Charles Travis,Corinne Lajoie,Bruno Ambroise.

Qu'est-ce au juste que le mental? Les nouvelles "sciences de l'esprit" ne paraissent pas avoir de doute sur la réponse : c'est ce qu'il y a dans la boîte crânienne. L'idée que le mental puisse être autre chose que le côté "interne" d'une métaphore qui l'oppose à de l'externe, et qu'à ce titre il puisse s'avérer intrinsèquement social, leur paraît incongrue. C'est pourtant cette idée que le présent ouvrage s'applique à défendre. Il élabore une conception sociale du mental, en prenant (...) appui sur les courants de recherche qui, en philosophie et en sciences humaines et sociales, ont souligné, tant d'un point de vue conceptuel qu'empirique, l'imbrication du social et du mental. Cette élaboration passe par une clarification des deux concepts. D'un côté, il est nécessaire de remédier au rétrécissement du social non seulement par les sciences cognitives, mais aussi par une partie des sciences sociales. De l'autre, il faut proposer une nouvelle compréhension de ce que l'on entend par mental. La conception esquissée est une conception qu'on peut qualifier d'adverbiale : "mental" est un concept opératoire qui qualifie une modalité de l'action d'agents appartenant à une société. (shrink)

A. Reinach et J. Searle sont bien connus pour avoir chacun développé une théorie de la réalité sociale prenant appui sur le cas particulier de la promesse. Celle-ci est vue comme un acte de parole primordial où la relation à l’autre à qui l’on promet est constitutive de l’acte : c’est ce qui fait son caractère social. Cette caractéristique entraîne une véritable objectivité des obligations engendrées. Pourtant, ces similitudes dans l’analyse recouvrent des divergences conceptuelles fortes entre le tenant d’une phénoménologie (...) réaliste découvrant des essences sociales et le théoricien des actes de parole qui propose un constructivisme social.A. Reinach et J. Searle are well-known for both having elaborated a theory of social reality founded on the particular case of promise. This one is seen as a seminal speech act constituted by relationship to other people : hence its social character. This social feature enables the obligations deriving from the promise to get real objectivity. Despite these similarities of analysis, there is strong divergence between the supporter of realistic phenomenology looking for social substances and the speech-act theorist proposing a social constructivism. (shrink)

La philosophie du langage issue du tournant linguistique peut paraitre depassee par la philosophie de l'esprit et les approches cognitivistes. Ce second volume des Textes-cles de philosophie du langage vise, comme le premier, a montrer au contraire la vitalite et la radicalite de la reflexion sur le langage produite au XXe et au XXIe siecles. Le premier envisageait le rapport du langage au monde, les manieres dont le langage peut dire les choses (et le vrai); le second presente diverses manieres (...) de considerer que le langage fait des choses en disant, met en relation des humains dans des contextes, au sein d'une forme de vie humaine et sociale. D'ou le renouvellement des analyses du langage et l'emergence d'une nouvelle discipline, la pragmatique, qui prend en compte des elements du fonctionnement linguistique oublies par les conceptions strictement veri-conditionnelles. Cette philosophie du langage, fondee sur la description des usages ordinaires et la mise en evidence de la dimension praxeologique du langage, n'a cependant pas renonce a la visee realiste du tournant linguistique. On verra que la philosophie du langage ordinaire, dissidente par rapport a la philosophie analytique classique, attentive aux usages et situations, recherche, perfectionne et raffine l'adequation au reel, poursuivie desormais en termes de sensibilite au detail du reel. (shrink)

La philosophie du langage issue du tournant linguistique, apparue avec Frege a l'oree du XXe siecle, peut paraitre depassee de nos jours par la philosophie de l'esprit ou le cognitivisme. Ce volume vise a illustrer au contraire la vitalite et la radicalite des premieres theories de la signification et de la reference. Il parcourt, a travers une serie de textes devenus classiques, l'evolution de la problematique de la signification, sa definition comme mode de presentation de la reference, son explosion avec (...) la these d'indetermination de la traduction. Il analyse les relations du sens avec la verite - selon qu'il en formule les conditions, ou qu'il informe notre approche du monde. Dans les textes de ce volume, c'est l'articulation du langage au reel, du mot a la chose, qui apparait comme l'objet de la philosophie du langage et le lieu de son actualite. (shrink)

« La coutume fait toute l’équité, par cette seule raison qu’elle est reçue. C’est le fondement mystique de son autorité. Qui la ramènera à son principe l’anéantit »Pascal, Pensées Avant toute intervention présentée dans le cadre d’une journée d’études scientifique – rituel universitaire récurrent et structurant, où les places de chacun des participants sont minimalement mais hiérarchiquement...

