En este trabajo ofrecemos un panorama al estudio de los sesgos. El creciente interés en ellos durante las últimas décadas radica en que estudiarlos implica hablar de cómo los seres humanos razonamos y emitimos juicios, e igualmente sobre los mecanismos y procesos que subyacen a tales capacidades, esto incluye entender cuándo y por qué frecuentemente nos equivocamos, como lo indica buena parte de la literatura en psicología cognitiva del razonamiento. Dada la existencia de los sesgos, han surgido posturas pesimistas que (...) sostienen que los sesgos muestran que los humanos son irracionales. Frente a estas, la literatura reciente ofrece visiones mas optimistas, y aduce que los sesgos pueden “desaparecer” si se tienen en consideración diferentes aspectos de tipo evolutivo. Otra postura es aquella que sostienen que la supervivencia humana no yace en la inteligencia individual sino en la colectiva. Es decir, que podemos dejar de confiar exclusivamente en el contenido de nuestra mente y en su lugar resolver los problemas colectivamente, gracias a la división de las tareas cognitivas. Para organizar la exposición dividimos el trabajo en tres enigmas de los sesgos cognitivos. El primero consiste en una discusión sobre el origen de los sesgos. El segundo concierne a su clasificación e inventarios. El tercer enigma versa sobre la unidad de análisis de la cognición humana, a saber, inteligencia individual versus inteligencia colectiva. Con estos enigmas queremos poner de manifiesto el abanico de discusiones que giran alrededor de los sesgos, sus problemas, así como la creciente fascinación por entenderlos. Estudiar los sesgos abona a la comprensión de cómo razonamos o pensamos, y esto nos ayuda a mejorar nuestro pensamiento crítico. (shrink)

Es conocido que Kripke argumentó que la ilusión de contingencia en el caso de la conciencia no puede explicarse del modo en que se explica en el resto de casos familiares de enunciados necesarios a posteriori. En un artículo reciente, Pérez Otero (2002) argumenta que hay una explicación alternativa, en términos de mera aposterioridad. Argumento en contra de la corrección exegética y de la verdad de esta tesis.Kripke famously argued that the illusion of contingency cannot be explained away, in the (...) case of consciousness, in the way it is explained away in the rest of familiar cases of necessary aposteriori statements. In a recent paper, Pérez Otero (2002) argues that there is an alternative way of explaining it a way, in terms of mere aposteriority. I argue against the exegetical accuracy and the truth of this contention. (shrink)

Este trabajo se trata de un estudio sobre el régimen legal de las garantías en la contratación pública venezolana, su especialidad, los tipos de garantías, las formas de otorgarlas y su ejecución. Adicionalmente se comenta el régimen sancionatorio vinculado a las garantías contractuales, y por último, se hace una pequeña referencia a los tipos de garantías previstos en el régimen de compras públicas en España.

Denialism concerning free will and moral responsibility combines, in its minimal form, the rejection of libertarian free will and the rejection of compatibilism. I will address the more ambitiously “happy” or “optimistic” version of denialism, which also claims that we are better off without belief in free will and moral responsibility, and ought to try to radically reform our moral, social and personal lives without such beliefs. I argue that such denialism involves, for various reasons, a dangerous gamble, which it (...) would be morally irresponsible to follow. I conclude by reflecting upon the implications. (shrink)

As the premier early modern advocate of an Epicurean alternative to the prevailing neo-Scholastic framework of Aristotelianism, Pierre Gassendi promoted not only ancient but also innovative reasoning on behalf of atomism, probabilism, empiricism, psychological hedonism, social contractarianism, and a range of other stances associated with the philosophy of the Garden. Much commentary has focused on the extent to which Gassendi ‘baptizes’ Epicurean thought. Beyond this aspect of his Epicureanism are questions as to whether, and how, Gassendi is true to core (...) Epicurean thinking, and what he preserves and promotes as valuable to philosophical and natural investigations of his time. Indeed, much subsequent modern philosophy builds on or reacts to an Epicurean legacy bequeathed by Gassendi, comprising his adjustments to, constraints on, or corrections of, the canonical views. Yet, for all his amendments, he retains as a primary philosophical motivation the Epicurean goal of striving for ataraxia. In this, he signals his firm commitment to philosophy in the tradition of the canonical Epicurean views. And, as with Epicurus’ own notion, his account of the centrality of attaining tranquility directs us to a better understanding of our nature and that of the world around us; amenable, in Gassendi’s framework, to Christian thought and contemporary natural philosophical investigations. (shrink)

In Lukács: Praxis and the Absolute, Daniel Andrés López reassembles Lukács’s philosophy of praxis on a Hegelian basis, as a conceptual-historical totality, both defending him and proposing an unprecedented, immanent critique that raises problems for Marxian philosophy as a whole.

