I show that the Lottery Paradox is just a version of the Sorites, and argue that this should modify our way of looking at the Paradox itself. In particular, I focus on what I call “the Cut-off Point Problem” and contend that this problem, well known by Sorites scholars, ought to play a key role in the debate on Kyburg’s puzzle. Very briefly, I show that, in the Lottery Paradox, the premises “ticket n°1 will lose”, “ticket n°2 will lose”… “ticket (...) n°1000 will lose” are equivalent to soritical premises of the form “~(the winning ticket is in {…, (tn)}) ⊃ ~(the winning ticket is in {…, tn, (tn + 1)})” (where “⊃” is the material conditional, “~” is the negation symbol, “tn” and “tn + 1” are “ticket n°n” and “ticket n°n + 1” respectively, and “{}” identify the elements of the lottery tickets’ set. The brackets in “(tn)” and “(tn + 1)” are meant to point out that in the antecedent of the conditional we do not always have a “tn” (and, as a result, a “tn + 1” in the consequent): consider the conditional “~(the winning ticket is in {}) ⊃ ~(the winning ticket is in {t1})”). As a result, failing to believe, for some ticket, that it will lose comes down to introducing a cut-off point in a chain of soritical premises. In this paper I explore the consequences of the different ways of blocking the Lottery Paradox with respect to the Cut-off Point Problem. A heap variant of the Lottery Paradox is especially relevant for evaluating the different solutions. One important result is that the most popular way out of the puzzle, i.e., denying the Lockean Thesis, becomes less attractive. Moreover, I show that, along with the debate on whether rational belief is closed under classical logic, the debate on the validity of modus ponens should play an important role in discussions on the Lottery Paradox. -/- . (shrink)

Vann McGee has presented a putative counterexample to modus ponens. I show that (a slightly modified version of) McGee’s election scenario has the same structure as a famous lottery scenario by Kyburg. More specifically, McGee’s election story can be taken to show that, if the Lockean Thesis holds, rational belief is not closed under classical logic, including classical-logic modus ponens. This conclusion defies the existing accounts of McGee’s puzzle.

La intuición y su relación con la invención matemática es destacada por los autores franceses Henri Bergson y Henri Poincaré. Los dos asumen la intuición como un proceso intelectual, que requiere de la experiencia tanto física como matemática del individuo y cuyos resultados se observarán en la superficie de la conciencia, es decir, en el lenguaje matemático. Ambos asumen que la idea de intuición es necesaria para la invención matemática. En este artículo se muestran los puntos coincidentes entre Bergson y (...) Poincaré en torno a la relación intuición-invención, mostrando cómo su definición lleva a interpretar la intuición como un proceso y, finalmente, cómo la idea de esquema dinámico introducida por Bergson para explicar la invención está implícita en el pensamiento de Poincaré. (shrink)

Uno de los temas de estudio de la filosofía de las matemáticas tiene que ver con cómo accedemos al conocimiento de los objetos de las matemáticas, al ser objetos abstractos. En este artículo mostraremos que esta forma de "acceso" es la intuición, entendida como un proceso dinámico que requiere de la experiencia de los matemáticos, cuyos efectos se verán en el mundo concreto. Partiendo del dilema expuesto por Benacerraf, revisaremos cómo la intuición es una posible solución y ha tenido un (...) papel protagónico en la epistemología de las matemáticas. Finalmente, revisaremos el papel de las ideas de Kitcher frente a la teoría del conocimiento matemático y el papel de la intuición. (shrink)

Review of Epistemology: 50 Puzzles, Paradoxes, and Thought Experiments by Kevin McCain (Routledge, 2021).

La historia de la matemática muestra como la intuición matemática ha estado presente en la invención y desarrollo de conceptos, teorías y procedimientos matemáticos. Así mismo, ha permeado el debate filosófico, los fundamentos de la matemática y los discursos educativos; otorgándole vigencia al estudio de este tema. En el presente artículo, se exponen los argumentos bajo los cuales es posible sustentar que la intuición es un proceso, que toma ideas que se presentan, inicialmente de manera “desordenada”, y que gracias al (...) contexto y los conocimientos previos del individuo las centran en una idea “fija” que será incorporada a la matemática por la lógica y la formalización. (shrink)