L'oeuvre de Pierre Bourdieu a exercé une influence profonde sur la recherche scientifique, bien au-delà de la sociologie. Du fait de sa formation de philosophe, de ses incursions en anthropologie et en linguistique, de son souci constant d'analyser la dimension historique des faits sociaux, de son regard critique sur la science politique et le droit, de ses emprunts au vocabulaire économique, ainsi que de son intérêt marqué pour l'art et la littérature, Bourdieu n'a cessé de dialoguer mais aussi parfois de (...) "ferrailler" avec différentes disciplines des sciences sociales. Cet ouvrage collectif rend compte de manière inédite de l'étendue des réceptions et appropriations des travaux de Pierre Bourdieu dans les diverses sciences sociales. Il propose un éclairage original sur les usages du travail de Bourdieu en sociologie, anthropologie, histoire, philosophie, science politique, économie, droit, études littéraires et sciences de l'information et de la communication. Il permet ainsi d'entrer dans le laboratoire des sciences sociales qui font usage de Bourdieu et donne à voir la manière dont ses concepts et ses méthodes peuvent être déplacés et employés au-delà de l'univers disciplinaire dans lequel ils ont été forgés ; les luttes autour des frontières disciplinaires ; les obstacles à la réception de Bourdieu ou au contraire les conditions qui la favorisent. Fenêtre ouverte sur le renouvellement des études bourdieusiennes, I'ouvrage fait également dialoguer plusieurs générations de chercheurs, au-delà du premier cercle des "héritiers". Il permet ainsi de mieux connaître ou de découvrir des recherches contemporaines qui, dans le sillage de celles de Pierre Bourdieu, contribuent à la construction d'une connaissance décloisonnée, réflexive et critique du monde social. (shrink)

Infectious logics are systems that have a truth-value that is assigned to a compound formula whenever it is assigned to one of its components. This paper studies four-valued infectious logics as the basis of transparent theories of truth. This take is motivated as a way to treat different pathological sentences differently, namely, by allowing some of them to be truth-value gluts and some others to be truth-value gaps and as a way to treat the semantic pathology suffered by at least (...) some of these sentences as infectious. This leads us to consider four distinct four-valued logics: one where truth-value gaps are infectious, but gluts are not; one where truth-value gluts are infectious, but gaps are not; and two logics where both gluts and gaps are infectious, in some sense. Additionally, we focus on the proof theory of these systems, by offering a discussion of two related topics. On the one hand, we prove some limitations regarding the possibility of providing standard Gentzen sequent calculi for these systems, by dualizing and extending some recent results for infectious logics. On the other hand, we provide sound and complete four-sided sequent calculi, arguing that the most important technical and philosophical features taken into account to usually prefer standard calculi are, indeed, enjoyed by the four-sided systems. (shrink)

Philosophers debate about which logical system, if any, is the One True Logic. This involves a disagreement concerning the sufficient conditions that may single out the correct logic among various candidates. This paper discusses whether there are necessary conditions for the correct logic; that is, I discuss whether there are features such that if a logic is correct, then it has those features, although having them might not be sufficient to single out the correct logic. Traditional rationalist arguments suggest that (...) the necessary conditions of thought are necessary and sufficient conditions singling out the correct logical and mathematical theories. In the contemporary debate, Chalmers advocates a view along this line. Jago, analogously, suggests that the necessary conditions for thought—or, as he calls them, our basic epistemic expectations—single out a family of logical and mathematical theories. Warren and Williamson, on the other hand, argue that there are no necessary conditions of thought. I argue that there are necessary conditions for thought, and these are necessary but not sufficient conditions to be the correct logic; indeed, these are features that all logics—correct or incorrect—share. No view we can understand is ruled out by the necessary conditions for thought, but we cannot understand quite any view. Human linguistic and conceptual abilities are genetically constrained, and these constraints are our best guide to the boundaries of logic. Arguing for this, I tackle two dogmas of modern rationalism: namely, the view that the biological constraints of human cognition have no bearing on the boundaries of the epistemic space, and the view that the boundaries of thought coincide with the boundaries of language. (shrink)