Albert and De Ruiter provide an introduction to the Conversation Analytic approach to ‘repair’: the ways in which people detect and deal with troubles in speaking, hearing and understanding in conversation. They explain the basic turn‐taking structures involved, provide examples, explain recent developments in the field and highlight some important points of contact and contrast with work in the Cognitive Sciences.

A transcript of three lectures, given at Princeton University in 1970, which deals with (inter alia) debates concerning proper names in the philosophy of language.

This essay explores the speech act of dogwhistling (sometimes referred to as ‘using coded language’). Dogwhistles may be overt or covert, and within each of these categories may be intentional or unintentional. Dogwhistles are a powerful form of political speech, allowing people to be manipulated in ways they would resist if the manipulation was carried outmore openly—often drawing on racist attitudes that are consciously rejected. If philosophers focus only on content expressed or otherwise consciously conveyed they may miss what is (...) most powerful and pernicious in the speech of political culture. This essay is a call to start paying attention to these more covert speech acts, and a first attempt at beginning to theorize them. It argues that dogwhistles present a complex and interesting case for the philosopher of language, and explores their implications for democratic politics. (shrink)

In this book Saul Kripke brings his powerful philosophical intelligence to bear on Wittgenstein's analysis of the notion of following a rule.

In a wide-ranging, provocative anatomy of modern society and its origins, novelist and historian John Ralston Saul explores the reason for our deepening sense of crisis and confusion. Throughout the Western world we talk endlessly of individual freedom, yet Saul shows that there has never before been such pressure for conformity. Our business leaders describe themselves as capitalists, yet most are corporate employees and financial speculators. We are obsessed with competition, yet the single largest item of international trade is a (...) subsidized market in armaments. We call our governments democracies, yet few of us participate in politics. We complain about "invasive government," yet our legal, educational, financial, social, cultural and legislative systems are breaking down. While most observers view these problems separately, Saul demonstrates that they are largely manifestations of our blind faith in the value of reason. Over the last 400 years, our "rational elites" have gradually instituted reforms in every phase of social life. But Saul shows that they have also been responsible for most of the difficulties and violence of the same period. This paradox arises from a simple truth which our elites deny: far from being a moral force, reason is no more than an administrative method. Their denial has helped to turn the modern West into a vast, incomprehensible, directionless machine, run by process-minded experts - "Voltaire's bastards"--Whose cult of scientific management is bereft of both sense and morality. Whether in politics, art, business, the military, entertainment, science, finance, academia or journalism, these experts share the same outlook and methods. The result, Saul maintains, is a civilization of immense technological power whose peoples increasingly dwell in a world of illusion. Already known to millions of readers as the author of novels which portray the overwhelming effects of this power on the modern individual by weaving together international finance, the oil and arms business, guerrilla warfare, drug traffic, and the world of art, here Saul lays aside the mask of fiction to speak in his own voice. Only by withdrawing from our addiction to "solutions," he argues, reclaiming the citizens' right to question and participate in public life, and recovering a common sense capacity for intelligent panic, can we find a way out of our permanent crisis. (shrink)

The notion of social progress is not much in favour in these sophisticated times of scepticism, cynicism, relativism and political correctness; at least in the West. Most people might admit that some indubitable advances have occurred, primarily in terms of this or that useful technological innovation. But any wider claim about ‘social progress’ is often met by overwhelming doubt and suspicion, if not outright derision. I provide a short argument for belief in progress.

