a la que nos invitan estas páginas, una travesía que recorre los temas que desde el principio de los tiempos han inquietado al ser humano, que se detiene en los pilares de la filosofía occidental con una mirada atrevida, y cuyo destino final no es otro que una reflexión abierta sobre la felicidad, el dolor o la muerte y la posibilidad de mejorar nuestra existencia a través del conocimiento. Partiendo (...) de la idea de que la felicidad es ausencia de dolor y que sólo en una sociedad democrática es plausible el bienestar, Rogeli Armengol establece un apasionante diálogo con la tradición y el presente, con la historia y la ética, con las filosofías de Sócrates, Kant o Freud y con la literatura de Homero, Sófocles o Shakespeare. Un diálogo que a veces se convierte en discusión y que, si bien recoge la sabiduría de los grandes pensadores, no duda en cuestionarlos cuando es necesario. ¿Por qué Aristóteles defendió la esclavitud? ¿No ha erigido la filosofía occidental una ética errónea cuando no ha tenido en cuenta el dolor? A la vez que examina estas incógnitas, Armengol nos revela algunas de las claves para llevar una buena vida: «La persona feliz no es aquella que consigue y satisface sus aspiraciones, sino quien es capaz de soportar la frustración y corregir el camino emprendido». La conclusión a la que llegamos es que conocerse y respetarse a uno mismo posibilita el conocimiento y el respeto de los demás. Sólo si somos capaces de salir del laberinto de nuestros errores entenderemos que la felicidad se cifra en el presente de lo ya conseguido y en los logros cotidianos más que en el futuro de las aspiraciones. (shrink)

Protagoras, of all the ancient philosophers, has perhaps attracted the most interest in modern times. His saying ‘Man is the measure of all things’ caused Schiller to adopt him as the patron of the Oxford pragmatists, and has generally earned him the title of the first humanist. Yet the exact delineation of his philosophcal position remains a baffling task. Neumann, writing on Die Problematik des ‘Homo-mensura’ Satzes in 1938,2 concludes that no certainty whatever can be reached on the meaning of (...) the dictum, since ‘man’, ‘measure’, and ‘things’ are all ambiguous, nor can we tell which of the three is the predicate. The time is past when it was believed that a man's philosophy could be understood apart from the events of his life and the circumstances of his age: yet in the case of Protagoras the historical method of approach has hardly been attempted, although the impact of environment was perhaps more decisive in the formation of philosophical concepts in the Greek world than anywhere else. The reality about which the Greek philosopher spoke had three aspects: it was either the one universe of physics, or the political unity, or God. For example, the book of Heracleitus Περ φσεως was divided into three chapters or logoi, About the Whole, a political, and a theological. Neither physics nor theology supplies from its own subject-matter the form in which this reality was described. (shrink)

El lector interesado podra encontrar en este libro diversas, y tal vez novedosas, consideraciones psicoanaliticas y antropologicas, pertinentes incursiones en el campo de la etologia, y constantes referencias a la obra de Freud y de algunos de sus seguidores. Como novedad absoluta, hay que destacar la posibilidad de criticar la teoria freudiana sobre el origen del superyo y de la represion gracias a unos principios epistemologicos derivados del estudio de la confrontacion dialectica entre Socrates y la sofistica.

The achievements of the textile industry in Roman Britain are often underestimated as a result of the meagreness of our available evidence. The Edict on maximum prices issued by Diocletian in A.D. 301 shows that British capes commanded high prices on the markets of the Empire, and that in the late third century A.D. British rugs were the best in the world. In view of the competition from the traditional centres of rug manufacture in the East, this is an astonishing (...) achievement. (shrink)

The received translation and interpretation of many of the technical terms current in the textile industry of the Roman Empire are inaccurate, because lexicographers have either fought shy of being precise, or have thought that they recognized in the ancient world technical processes which originated at a much later date. The evidence is often equivocal or insufficient, but may still yield details that have been overlooked. The textile expression scutulatus, to take an example, deserves more attention than Blümner has devoted (...) to it. When it refers to the appearance of a garment, Lewis and Short, s.v. scutulatus, translate ‘diamond or lozenge-shaped, checkered’. It seems worth while to attempt a more precise translation, and, if possible, to estimate the significance in context of the goods so designated. (shrink)