In a series of papers, 137–158; 1994, Midwest Studies in Philosophy, 23, 61–74, 1999) Fine develops his hylomorphic theory of embodiments. In this article, we supply a formal semantics for this theory that is adequate to the principles laid down for it in. In Section 1, we lay out the theory of embodiments as Fine presents it. In Section 2, we argue on Cantorian grounds that the theory needs to be stabilized, and sketch some ways forward, discussing various choice points (...) in modeling the view. In Section 3, we develop a formal semantics for the theory of embodiments by constructing embodiments in stages and restricting the domain of the second-order quantifiers. In Section 4 we give a few illustrative examples to show how the models deliver Finean hylomorphic consequences. In Section 5, we prove that Fine’s principles are sound with respect to this semantics. In Section 6 we present some inexpressibility results concerning Fine’s various notions of parthood and show that in our formal semantics these notions are all expressible using a single mereological primitive. In Section 7, we prove several mereological results stemming from the model theory, showing that the mereology is surprisingly robust. In Section 8, we draw some philosophical lessons from the formal semantics, and in particular respond to Koslicki’s main objection to Fine’s theory. In the appendix we present proofs of the inexpressibility results of Section 6. (shrink)

General-elimination harmony articulates Gentzen’s idea that the elimination-rules are justified if they infer from an assertion no more than can already be inferred from the grounds for making it. Dummett described the rules as not only harmonious but stable if the E-rules allow one to infer no more and no less than the I-rules justify. Pfenning and Davies call the rules locally complete if the E-rules are strong enough to allow one to infer the original judgement. A method is given (...) of generating harmonious general-elimination rules from a collection of I-rules. We show that the general-elimination rules satisfy Pfenning and Davies’ test for local completeness, but question whether that is enough to show that they are stable. Alternative conditions for stability are considered, including equivalence between the introduction- and elimination-meanings of a connective, and recovery of the grounds for assertion, finally generalizing the notion of local completeness to capture Dummett’s notion of stability satisfactorily. We show that the general-elimination rules meet the last of these conditions, and so are indeed not only harmonious but also stable. (shrink)

Serious actualism is the prima facie plausible thesis that things couldn’t have been related while being nothing. The thesis plays an important role in a number of arguments in metaphysics, e.g., in Plantinga’s argument for the claim that propositions do not ontologically depend on the things that they are about and in Williamson’s argument for the claim that he, Williamson, is necessarily something. Salmon has put forward that which is, arguably, the most pressing challenge to serious actualists. Salmon’s objection is (...) based on a scenario intended to elicit the judgment that merely possible entities may nonetheless be actually referred to, and so may actually have properties. It is shown that predicativism, the thesis that names are true of their bearers, provides the resources for replying to Salmon’s objection. In addition, an argument for serious actualism based on Stephanou, 219–250 2007) is offered. Finally, it is shown that once serious actualism is conjoined with some minimal assumptions, it implies property necessitism, the thesis that necessarily all properties are necessarily something, as well as a strong comprehension principle for higher-order modal logic according to which for every condition there necessarily is the property of being a thing satisfying that condition. (shrink)

Cet article se demande si un dialogue entre la civilisation chinoise et Leo Strauss est possible et à quelles conditions. Il décrit le contexte d’introduction de Strauss en Chine, en se concentrant sur Liu Xiaofeng, l’un des straussiens les plus influents de la Chine contemporaine. L’analyse de son interprétation de la critique straussienne de la modernité occidentale fait ressortir deux distorsions fondamentales : là où Strauss considérait l’« enseignement tyrannique » comme quelque chose de théorique, Liu en fait un plan (...) d’action politique ; au lieu de reconnaître la modernité des bases idéologiques de l’État fondé par Mao Zedong, il les interprète au crible de la tradition. Cette double déformation contredit l’intention de Strauss en tant que philosophe zététique et socratique. (shrink)