Most philosophers would agree that loving one’s romantic partner (i.e., being in love) is, in principle, a good thing. That is, romantic love can be valuable. It seems plausible that most would then think that the process leading to being in love—i.e. falling in love—can be valuable too. Surprisingly, that is not the case: among philosophers, falling in love has a bad reputation. Whereas philosophy of love has started to depart from traditional (and often unwarranted or false) tropes surrounding romantic (...) life, this tendency has not yet reached the analysis of falling in love. The phenomenon continues to be looked at mostly through a compendium of generalisations taken as metaphysical truths—the view of falling in love being akin to “losing one’s mind” or “not being able to think about anything else”. Here, I analyse some of these generalisations to show that although they may reflect some experiences of what falling in love feels like, they wrongly reduce falling in love to two related, but distinct, phenomena: limerence and infatuation. My aim is to refine the current terminology to lay the foundations for a neutral view of falling in love. (shrink)

Presenting ten diverse and original moral paradoxes, this cutting edge work of philosophical ethics makes a focused, concrete case for the centrality of paradoxes within morality. Explores what these paradoxes can teach us about morality and the human condition Considers a broad range of subjects, from familiar topics to rarely posed questions Makes a concrete case for the centrality of paradox within morality Asks whether the existence of moral paradox is a good or a bad thing Presents analytic moral philosophy (...) in a provocative, engaging and entertaining way; posing new questions, proposing possible solutions, and challenging the reader to wrestle with the paradoxes themselves. (shrink)

This book tells the story of the Scientific Buddha, "born" in Europe in the 1800s but commonly confused with the Buddha born in India 2,500 years ago. The Scientific Buddha was sent into battle against Christian missionaries, who were proclaiming across Asia that Buddhism was a form of superstition. He proved the missionaries wrong, teaching a dharma that was in harmony with modern science. And so his influence continues. Today his teaching of "mindfulness" is heralded as the cure for all (...) manner of maladies, from depression to high blood pressure.In this potent critique, a well-known chronicler of the West's encounter with Buddhism demonstrates how the Scientific Buddha's teachings deviate in crucial ways from those of the far older Buddha of ancient India. Donald Lopez shows that the Western focus on the Scientific Buddha threatens to bleach Buddhism of its vibrancy, complexity, and power, even as the superficial focus on "mindfulness" turns Buddhism into merely the latest self-help movement. The Scientific Buddha has served his purpose, Lopez argues. It is now time for him to pass into nirvana. This is not to say, however, that the teachings of the ancient Buddha must be dismissed as mere cultural artifacts. They continue to present a meaningful challenge, even to our modern world. (shrink)

A formal theory of truth, alternative to tarski's 'orthodox' theory, based on truth-value gaps, is presented. the theory is proposed as a fairly plausible model for natural language and as one which allows rigorous definitions to be given for various intuitive concepts, such as those of 'grounded' and 'paradoxical' sentences.

Reference and Existence, Saul Kripke's John Locke Lectures for 1973, can be read as a sequel to his classic Naming and Necessity. It confronts important issues left open in that work -- among them, the semantics of proper names and natural kind terms as they occur in fiction and in myth; negative existential statements; the ontology of fiction and myth. In treating these questions, he makes a number of methodological observations that go beyond the framework of his earlier book -- (...) including the striking claim that fiction cannot provide a test for theories of reference and naming. In addition, these lectures provide a glimpse into the transition to the pragmatics of singular reference that dominated his influential paper, " Speaker's Reference and Semantic Reference " -- a paper that helped reorient linguistic and philosophical semantics. Some of the themes have been worked out in later writings by other philosophers -- many influenced by typescripts of the lectures in circulation -- but none have approached the careful, systematic treatment provided here. The virtuosity of Naming and Necessity -- the colloquial ease of the tone, the dazzling, on-the-spot formulations, the logical structure of the overall view gradually emerging over the course of the lectures -- is on display here as well. (shrink)

In most domains of human life, we are willing to accept that there are experts with greater knowledge and competencies that distinguish them from non-experts or laypeople. Despite this fact, the very recognition of expertise curiously becomes more controversial in the case of “moral experts”. Do moral experts exist? And, if they indeed do, are there ethical reasons for us to follow their advice? Likewise, can emerging technological developments broaden our very concept of moral expertise? In this article, we begin (...) by arguing that the objections that have tried to deny the existence (and convenience) of moral expertise are unsatisfactory. After that, we show that people have ethical reasons to ask for a piece of moral advice in daily life situations. Then, we argue that some Artificial Intelligence (AI) systems can play an increasing role in human morality by becoming moral experts. Some AI-based moral assistants can qualify as artificial moral experts and we would have good ethical reasons to use them. (shrink)

