Cartesianism was always a subject to Wittgenstein's criticism. In his case against it, he employed a general strategy that I have called "Reductio ad vacuum". There is something right in Cartesianism but without a hidden confusing premise, the truth of Cartesianism is empty. According to the early Wittgenstein, Cartesianism was right be-cause Solipsism is true: the Self is the center of the world. But without confusing this metaphysical Self with the psychological one, Solipsism becomes empty and no different from Realism.

Wittgenstein’s distinction between saying and showing and the associated thesis, what can be shown cannot be said, were crucial to his first philosophy, persisted throughout the evolution of his whole thought and played a key role in his views on aesthetics. The objective of art is access to the mystical, forcing us to become aware of the uniqueness of our own experience and life. When art is good is a perfect expression and the work of art becomes like a tautology. (...) An important consequence of this understanding of art is the irreducibility of the aesthetic to the scientific perspective. (shrink)

This article analyses Wittgenstein’s conception of nonsense and, against resolute interpretations, defends that, perhaps influenced by Mauthner and Weininger, the Tractatus author conceived corrects ontological and ethical nonsenses like nearly to tautological senseless.

Not as well-known overseas as it should be, there is an important and active Italian tradition of Hume scholarship. One of its most recent and more important representatives is Professor Gianni Paganini, translator into Italian and editor of Norman Kemp Smith’s already excellent edition of the Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion. As is well known, it was a posthumous work by the Scottish philosopher and one of his works that raises the most difficulties for his interpreters. Paganini’s edition consists of a (...) faithful and intelligent Italian translation facing the English text as edited by Norman Kemp Smith for the Clarendon Press, ninety one notes that help us understand the text, a select.. (shrink)

In this paper, we defend the view that, although Wittgenstein does not present an epistemology of religion in the sense of the term most commonly found in traditional philosophical texts, he does explore a different understanding of religious epistemology – one that aligns the religious attitude with a particular form of know-how.

La tesis sostenida por David Hume en su ensayo sobre los milagros, contenida en el capítulo X de su primera Investigación, ha sido objeto continuo de interés. Sus detractores han sostenido que el conjunto del argumento de Hume fracasa. Tras reconstruir los dos argumentos proporcionados por Hume -argumento a priori y argumento a posteriori- proponemos establecer una distinción entre milagrosn y milagros para concluir que el argumento de Hume justifica el escepticismo respecto a estos últimos. En definitiva, el argumento de (...) Hume, lejos de pretender en última instancia probar la inexistencia de los milagros como un factum dentro del orden natural, tiene por objeto demarcar la distinción entre creencias científicas y creencias religiosas como dos ámbitos que deben considerarse de manera separada. Esta diferenciación ha contribuido de manera decisiva a conformar la separación entre Ciencia y Religión propia de las sociedades secularizadas contemporáneas. (shrink)

This paper analyses Cartesian ethics and politics. It defends that Descartes's position in these areas coincides with his metaphysical and physical conceptions, searching a difficult equilibrium between individualism and altruism, quiet life and social commitment.

This paper analyses Cartesian ethics and politics. It defends that Descartes's position in these areas coincides with his metaphysical and physical conceptions, searching a difficult equilibrium between individualism and altruism, quiet life and social commitment.

Este artículo defiende que según Descartes hay dos clases de percepción sensorial. Una que opera por impulso, confundiendo las propiedades de las cosas físicas con nuestras ideas de ellas; y la otra que procede por deducción y distingue entre aquellas propiedades de las cosas físicas que tienen una representación adecuada en nuestras ideas y las que no la tienen.

Este artículo analiza la teoría humeana del conocimiento del mundo externo. Defiende que la misma supone una defensa del realismo directo propio del sentido común y una crítica de cualquier tipo de realismo representacional así como del fenomenismo. Esta defensa es escéptica porque Hume considera que la premisa básica de tal realismo, el carácter específicamente semejante de los cuerpos y nuestras percepciones de ellos, no tiene otro fundamento que la naturaleza de nuestra imaginación y, además, contradice la razón, a la (...) vez que señala que esta última facultad es incapaz de erigir un sistema preferible a aquel sistema vulgar. (shrink)

El artículo compara el modo como Aristóteles explica que un cuerpo llegue a vivir o que una mente llegue a entender, con el esquema explicativo que emplea Wittgenstein para dar cuenta de problemas como éstos: ¿qué hace posible que el signo adquiera significado, o que una acción sea el seguimiento de una regla? El interés se centra en la lógica de la explicación, y el propósito no es establecer relaciones de influencia, sino explorar analogías formales, con el objetivo de arrojar (...) luz sobre algunos conceptos centrales del pensamiento maduro de Wittgenstein. (shrink)