RESUMEN El artículo responde algunas críticas planteadas por Ignacio Ávila a mi interpretación de la epistemología davidsoniana. Presento argumentos en contra de: a) que sea necesario distinguir entre representaciones epistemológicamente “peligrosas”e “inofensivas”; b) que el empirismo mínimo sea un tipo de realismo directo; c) que mi uso de la expresión “evidencia distal” y el interés por la teoría de la correspondencia sean asuntos ajenos a Davidson. Finalmente, sostengo que la triangulación es un elemento fundamental de la epistemología davidsoniana, pues permite (...) sortear la ansiedad realista manteniéndose en una postura no representacionalista. ABSTRACT In this article, I respond to some of Ignacio Ávila's criticisms of my interpretation of Davidson’s epistemology. I argue against: a) the need to distinguish between epistemologically “dangerous” and “harmless” representations; b) the idea that minimal empiricism is a kind of direct realism; and c) the claim that my usage of the expression “distal evidence” and interest in the theory of correspondence are issues that do not pertain to Davidson. Finally, I claim that triangulation is a key element in Davidsonian epistemology since it allows us to deal with the realist anxiety while maintaining a non-representationalist viewpoint. (shrink)

El siguiente documento es el resultado de un seminario de investigación sobre novela policíaca latinoamericana reciente, desarrollado en el curso de Novela Latinoamericana, de la Facultad de Filosofía y Letras en la Universidad de La Salle. La fundamentación teórica del seminario tuvo como marco general la Estética de la Recepción fundada en la Escuela de Constanza, Alemania, por Hans Robert Jauss y Wolfgang Iser. Para el caso concreto de la teoría literaria sobre novela policíaca vista en perspectiva sociológica, preferimos apelar (...) a las reflexiones fundacionales de Roger Caillios (1942), las que tiene un sugestivo subtítulo, a saber, La novela policíaca. –De cómo la inteligencia se retira del mundo para consagrarse a sus juegos y de cómo la sociedad introduce sus problemas en éstos. Por otra parte, elegimos la novela corta de Roberto Bolaño, La pista de hielo; y sobre esta elaboramos distintas hipótesis de trabajo, hasta lograr, al juicio de nuestros lectores, una propuesta de teoría literaria, que dé cuenta de la nueva narrativa policíaca. (shrink)

Community leaders in Colombia have historically suffered processes of microaggressions and intimidation that threaten the free exercise of their voice in the processes of production of knowledge and in the participation of the planning of their territories. In this article, we explore the case study of the Network of Community Researchers (NCR), also known in Spanish as Red de Investigadores Comunitarios, promoted by the University of Antioquia, Colombia. The NCR is a commitment to the co-production of knowledge about human security (...) from below between community researchers and academics. This article analyses the contribution of the NCR to the human security of Medellin and a specific collection of capabilities for epistemic liberation of community researchers: the capability to be recognised as a producer of valid knowledge, to do through communicative openness, to learn from collective knowledge and to transform through collective action. The expansion of these four capabilities evidence processes of resistance and hermeneutic insurrection of some community leaders and activists who participate in the NCR. The analysis shows the contribution of the NCR to facilitate and generate a safe space in which community researchers communicate knowledge and practices and share experiences, risks, struggles, fears and collective dreams of transformation. (shrink)

As evaluation of practitioners’ competence is largely based on self-report, accuracy in practitioners’ self-assessment is essential for ensuring high quality treatment-delivery. The aim of this study was to assess the relationship between independent observers’ ratings and practitioners’ self-reported treatment integrity ratings of Motivational interviewing. Practitioners were randomized to two types of supervision [i.e., regular institutional group supervision, or individual telephone supervision based on the MI Treatment Integrity code]. The mean age was 43.2 years, and 62.7 percent were females. All sessions (...) were recorded and evaluated with the MITI, and the MI skills were self-assessed with a questionnaire over a period of 12 months. The associations between self-reported and objectively assessed MI skills were overall weak, but increased slightly from baseline to the 12-months assessment. However, the self-ratings from the group that received monthly objective feedback were not more accurate than those participating in regular group supervision. These results expand findings from previous studies and have important implications for assessment of practitioners’ treatment fidelity: Practitioners may learn to improve the accuracy of self-assessment of competence, but to ensure that patients receive intended care, adherence and competence should be assessed objectively. (shrink)

Job crafting has been established as a bottom-up work design instrument for promoting health and well-being in the workplace. In recent years, the concepts of job crafting have been applied to the university student context, proving to be positively related to student well-being. Building on person-centered analyses from the employment context, we assessed approach study crafting strategy combinations and the relationships to students’ exhaustion, study engagement, and general well-being. Data from 2,882 German university students were examined, collected online during the (...) summer term in 2020. Using latent profile analysis, we found five distinct crafting groups, which showed discriminate validity with regard to emotional exhaustion, engagement, and well-being. The results underscore the positive role of study crafting for students’ health and well-being. They further indicate a less important role of increasing social resources for emotional exhaustion when combined with a moderate increase in structural resources and a moderate increase in challenging demands. Our findings imply that interventions to promote study crafting should be considered to promote student health and well-being. (shrink)