In contrast to individualistic explanations of social injustice that appeal to implicit attitudes, structural explanations are unintuitive: they appeal to entities that lack clear ontological status, and the explanatory mechanism is similarly unclear. This makes structural explanations unappealing. The present work proposes a structural explanation of one type of injustice that happens in conversations, discursive injustice. This proposal meets two goals. First, it satisfactorily accounts for the specific features of this particular kind of injustice; and second, it articulates a structural (...) explanation that overcomes their unattractiveness. The main idea is that discursive injustice is not the result of biased interlocutors, but of problematic discursive norms. (shrink)

Max Stirner was one of the most important and seminal thinkers of the mid-nineteenth century. In the shadows of Hegel, Stirner developed possibly the most radical and devastating critique ever of the discourses of modernity, incurring the ire of Marx, prefiguring Nietzsche, and having a major (though often unacknowledged) impact on diverse streams of thought, from existentialism to anarchism and autonomism, literary and artistic avant-gardes, and postmodern theory. This edited volume investigates Stirner's impact on critical thinking and social and political (...) thought, exploring his radical and contemporary importance as a political theorist. In unmasking the religiosity lurking behind discourses of humanism and rationalism, and the domination of the individual immanent within liberal modes of politics, Stirner demolished the ontological foundations and universal grand narratives of our modernity. His thought has implications for contemporary questions of ideology, power, subjectivity, ethics and action, and opens the way for entirely new forms of politics. (shrink)

am going to discuss some issues inspired by a well-known paper ofKeith Donnellan, "Reference and Definite Descriptions,”2 but the interest—to me—of the contrast mentioned in my title goes beyond Donnellan's paper: I think it is of considerable constructive as well as critical importance to the philosophy oflanguage. These applications, however, and even everything I might want to say relative to Donnellan’s paper, cannot be discussed in full here because of problems of length. Moreover, although I have a considerable interest in (...) the substantive issues raised by Donnellan’s paper, and by related literature, my own conclusions will be methodological, not substantive. I can put the matter this way: Donnellan’s paper claims to give decisive objections both to Russell’s theory of definite descriptions (taken as a theory about English) and to Strawson’s. My concem is not primarily with the question; is Donnellan right, or is Russell (or Strawson)? Rather, it is with the question: do the considerations in Donneilarfs paper refute Russell’s theory (or Strawson’s)? For definiteness, I will concentrate on Donnellan versus Russell, leaving Strawson aside. And about this issue I will draw a definite conclusion, one which I think will illuminate a few methodological maxims about language. Namely, I will conclude that the considerations in Donnellan’s paper, by themselves, do not refute Russell’s theory. Any conclusions about Russell’s views per se, or Donnellan’s, must be tentative, IfI were to be asked for a tentative stab about Russell, I would say that although his theory does a far better job of handling ordinary discourse than many have thought, and although many popular arguments against it are inconclusive, probably it ultimately fails. The considerations I have in mind have to do with the existence of “improper” definite descriptions, such as “the table," where uniquely specifying conditions are not contained in the description itself.. (shrink)

are synthetic a priori judgements possible?" In both cases, i~thas usually been t'aken for granted in fife one case by Kant that synthetic a priori judgements were possible, and in the other case in contemporary,'d-". philosophical literature that contingent statements of identity are ppss. ible. I do not intend to deal with the Kantian question except to mention:ssj~".

Saul Smilansky presents an original new approach to the problem of free will, which lies at the heart of morality and self-understanding. He maintains that the key to the problem is the role played by illusion. Smilansky boldly claims that we could not live adequately with a complete awareness of the truth about human freedom and that illusion lies at the center of the human condition.

1. Lying -- 2. The problem of what is said -- 3. What is said -- 4. Is lying worse than merely misleading? -- 5. Some interesting cases.

Hinge epistemology is a family of views that offers a novel approach to avoiding skeptical conclusions about the possibility of a posteriori justification of our empirical beliefs. They claim that at the basis of our empirical beliefs lie certain commitments whose rational status is not determined by our evidence. These are called hinge commitments. Prominent hinge epistemologists have claimed that hinge commitments are either rational or arational but yet not beliefs. I argue that such views are subject to decisive objections. (...) I then offer what I consider to be the best version of hinge epistemology. On this view, hinge commitments are best understood as arational beliefs that contingently inform our worldview. I call this view the Arational Beliefs View. (shrink)

Under the influence of Quine’s famous manifesto, many philosophers have thought that logical theories are scientific theories that can be ‘adopted’ and tested as scientific theories. Here we argue that this idea is untenable. We discuss it with special reference to Putnam’s proposal to ‘adopt’ a particular non-classical logic to solve the foundational problems of quantum mechanics in his famous paper ‘Is Logic Empirical?’ (1968), which we argue was not really coherent.