Nesse artigo temos como objetivo analisar a representação do conceito de liberdade na primeira temporada da série “Merli”, veiculada no canal de streaming Netflix. Nela, pretendemos verificar como o professor de Filosofia Merli Bergeron trabalha conceitos libertários e suscita reflexões críticas em seus alunos sobre os padrões de convívio socialmente impostos pelas instituições primárias e secundárias. Ao mesmo tempo, pretendemos abordar a personalidade do professor, discutindo sobre o convívio que ele mantém com os colegas de trabalho e seus alunos, assim (...) como em sua vida particular, para visualizarmos se, de fato, ele pratica aquilo que discursa aos estudantes durante suas aulas. Haverá um foco maior na relação dele com o aluno Ivan Basco, que sofre com agorafobia e recebe aulas particulares de Merli para superar sua situação de isolamento. Em um primeiro momento, com caráter introdutório, iremos discutir sobre a importância da discussão de liberdade na contemporaneidade. A seguir, exporemos conceitos formulados por diversos pensadores acerca do que é a liberdade e sua importância para a emancipação humana. A partir disso, serão abordadas informações básicas sobre a produção da série, como os diretores, veiculadores e atores envolvidos para, por fim, executarmos a análise dos capítulos do seriado e apresentarmos nossas considerações finais. Diversos teóricos pertinentes a esse trabalho serão utilizados na revisão bibliográfica. Como metodologias de análise fílmica usaremos, para verificação estrutural do filme, a metodologia de análise fílmica de Manuela Penafria e, para visualização das formas simbólicas, a Hermenêutica de Profundidade, proposta por John Thompson em “Ideologia e Cultura Moderna”. (shrink)

This article is concerned with an exploration of a family of systems—called immune logics—that arise from certain dualizations of the well-known family of infectious logics. The distinctive feature of the semantic of infectious logics is the presence of a certain “infectious” semantic value, by which two different though equivalent things are meant. On the one hand, it is meant that these values are zero elements for all the operations in the underlying algebraic structure. On the other hand, it is meant (...) that these values behave in a value-in-value-out fashion for all the operations in the underlying algebraic structure. Thus, in a rather informal manner, we will refer to immune logics as those systems whose underlying semantics count with a certain “immune” semantic value behaving in a way that is somewhat dual to that of the infectious values. In a more formal manner, carrying out this dualization will prove to be not as straightforward as one could imagine, since the two characterizations of infectiousness discussed above lead to two different outcomes when one tries to conduct them. We explore these alternatives and provide technical results regarding them, and the various logical systems defined using such semantics. (shrink)

On the classical understanding, an agent is fully excused for an action if and only if performing this action was a case of faultless wrongdoing. A major motivation for this view is the apparent existence of paradigmatic types of excusing considerations, affecting fault but not wrongness. I show that three such considerations, ignorance, duress and compulsion, can be shown to have direct bearing on the permissibility of actions. The appeal to distinctly identifiable excusing considerations thus does not stand up to (...) closer scrutiny, undermining the classical view and giving us reason to seek alternative ways of drawing the justification/excuse distinction. (shrink)

Eye movements during mental imagery are not epiphenomenal but assist the process of image generation. Commands to the eyes for each fixation are stored along with the visual representation and are used as spatial index in a motor‐based coordinate system for the proper arrangement of parts of an image. In two experiments, subjects viewed an irregular checkerboard or color pictures of fish and were subsequently asked to form mental images of these stimuli while keeping their eyes open. During the perceptual (...) phase, a group of subjects was requested to maintain fixation onto the screen's center, whereas another group was free to inspect the stimuli. During the imagery phase, all of these subjects were free to move their eyes. A third group of subjects (in Experiment 2) was free to explore the pattern but was requested to maintain central fixation during imagery. For subjects free to explore the pattern, the percentage of time spent fixating a specific location during perception was highly correlated with the time spent on the same (empty) locations during imagery. The order of scanning of these locations during imagery was correlated to the original order during perception. The strength of relatedness of these scanpaths and the vividness of each image predicted performance accuracy. Subjects who fixed their gaze centrally during perception did the same spontaneously during imagery. Subjects free to explore during perception, but maintaining central fixation during imagery, showed decreased ability to recall the pattern. We conclude that the eye scanpaths during visual imagery reenact those of perception of the same visual scene and that they play a functional role. (shrink)