Prolonging working hours and presenteeism have been conceptualized as self-endangering coping behaviors in employees, which are related to health impairment. Drawing upon the self-regulation of behavior model, the goal achievement process, and Warr's vitamin model, we examined the antecedents and moderation effects regarding quantitative demands, autonomy, emotion regulation, and self-motivation competence of university students' self-endangering coping behaviors. Results from a cross-sectional survey of 3,546 German university students indicate that quantitative demands are positively related and autonomy has a u-shape connection with (...) self-endangering coping. Emotion regulation was shown to be a protective factor for prolonging working hours. Moreover, self-motivation moderated the relationship between quantitative demands and prolonging of working hours, but not in the assumed direction. Self-motivation showed a systematic positive relationship with prolonging of working hours, but no relationship with presenteeism. Autonomy moderated the relationship of quantitative demands with both self-endangering behaviors. We found no moderating effects for emotion regulation of quantitative demands or autonomy and self-endangering behaviors. Besides further practical implications, the results suggest that lecturers should design their courses accordingly with less time pressure and university students should be trained in the use of autonomy. (shrink)

Recently a role for the vagus nerve in conditioning food preferences was established in rodents. In a prospective controlled clinical trial in humans, invasive vagus nerve stimulation shifted food choice toward lower fat content. Here we explored whether hedonic aspects of an orally sampled food stimulus can be modulated by non-invasive transcutaneous vagus nerve stimulation (tVNS) in humans. In healthy participants (n= 10, five women, 20–32 years old, no obesity) we tested liking and wanting ratings of food samples with varying (...) fat or sugar content with or without tVNS in a sham-controlled within-participants design. To determine effects of tVNS on food intake, we also measured voluntary consumption of milkshake. Spontaneous eye blink rate was measured as a proxy for dopamine tone. Liking of low-fat, but not high-fat puddings, was higher for tVNS relative to sham stimulation. Other outcomes showed no differences. These findings support a role for the vagus nerve promoting post-ingestive reward signals. Our results suggest that tVNS may be used to increase liking of low-calorie foods, which may support healthier food choices. (shrink)

Artists, political scientists and art historians share with other professionals the challenge of apprehending and comprehending the complexity of the realities they address in their work. The co‐authors of our article coincide in the prominence they give to disturbing indexical signs (i.e., indications and traces of trauma and normalization in people, in political processes and works of art), as keys of interpretation and problematizing at the basis of their art works, their social work and their historic and political research. They (...) address the challenges and questions they face when interacting with the multiple dimensions inherent to the complex human behaviours, theoretical concepts and artistic statements on which they focus. Finally, they discuss possible aesthetic, ethical and philosophical implications of their proposals and perspectives. (shrink)

ObjectivesPrevious studies found a general increase in prejudice against Chinese people during the first months of the pandemic. The present study aims to consider inter-individual heterogeneity in stability and change regarding prejudice involving Chinese people during the pandemic. The first objective is to identify and describe different trajectories of prejudice over a seven-month period during the pandemic. The second and third objectives are to test the association between trajectory group membership and antecedent variables such as: socio-demographic factors and two psychological (...) mechanisms, namely economic threat and global citizenship identification.MethodsA representative Canadian sample according to age, gender and province of residence, was recruited for a 10-wave survey starting from April 2020 to December 2020. First, a group-based modeling approach was used to identify trajectories of prejudice. Second, a multinomial logistic regression model was used to test associations between membership in trajectories and antecedents.ResultsFour trajectories were identified. The first three trajectories have a low, high or very high level of prejudice against Chinese people which is relatively stable over time. The fourth trajectory reports low levels of prejudice in favor of Chinese people which become more positive throughout 2020. Regarding socio-demographic factors: gender is not associated with trajectory group membership, younger people are more likely to follow the trajectory in favor of Chinese people and conservatives are more likely to follow the highest trajectories against Chinese people. Regarding some psychological mechanisms: personal but not collective economic threat is associated with the trajectory in favor of Chinese people. Finally, the highest levels of prejudice are found when the strategy of identification is more local rather than global.ConclusionThe present study shows that Canadians differ in terms of both their level and change in prejudice against Chinese people throughout the pandemic with some socio-demographic groups being more likely than others to be associated with prejudice. The results also suggest that a promising way to tackle the major social issue of prejudice is to highlight a vision of the world where individuals are all “global citizens” facing the same challenge. (shrink)