Why does social injustice exist? What role, if any, do implicit biases play in the perpetuation of social inequalities? Individualistic approaches to these questions explain social injustice as the result of individuals’ preferences, beliefs, and choices. For example, they explain racial injustice as the result of individuals acting on racial stereotypes and prejudices. In contrast, structural approaches explain social injustice in terms of beyond-the-individual features, including laws, institutions, city layouts, and social norms. Often these two approaches are seen as competitors. (...) Framing them as competitors suggests that only one approach can win and that the loser offers worse explanations of injustice. In this essay, we explore each approach and compare them. Using implicit bias as an example, we argue that the relationship between individualistic and structural approaches is more complicated than it may first seem. Moreover, we contend that each approach has its place in analyses of injustice and raise the possibility that they can work together—synergistically—to produce deeper explanations of social injustice. If so, the approaches may be complementary, rather than competing. (shrink)

This paper’s main contention is that some basically methodological developments in science which are apparently distant and unrelated can be seen as part of a sequential story. Focusing on general inferential and epistemological matters, the paper links occurrences separated by both in time and space, by formal and representational issues rather than social or disciplinary links. It focuses on a few limited aspects of several cognitive practices in medical and biological contexts separated by geography, disciplines and decades, but connected by (...) long term transdisciplinary representational and inferential structures and constraints. The paper intends to show a given set of knowledge claims based on organizing statistically empirical data can be seen to have been underpinned by a previous, more familiar, and probably more natural, narrative handling of similar evidence. To achieve that this paper moves from medicine in France in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century to the second half of the nineteenth century in England among gentleman naturalists, following its subject: the shift from narrative depiction of hereditary transmission of physical peculiarities to posterior statistical articulations of the same phenomena. Some early defenders of heredity as an important causal presence in the understanding of life adopted singular narratives, in the form of case stories from medical and natural history traditions, to flesh out a special kind of causality peculiar to heredity. This work tries to reconstruct historically the rationale that drove the use of such narratives. It then shows that when this rationale was methodologically challenged, its basic narrative and probabilistic underpinings were transferred to the statistical quantificational tools that took their place. (shrink)

Why is it that the modern conception of literature begins with one of the worst writers of the philosophical tradition? Such is the paradoxical question that lies at the heart of Jean-Luc Nancy's highly original and now-classic study of the role of language in the critical philosophy of Kant. While Kant did not turn his attention very often to the philosophy of language, Nancy demonstrates to what extent he was anything but oblivious to it. He shows, in fact, that the (...) question of _philosophical style_, of how to write critical philosophy, goes to the core of Kant's attempt to articulate the limits, once and for all, that would establish human reason in its autonomy and freedom. He also shows how this properly philosophical program, the very pinnacle of the Enlightenment, leads Kant to posit literature as its other by way of what is here called the _syncope_, and how this other of philosophy, entirely its product, cannot be said to exist outside of metaphysics in its accomplishment. This subtle, unprecedented reading of Kant demonstrates the continued importance of reflection on the relation between philosophy and literature, indeed, why any commitment to Enlightenment must consider and confront this partition anew. (shrink)

Este estudio se centra en el recorrido y desarrollo de Mario Conde, detective protagonista de las ocho novelas policiales del escritor cubano Leonardo Padura. De la tetralogía que se inicia con Pasado Perfecto,en 1991, hasta la ambiciosa y última entrega de Herejes, en 2013, Conde actúa mayormente dentro del “período especial” cubano marcado por la debacle de la Unión Soviética, para arribar a la primera década del siglo XXI. Dicho “período especial” produjo un quiebre en el desarrollo del género policial (...) en Cuba. Por lo tanto, el género policial revolucionario, con apoyo oficial que nace a comienzos de la década de los 70, se transforma en los 90 para insertarse en la vertiente neopolicial que el resto de Latinoamérica venía desarrollando desde una década antes.Lejos de los personajes modélicos revolucionarios del género en su origen, el neopolicial de Padura crea personajes que resuelven crímenes y delitos pero a la vez delinquen y evaden la ley. A partir de los casos que investiga, Conde se mueve dentro de esa paradójica conducta, al mismo tiempo que deconstruye y desmitifica las grandes políticas y discursos revolucionarios. (shrink)