Necessitism, Contingentism, and Theory Equivalence is a dissertation on issues in higher-order modal metaphysics. Consider a modal higher-order language with identity in which the universal quantifier is interpreted as expressing universal quantification and the necessity operator is interpreted as expressing metaphysical necessity. The main question addressed in the dissertation concerns the correct theory formulated in this language. A different question that also takes centre stage in the dissertation is what it takes for theories to be equivalent.The whole dissertation consists of (...) an extended argument in defence of the truth of two seemingly inconsistent higher-order modal theories, specifically: 1.Plantingan Moderate Contingentism, a theory based on Plantinga’s [1] modal metaphysics that is committed to, among other things, the contingent being of some individuals and the necessary being of all possible higher-order entities;2.Williamsonian Thorough Necessitism, a theory advocated by Williamson [3] which is committed to, among other things, the necessary being of every possible individual as well as of every possible higher-order entity.Part of the case for these theories’ joint truth relies on defences of the following metaphysical theses: Thorough Serious Actualism, the thesis that no things could have been related while being nothing, and Higher-Order Necessitism, the thesis that necessarily, every higher-order entity is necessarily something. It is shown that Thorough Serious Actualism and Higher-Order Necessitism are both implicit commitments of very weak logical theories. The defence of Higher-Order Necessitism constitutes a powerful challenge to Stalnaker’s [2] Thorough Contingentism, a theory committed to, among other things, the view that there could have been some individuals as well as some entities of any higher-order that could have been nothing.In the dissertation it is argued that Plantingan Moderate Contingentism and Williamsonian Thorough Necessitism are in fact equivalent, even if they appear to be jointly inconsistent. The case for this claim relies on the Synonymy account, a novel account of theory equivalence developed and defended in the dissertation. According to this account, theories are equivalent just in case they have the same commitments and conception of logical space.By way of defending the Synonymy account’s adequacy, the account is applied to the debate between noneists, proponents of the view that some things do not exist, and Quineans, proponents of the view that to exist just is to be some thing. The Synonymy account is shown to afford a more nuanced and better understanding of that debate by revealing that what noneists and Quineans are really disagreeing about is what expressive resources are available to appropriately describe the world.By coupling a metatheoretical result with tools from the philosophy of language, it is argued that Plantingan Moderate Contingentism and Williamsonian Thorough Necessitism are synonymous theories, and so, by the lights of the Synonymy account, equivalent. Given the defence of their extant commitments made in the dissertation, it is concluded that Plantingan Moderate Contingentism and Williamsonian Thorough Necessitism are both correct. A corollary of this result is that the dispute between Plantingans and Williamsonians is, in an important sense, merely verbal. For if two theories are equivalent, then they “require the same of the world for their truth.”Thus, the results of the dissertation reveal that if one speaks as a Plantingan while advocating Plantingan Moderate Contingentism, or as a Williamsonian while advocating Williamsonian Thorough Necessitism, then one will not go wrong. Notwithstanding, one will still go wrong if one speaks as a Plantingan while advocating Williamsonian Thorough Necessitism, or as a Williamsonian while advocating Plantingan Moderate Contingentism.On the basis of a conception of the individual constants and predicates of second-order modal languages as strongly Millian, i.e., as having actually existing entities as their semantic values, in the appendix are presented second-order modal logics consistent with Stalnaker’s Thorough Contingentism. Furthermore, it is shown there that these logics are strong enough for applications of higher-order modal logic in mathematics, a result that constitutes a reply to an argument to the contrary by Williamson [3]. Finally, these logics are proven to be complete relative to particular “thoroughly contingentist” classes of models. (shrink)

Our aim is to provide a sequent calculus whose external consequence relation coincides with the three-valued paracomplete logic `of nonsense' introduced by Dmitry Bochvar and, independently, presented as the weak Kleene logic K3W by Stephen C. Kleene. The main features of this calculus are (i) that it is non-reflexive, i.e., Identity is not included as an explicit rule (although a restricted form of it with premises is derivable); (ii) that it includes rules where no variable-inclusion conditions are attached; and (iii) (...) that it is hybrid, insofar as it includes both left and right operational introduction as well as elimination rules. (shrink)

In this article, our aim is to take a step towards a full understanding of the notion of paraconsistency in the context of metainferential logics. Following the work initiated by Barrio et al. [2018], we will consider a metainferential logic to be paraconsistent whenever the metainferential version of Explosion is invalid. However, our contribution consists in modifying the definition of meta-Explosion by extending the standard framework and introducing a negation for inferences and metainferences. From this new perspective, Tarskian paraconsistent logics (...) such as LP will not turn out to be metainferentially paraconsistent, in contrast to, for instance, non-transitive logics like ST. Finally, we will end up by defining a logic which is metainferentially paraconsistent at every level, and discussing whether this logic is uniform through translations. (shrink)

Given a three-valued definition of validity, which choice of three-valued truth tables for the connectives can ensure that the resulting logic coincides exactly with classical logic? We give an answer to this question for the five monotonic consequence relations $st$, $ss$, $tt$, $ss\cap tt$, and $ts$, when the connectives are negation, conjunction, and disjunction. For $ts$ and $ss\cap tt$ the answer is trivial (no scheme works), and for $ss$ and $tt$ it is straightforward (they are the collapsible schemes, in which (...) the middle value acts like one of the classical values). For $st$, the schemes in question are the Boolean normal schemes that are either monotonic or collapsible. (shrink)