This book explores Wittgenstein's conception of ethics, religion and philosophy. It aims at providing us with the tools necessary for assessing to what extent the Austrian philosopher can be considered an anti-Enlightenment thinker. The articles collected in this volume explore the relationship between Wittgenstein's thought and that of several authors who were, in various ways, key to the counter-enlightenement, authors such as Hume, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, Tolstoy, James and Pierce. One of the central issues examined here is Wittgenstein's opposition to the (...) Cartesian method of doubt a cornerstone of the enlightened movement against prejudice and superstition.". (shrink)

Los artículos de este segundo número monográfico dedicado a Descartes son un fruto más del proyecto de investigación -financiado por el Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación, [Referencia PID2021-126133NB-I00]- que lleva por título: Éticas y metafísica de los afectos. Las génesis modernas del presente actual (EMAP). Se ofrecen a continuación relecturas cartesianas que ponen el acento en la revisión de ciertos tópicos atribuidos al pensamiento del padre de la modernidad, más mencionado que leído y estudiado.

Los textos que se presentan a continuación aúnan a reconocidos estudiosos en el cartesianismo, junto a investigadores más nóveles. Son fruto además de un proyecto de investigación financiado por el Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación, [Referencia PID2021-126133NB-100] que lleva por título: Éticas y metafísica de los afectos. Las génesis modernas del presente actual (EMAP). Se ofrecen, por tanto, los estudios que siguen como resultados de este proyecto, que inició su andadura en septiembre de 2022.

In this introductory piece I summarize the aims and contents of the special section on Wittgenstein and Applied Epistemology, which consists of a selection of papers presented at the 6th Symposium of the International Ludwig Wittgenstein Society that took place at the Nova University of Lisbon in 2017. After explaining the sense in which “applied epistemology” is here employed in connection with Wittgenstein’s thought, brief comments are made on papers by Natalie Alana Ashton, Anna Boncompagni, Marco Brusotti, Michel Le Du, (...) Andrew Lugg, Sofia Miguens, Constantine Sandis, Genia Schönbaumsfeld, and Vicente Sanfélix Vidarte and Chon Tejedor. (shrink)

Ecological psychology is one of the most influential theories of perception in the embodied, anti-representational, and situated cognitive sciences. However, radical enactivists claim that Gibsonians tend to describe ecological information and its ‘pick up’ in ways that make ecological psychology close to representational theories of perception and cognition. Motivated by worries about the tenability of classical views of informational content and its processing, these authors claim that ecological psychology needs to be “RECtified” so as to explicitly resist representational readings. In (...) this paper, we argue against this call for RECtification. To do so, we offer a detailed analysis of the notion of perceptual information and other related notions such as specificity and meaning, as they are presented in the specialized ecological literature. We defend that these notions, if properly understood, remain free of any representational commitment. Ecological psychology, we conclude, does not need to be RECtified. (shrink)

Background: Heart rate variability (HRV) has been considered as a measure of heart-brain interaction and autonomic modulation, and it is modified by cognitive and attentional tasks. In cognitive tasks, HRV was reduced in participants who achieved worse results. This could indicate the possibility of HRV predicting cognitive performance, but this association is still unclear in a high cognitive load sport such as chess Objective: To analyse modifications on HRV and subjective perception of stress, difficulty and complexity in different chess problem (...) tasks. Design: HRV was assessed at baseline. During the chess problems, HRV was also monitored, and immediately after chess problems the subjective stress, difficulty and complexity were also registered. Method: A total of 16 male chess players, age: 35.19 (13.44) and ELO: 1927.69 (167.78) were analysed while six chess problem solving tasks with different level of difficulty were conducted (two low level, two medium level and two high level chess problems). Participants were classified according to their results into two groups: high performance or low performance. Results: Friedman test showed a significant effect of tasks in HRV indexes and perceived difficulty, stress and complexity in both high and low performance groups. A decrease in HRV was observed in both groups when chess problems difficulty increased. In addition, HRV was significantly higher in the high performance group than in the low performance group during chess problems. Conclusions: An increase in autonomic modulation was observed to meet the cognitive demands of the problems, being higher while the difficulty of the tasks increased. Non-linear HRV indexes seem to be more reactive to tasks difficulty, being an interesting and useful tool in chess training. (shrink)