This paper generalizes the (epistemic) preface paradox beyond the principle of belief aggregation and constructs a similar paradox for deontic reasoning. The analysis of the deontic case yields a solution strategy---restricting belief/obligation aggregation rather than giving it up altogether---that can be transferred to the epistemic case. Our proposal amounts to a reasonable compromise between two goals: (i) sticking to bridge principles between evidence and belief, such as the Lockean Thesis, and (ii) obtaining a sufficiently strong logic of doxastic and deontic (...) reasoning. (shrink)

Recently, there has been much research into conceptual engineering in connection with feminist inquiry and activism, most notably involving gender issues, but also sexism and misogyny. Our paper contributes to this research by explicating, in a principled manner, a series of other concepts important for feminist research and activism, to wit, feminist political identity terms. More specifically, we show how the popular Conceptual Spaces Framework (CSF) can be used to identify and regiment concepts that are central to feminist research, focusing (...) especially on feminism in France. According to the CSF, concepts can be represented geometrically, as regions in similarity spaces. A particular strength of the CSF framework is its empirically-focused methodology, which allows researchers to infer the boundaries of concepts from empirical data, thus eliminating the need to strongly rely on intuitions about meanings. This is shown to be especially valuable for the explication of concepts relating to feminist political identity, given that the intuitions of feminist scholars and activists about what would appear to be core concepts in the area tend to be poorly aligned or even conflicting. We report the results from an empirical categorization study conducted among French feminists and show how they support the view that the CSF can contribute to both the conceptual engineering project and our understanding of the structure of social reality. (shrink)

I argue that we should solve the Lottery Paradox by denying that rational belief is closed under classical logic. To reach this conclusion, I build on my previous result that (a slight variant of) McGee’s election scenario is a lottery scenario (see Lissia 2019). Indeed, this result implies that the sensible ways to deal with McGee’s scenario are the same as the sensible ways to deal with the lottery scenario: we should either reject the Lockean Thesis or Belief Closure. After (...) recalling my argument to this conclusion, I demonstrate that a McGee-like example (which is just, in fact, Carroll’s barbershop paradox) can be provided in which the Lockean Thesis plays no role: this proves that denying Belief Closure is the right way to deal with both McGee’s scenario and the Lottery Paradox. A straightforward consequence of my approach is that Carroll’s puzzle is solved, too. (shrink)

La composición polifónica musical nos permite hablar de la emergencia, en el sur y desde el sur que somos, de Voces de la Tierra, que han susurrado, cantado, llorado o gritado el dolor producido por las maneras de habitar humanas construidas en la modernidad cosificadora de la tierra y del mundo de la vida, modernidad mercantil, industrial y global cuya ética se ha reducido a valores absolutamente euro-antropo-racional-centristas, permeados por el valor supremo del capital. En este artículo, emergente de pensadores (...) ambientales latinoamericanos y pensadores-otros que han sospechado radicalmente del edificio de la ética ambiental emergente de la conferencia del Club de Roma o del Informe Burndtland, intentamos desplegar lo ético, como ethos con e larga, que en griego significa casa, y desde este lugar de enunciación, intentamos salirnos del sujeto y del objeto en la variación ética ambiental eurocentrista, y proponer con las voces de la tierra sur, abya yala, diseños del ethos, ligado óntica-relacionalmente con el cuerpo-tierra. Diseñamos, inspirados en Husserl, Heidegger, Deleuze, Guattari, Ángel-Maya, Enrique Leff, Noguera, Echeverri, pensadores-otros y voces de montañas, animales, ríos, y plantas, la vida, territorios de libertad entendida ésta como expansión de los cuerpos en la naturaleza y de paz integral y completa, entendiendo que no puede haber paz, si no amamos ni respetamos la tierra que somos. Esto exige el giro óntico-etico- estético-político de la ética en clave de un Pensamiento Ambiental Sur. (shrink)

This is a critical notice of Christos Kyriacou and Kevin Wallbridge (eds.), Skeptical Invariantism Reconsidered. New York and London: Routledge, 2021. Pp. x + 324. ISBN 978-0-367-37018-3. It discusses in some detail contributions by Nevin Climenhaga, Christos Kyriacou, Michael Hannon, Kevin Wallbridge, Annalisa Coliva, and Genia Schönbaumsfeld.