The history of philosophy risks a self-opacity whereby we overestimate or underestimate our proximity to prior modes of thinking. This risk is relevant to assessing Hegel’s appropriation by McDowell and Priest. McDowell enlists Hegel for a quietist answer to the problem with assuming that concepts and reality belong to different orders, viz., how concepts are answerable to the world. If we accept Hegel’s absolute idealist view that the conceptual is boundless, this problem allegedly dissolves. Priest enlists Hegel for a dialetheist (...) answer to the problem with assuming that truth and falsity are mutually exclusive, viz., how certain sentences are both true and false. If we accept Hegel’s dialectical view that certain contradictions are necessary, this problem allegedly dissolves. For both McDowell and Priest, we find a true friend in Hegel. I argue that McDowell’s and Priest’s appropriations of Hegel overestimate Hegel’s affinity with quietism and dialetheism. McDowell reads Hegel as a quietist who silences metaphysical claims and the skeptical questions they raise against commonsense, but neglects Hegel’s adaptation of ancient skepticism against commonsense. Priest reads Hegel as a dialetheist who subordinates formal logic to dialectical logic by affirming the truth of certain contradictions, but neglects Hegel’s commitment to resolving contradictions for the sake of truth qua whole. I diagnose their misreadings in terms of what Hegel regards as the three moments of logic and argue that while McDowell jumps to its third moment, Priest stalls at its second moment. According to Hegel’s Encyclopedia Logic, logic has three “moments”: the abstractive moment of the understanding, which “stops short” at fixed categories; the negative moment of dialectic, which discovers the “genuine nature” of the categories, viz., that each “passes over, of itself, into its opposite”; and the positive moment of speculation, which grasps the “unity” of categories through the “dissolution” of their inner opposition. Hegel warns that if these moments are “kept separate from each other […] they are not considered in their truth”. I suggest that quietist and dialetheist readings of Hegel fail to consider truthfully the unified moments of his logic. In his quietist critique of metaphysics, McDowell enlists Hegel to dissolve the problem with assuming the duality of concept and reality. But McDowell helps himself directly to the third moment of logic, where the unity of the categories, and hence the boundlessness of the conceptual, would be fully articulated. Since he arrives at the third moment prematurely, ignoring its prior moments, he obscures its truth (§1). In his dialetheist critique of formal logic, Priest enlists Hegel to dissolve the problem with assuming the duality of truth and falsity. But Priest restricts himself gratuitously to the second moment of logic, where contradictions within the categories are not yet resolved. Since he stalls at the second moment, severed from its final moment, he obscures its truth (§2). I argue we can extricate Hegel from quietist and dialetheist misreadings only if we grasp the truth of the three moments of logic. (shrink)

The book outlines the historical development of Public Law and the state from ancient times to the modern day, offering an account of relevant events in parallel with a general historical background, establishing and explaining the relationships between political, religious, and economic events.

The metaverse is the extension of this virtual world in which our avatars and other holograms will socialize. Should we speak of incarnation when it is virtual beings that represent us rather than physical bodies?

In this thesis I defend optimism about philosophical progress, which is a form of anti-exceptionalism about philosophy. Pessimists maintain that philosophy lacks the distinctive features that make science progressive. Optimism maintains that philosophy is like science, in this respect. My argumentative strategy is the following. I review the literature on philosophical progress to identify the feature that, according to pessimists, philosophy lacks. Then, I develop a historical case study to show that philosophy has these features. The goal is showing that (...) philosophy makes progress by pessimistic standards. My strategy is novel because other optimists, including Stoljar and Dellsén, Firing, and Norton, focus on arguing that a certain set of conditions are sufficient for progress, contrary to what pessimists hold. I focus instead on arguing that, contrary to what pessimists hold, philosophy makes progress by their standards. The most common pessimistic argument is the following: first, pessimists argue that consensus is a necessary condition for progress, second, they argue that philosophy is pervaded by disagreement. It follows that philosophy is exceptional. Beebee, Chalmers, Dietrich, Goldberg, and Kornblith employ various versions of this reasoning. Optimistic responses to this argument typically grant the second premise and challenge the first. Instead, I follow Williamson in granting the first premise and challenging the second. My case study focuses on the work of Gottlob Frege, who is widely regarded as one of the founding fathers of analytic philosophy. I argue that there is consensus in contemporary philosophy about some of the views that Frege set forth. In fact, Frege’s case meets not only the pessimistic requirements for progress, Frege also produced all the epistemic goods that are associated to progress by participants in the more general debate about scientific progress. To show this, I review the literature about scientific progress, following Rowbottom’s analysis. Then I analyse various aspects of Frege’s work to show that it meets all the known conditions of progress. Thus, no matter what view about progress is correct, Frege made progress. Having argued that Frege made progress, I generalize my argument by considering three other authors that arguably made progress in the past. Moreover, I consider contemporary debates in contemporary philosophy to argue that philosophy continues to make progress to this day. Finally, I review some of the barriers to progress that seem indeed to be holding back philosophy, and other disciplines. Philosophy made progress in the past and continues to make progress to this day. But not all is good. Having ruled out pessimism about philosophical progress, we are in a better position to see how philosophy, and other disciplines, could be improved. (shrink)

En los últimos años se ha propuesto una importante cantidad de métodos estadísticos demográficos. La gran mayoría han sido desarrollados con la finalidad de pronosticar las componentes demográficas y/o medidas derivadas a partir de la suposición de un modelo subyacente. El presente trabajo pretende realizar un ejercicio comparativo integral a través de la estimación y pronóstico de la fecundidad a partir de tres propuestas —métodos clásicos de pronóstico, tales como los modelos ARIMA y los suavizados exponenciales, modelos para datos funcionales (...) (MDF) y modelos jerárquicos bayesianos (MJB)—, como un primer paso hacia el estudio de las proyecciones de población derivadas de cada una de ellas, empleando datos de la Argentina. El ejercicio tiene como horizonte final la estimación de la mortalidad y la fecundidad a través de los tres métodos mencionados para luego integrarlos en proyecciones de población. (shrink)

According to the mythical-religious literature time is determined by the eternal nature of divinity or origin of all things. From this adagio, theological literature is provoked and studies on the eternal nature of divinity suggest that if the universe was created the image of its creator the first must also be eternal. Therefore the question arises: how to shape that which by nature is formless, infinite, namely eternity? To answer this question the following paper develops a brief history about the (...) Judeo-Christian tradition on the problem of time and its relationship with eternity and also tries to prepare at the end one logical answer to the question about the form of eternity. (shrink)

In 1948, Bertrand Russell and Frederick Copleston entertained us with a radiophonic debate, on the BBC, concerning the rational proofs of God’s existence. This debate is primarily a product of Authors’ mindset. In this sense, every argument on each side presupposes a universal reason from which human intellect can grasp a certain degree of truth. Therefore, we would expect that the debate 75 years old to be outdated. Or maybe, Russell’s agnostic position could, at first sight, seem to be more (...) aligned with a contemporary post-modern mindset than Copleston’s theism. However, we disagree with the aforementioned thesis. We will not argue that Copleston won the debate by means of reason alone. We will rather show that both positions emerge from different ontologies. And these ones are intertwined with specific narratives and its respective ways of life. For that matter, the Russell-Copleston debate substantiates the thesis of Radical Orthodoxy. Deep down, John Milbank’s “ontology of peace,” as opposed to the Nietzschean nihilism, emerges from this debate. In this sense, while Copleston’s argumentation grounds this narrative on an ontology of peace, Russell tends to follow in a nihilism capable of destroying the communion between different persons. In this sense, the debate is still up to date. (shrink)

As coleções paleontológicas representam uma herança natural e cultural, que deve ser salvaguardada em acervos institucionais. Dentre elas, destaca-se a Coleção de Paleovertebrados do Departamento de Geologia e Paleontologia do Museu Nacional (DGP-MN), que sofreu uma considerável perda, em decorrência do incêndio sofrido por este museu em 2018. Uma forma de recuperar as informações históricas e científicas desta coleção está em seu registro iconográfico. Nesse contexto, o presente trabalho inventaria e ilustra o acervo, que ficou conhecido no Departamento de Geologia (...) e Paleontologia do Museu Nacional como “Coleção Cope”. Trata-se de uma centena de vertebrados fósseis que foram enviados, sob a forma de empréstimo, ao paleontólogo norte-americano Edward Drinker Cope (1840-1897), no final do século XIX, para identificação e descrição. Grande parte desta coleção foi obtida durante a construção da Estrada de Ferro da Bahia ao São Francisco, inaugurada em 1860. A implementação e consequente ampliação da rede ferroviária no Brasil, no final do século XIX, trouxe não só crescimento econômico, como possibilitou a formação de muitas coleções paleontológicas, uma vez que os cortes abertos nos terrenos para a construção das estradas de ferro revelaram o registro fossilífero, como é o caso da “Coleção Cope”. Se esta não mais existe fisicamente, ao menos a listagem e o registro iconográfico aqui apresentados poderão revalidá-la para a paleontologia brasileira. (shrink)