Iberian repertorios de los tiempos stemmed from Medieval almanacs and calendars. During the sixteenth century significant editorial, conceptual and material changes in repertorios incorporated astronomy, geography, chronology and natural philosophy. From De Li’s Repertorio (1492) to Zamorano’s Cronología (1585), the genre evolved from simple almanacs to more complex cosmological works which circulated throughout the Iberian-American world. This article claims that repertorios are a form of syncretic knowledge rather than “popular science” by relying on the concept of “knowledge in transit”. Elaborating (...) on this perspective, I present how repertorios ended up delivering a worldview from existing materials, a fact so far unnoticed by scholarship. At the same time, repertorios should not be considered an exclusively Iberian phenomenon, but the full scope of their nature as a form of syncretic knowledge should include their networks with migrants, indigenous, mestizos, and criollos across the Atlantic. In this sense, I try to trace the paths connecting productions in the Americas with Iberian repertorios. (shrink)

A number of philosophers have recently suggested that some abstract, plausibly non-causal and/or mathematical, explanations explain in a way that is radically dif- ferent from the way causal explanation explain. Namely, while causal explanations explain by providing information about causal dependence, allegedly some abstract explanations explain in a way tied to the independence of the explanandum from the microdetails, or causal laws, for example. We oppose this recent trend to regard abstractions as explanatory in some sui generis way, and argue (...) that a prominent ac- count of causal explanation can be naturally extended to capture explanations that radically abstract away from microphysical and causal-nomological details. To this end, we distinguish di erent senses in which an explanation can be more or less abstract, and analyse the connection between explanations’ abstractness and their explanatory power. According to our analysis abstract explanations have much in common with counterfactual causal explanations. (shrink)

Probabilism is committed to two theses: 1) Opinion comes in degrees—call them degrees of belief, or credences. 2) The degrees of belief of a rational agent obey the probability calculus. Correspondingly, a natural way to argue for probabilism is: i) to give an account of what degrees of belief are, and then ii) to show that those things should be probabilities, on pain of irrationality. Most of the action in the literature concerns stage ii). Assuming that stage i) has been (...) adequately discharged, various authors move on to stage ii) with varied and ingenious arguments. But an unsatisfactory response at stage i) clearly undermines any gains that might be accrued at stage ii) as far as probabilism is concerned: if those things are not degrees of belief, then it is irrelevant to probabilism whether they should be probabilities or not. In this paper we scrutinize the state of play regarding stage i). We critically examine several of the leading accounts of degrees of belief: reducing them to corresponding betting behavior (de Finetti); measuring them by that behavior (Jeffrey); and analyzing them in terms of preferences and their role in decision-making more generally (Ramsey, Lewis, Maher). We argue that the accounts fail, and so they are unfit to subserve arguments for probabilism. We conclude more positively: ‘degree of belief’ should be taken as a primitive concept that forms the basis of our best theory of rational belief and decision: probabilism. (shrink)

El objetivo de este artículo es compartir con la comunidad académica el resultado de investigación de la tesis doctoral de filosofía intitulada La parresía como heterotopía en el último Foucault: otro modo crítico y específico de ser, pensar, decir y vivir. En efecto, intento esbozar el itinerario de la obra del úlltimo Foucault como una genealogía de la parresía, que recoge las conclusiones más relevantes de cuatro años de indagación. Finalmente, resalto la retrospectiva y la prospectiva de la parresía foucaultiana (...) como un arte integral de vivir a partir del cuidado de sí, desarrollado por sus autores más estudiosos y otras corrientes contemporáneas afines a este tópico. Todo converge en la “heterotopía” como ese tetraédrico otro modo crítico y específico o línea de fuga: ser, pensar, decir y vivir, que culmina con una relectura desde el ámbito latinoamericano como una propuesta pertinente altermundialista focalizada en una “cuidadanía” —más que ciudadanía— ética en todos los ámbitos humanos, sobre todo el que más nos compete: el educativo. (shrink)

The coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic has challenged the dental health profession in an unprecedented manner. Suspension of elective dental care across the United States during the initial phase of the pandemic was necessary to prevent viral transmission. The emergency dental care that was provided had to be tailored to minimize the generation of aerosols. With the suspension of elective care, over time, the proportion of dental emergencies was anticipated to rise. Dentists who care for children have continued to provide emergency dental (...) treatment to this vulnerable population. Treatment decisions for pediatric dental emergencies had to be tailored to principles of public health that best mitigated risk of viral transmission. Decisions needed to balance the benefits of chosen treatment modality for the individual child with the risk of viral transmission to dental professionals and their staff, patients, and community. The paucity of reliable research for dentists to aid in clinical decision making may have left careproviders feeling ethically and morally insecure in shifting from a patient-centered to a community-centered paradigm. We present analysis of four pediatric emergency case scenarios that are representative of those likely to present to a private practice, academic setting, or emergency department during the pandemic. This analysis aims to empower dentists who care for children to implement the American Dental Association’s Principles of Ethics & Code of Professional Conduct within the context of a global health crisis. (shrink)