[1] Ihr System und ihr Verhältnis zur Logistik. 4. Aufl.--2. Definitionstheorie und Kalkülwechsel.

BackgroundCancer diagnosis and treatment represent a real upheaval both for the patient and for his or her life partner. Adjustment to cancer has been widely studied at the individual level, however, there is little in the literature about the experiences of the couple as an entity. This is especially true with regard to a population facing advanced cancer. This systematic review aimed to make an inventory of 1) the current knowledge relating to the experience of the patient-partner dyad when confronted (...) with advanced cancer, and 2) the psychosocial interventions specifically centered on this dyad.MethodThis review was conducted using the Cochrane methodology. The eligibility criteria for the literature review were: one of the members of the dyad being treated for advanced cancer, dyad composed of the patient and his/her life partner. Databases from PubMed, PsycArticle, PsycInfo, Psychology and Behavioral Sciences Collection and Scopus were investigated. A thematic content analysis on the basis of admitted articles made it possible to respond to each of our research objectives.ResultsThree hundred eighty-nine citations were found. Twenty were admitted to the systematic review of the literature. It highlighted the following experiences of the advanced cancer patient-life partner dyad: uncertainty about the future, disjointed time, intrusion into the couple's intimacy, attachment style and caregiving within the couple, couple's adjustment to cancer symptomatology, the couple's supportive care needs, role changes, nature of communication within the couple, anticipation of the coming death, and the meanings and beliefs around death. This review also describes the range of couple therapies used in the context of advanced cancer: emotionally focused-couple therapy, existential therapy, art therapy, support therapy and couple communication and intimacy promotion. These therapies seem to have individual beneficial effects for both the patient and his or her life partner as well as improving marital functioning.ConclusionsThese results clearly highlight that consideration of the couple and communication within the couple during care are fundamental to dyadic adjustment to advanced cancer. Further studies are needed to better understand the couple's experience in order to adapt the management of the couple facing advanced cancer. (shrink)

The most common first- and second-order modal logics either have as theorems every instance of the Barcan and Converse Barcan formulae and of their second-order analogues, or else fail to capture the actual truth of every theorem of classical first- and second-order logic. In this paper we characterise and motivate sound and complete first- and second-order modal logics that successfully capture the actual truth of every theorem of classical first- and second-order logic and yet do not possess controversial instances of (...) the Barcan and Converse Barcan formulae as theorems, nor of their second-order analogues. What makes possible these results is an understanding of the individual constants and predicates of the target languages as strongly Millian expressions, where a strongly Millian expression is one that has an actually existing entity as its semantic value. For this reason these logics are called ‘strongly Millian’. It is shown that the strength of the strongly Millian second-order modal logics here characterised afford the means to resist an argument by Timothy Williamson for the truth of the claim that necessarily, every property necessarily exists. (shrink)

In the broadest sense of the term, “Thomism” refers to a set of ideas and principles, both in philosophy and theology that can be considered as derivations or representations of the thought of Thomas Aquinas. However, Thomism should not be considered as a mere conceptual body. It also represents a certain view and way of doing philosophy and theology. Alasdair MacIntyre, in his book Three Rival Versions of Moral Enquiry, argues that the Thomistic approach provides a coherent and skillful point (...) of view for dealing creatively and critically with opposing views, contrasting this approach with the encyclopedic and the genealogical approaches. The former imposes a single worldview, enclosing knowledge and “truth” in a monolithic structure of “progress,” while the latter, following Nietzsche, devalues and relativizes knowledge, reducing it to a multiplicity of perspectives, each with its own claims to truth, leading to incommensurability and the consequent subjugation of “truth” to the law of the strongest. On the other hand, Thomists have adopted, from the end of the thirteenth century to the present day, different styles and ways of thinking while maintaining dialogue with their “predecessors” and at the same time with their contemporaries, that is, Thomists are capable of what MacIntyre called the “rationality of tradition”. (shrink)