This article offers an explanation of perhaps Wittgenstein’s strangest and least intuitive thesis – the semantical mutation thesis – according to which one can never answer a mathematical conjecture because the new proof alters the very meanings of the terms involved in the original question. Instead of basing our justification on the distinction between mere calculation and proofs of isolated propositions, characteristic of Wittgenstein’s intermediary period, we generalize it to include conjectures involving effective procedures as well.

This paper offers a new interpretation for Wittgenstein`s treatment of mathematical identities. As it is widely known, Wittgenstein`s mature philosophy of mathematics includes a general rejection of abstract objects. On the other hand, the traditional interpretation of mathematical identities involves precisely the idea of a single abstract object – usually a number –named by both sides of an equation.

This paper deals with the mutations in Wittgenstein’s treatment of the notions of “generality” and of “singularity”, from his first philosophy, in the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, to his later mature philosophy represented by the Philosophical Investigations. As we shall see, Wittgenstein’s philosophical handling of the notion of “visual perception” plays a key role in those conceptual transformations.

Trata-se de capítulo de um livro sobre a noção de "substância" na história da filosofia e contém uma discussão sobre a noção ordinária de "corpo" do ponto de vista da filosofia analítica.

The objective of this article is to try to elucidate Wittgenstein’s ex-travagant thesis that each and every mathematical advancement involves some “semantical mutation”, i.e., some alteration of the very meanings of the terms involved. To do that we will argue in favor of the idea of a “modal incompati-bility” between the concepts involved, as they were prior to the advancement, and what they become after the new result was obtained. We will also argue that the adoption of this thesis profoundly (...) alters the traditional way of con-struing the idea of “progress” in mathematics. (shrink)

O presente artigo tem como tema as extensas discussões de Wittgenstein sobre uma das formas mais simples e elementares de infinitude em matemática: as dízimas periódicas. Tentamos organizar os vários argumentos do autor em uma única exposição continuada. No final do artigo, introduzimos, ainda que de forma breve, o famoso argumento sobre “execução de regras” de Wittgenstein, bem como a idéia de interpretações nãostandard de processos infinitos.

This paper deals with the recent Swedish proposals of a Intuitionistic notion of Truth, by Dag Prawitz and Per Martin-Löf.

The objective of this paper will be to present a critical evaluation of the so-called “standard conception of a proof”. According to this conception, a text could only be called a “demonstration of a certain mathematical proposition” if we could find a completely formalized version of that demonstration, its “corresponding formal proof”. We will compare these ideas with the treatment of the same topic within two markedly different contexts, that of contemporary Swedish intuitionism and that of modern software engineering. Finally, (...) we will offer a quick discussion of some of Wittgenstein's proposals regarding the subject. /// -/- O objetivo deste texto será o de apresentar uma avaliação crítica da assim chamada “concepção estândar” do que seja uma prova. Segundo essa concepção, um texto só poderia ser chamado de uma “demonstração de uma certa proposição matemática” se pudéssemos encontrar uma versão completamente formalizada daquela demonstração, sua “prova formal correspondente”. Faremos comparações com o tratamento do mesmo tópico em dois contextos muito distintos, aquele do intuicionismo sueco contemporâneo e o da moderna engenharia de software. Por fim, faremos uma rápida apresentação de algumas propostas de Wittgenstein sobre o assunto. (shrink)

This paper offers an overview of various alternative formulations for Analysis, the theory of Integral and Differential Calculus, and its diverging conceptions of the topological structure of the continuum. We pay particularly attention to Smooth Analysis, a proposal created by William Lawvere and Anders Kock based on Grothendieck’s work on a categorical algebraic geometry. The role of Heyting’s logic, common to all these alternatives is emphasized.

This paper offers a reconstruction of Wittgenstein's discussion on inductive proofs. A "algebraic version" of these indirect proofs is offered and contrasted with the usual ones in which an infinite sequence of modus pones is projected.

This paper presents a new reconstruction of Wittgenstein’s famous (and controversial) rule-following arguments. Two are the novel features offered by our reconstruction. In the first place, we propose a shift of the central focus of the discussion, from the general semantics and the philosophy of mind to the philosophy of mathematics and the rejection of the notion of a function. The second new feature is positive: we argue that Wittgenstein offers us a new alternative notion of a rule (to replace (...) the rejected functions), a notion reminiscent of Category Theory’s notion of a morphism. (shrink)

Wittgenstein’s philosophy of mathematics involves two highly controversial theses: the idea that mathematical propositions are not about (abstract) objects and the idea that no mathematical conjecture is ever answered as such, because the advent of the proof always determines a semantical shift of the meanings of the terms involved in the conjecture. The present article offers a reconstruction of Wittgenstein’s arguments supporting these theses within a very restricted setting: Archimedes’ discovery of an algorithm for calculating the number Pi.

Cet article poursuit un double but : d’une part, situer dans le parcours philosophique de Wittgenstein une partie de l’histoire du « problème du champ visuel », thème clé de sa période intermédiaire ; d’autre part, mettre en lumière sa critique de l’idée d’un champ visuel (et celle de l’idée d’un objet interne). Nous croyons que ses arguments sont nouveaux, pénétrants, et ainsi leur intérêt dépasse les limites d’un exposé purement exégétique.

Este artigo oferece uma nova reconstrução para os argumentos do famoso segundo capítulo de Word and Object de Quine e sua idéia da Tradução Radical . De acordo com essa abordagem, o maior alvo de Quine é a noção de composicionalidade como sendo o elemento fundamental para qualquer teoria do significado. Em poucas palavras, não poderia haver nenhuma “teoria do significado”, para Quine, simplesmente porque a noção de composicionalidade deveria ser rejeitada como a concepção central da semântica. Além disso, tomamos (...) o cuidado de diferenciar argumentos empíricos de argumentos a priori de natureza modal. Esses últimos constituem-se no que propomos chamar de Teorema do Automorfismo de Quine , a idéia de que há maneiras alternativas de se reconstruir a estrutura gramatical de qualquer língua incluindo predicação e que poderiam manter invariantes todas as nossas predisposições para comportamento verbal sob quaisquer estados de coisas, atuais ou meramente possíveis. Em nosso entender, é esse teorema que determina fundamentalmente a rejeição da composicionalidade por Quine e, assim, de todas as teorias do significado. (shrink)

This article discusses some of Chateaubriand’s views on the connections between the ideas of formalization and infinity, as presented in chapters 19 and 20 of Logical Forms. We basically agree with his criticisms of the standard construal of these connections, a view we named “formal proofs as ultimate provings”, but we suggest an alternative way of picturing that connection based on some ideas of the late Wittgenstein.

O objetivo deste artigo é tentarmos elucidar a extravagante tese de Wittgenstein de que todo e qualquer avanço matemático envolve alguma “mutação semântica”, ou seja, alguma alteração nos próprios significados dos termos envolvidos. Para isso, argumentaremos a favor da ideia de uma “incompatibilidade modal” entre os conceitos envolvidos, como eram antes do avanço, e o que se tornam após a obtenção do novo resultado. Também argumentaremos que a adoção dessa tese altera profundamente nossa maneira tradicional de construir a ideia de (...) “progresso” em matemática. (shrink)

Review of the translation of Ludwig Wittgenstein book: Observações Filosóficas. São Paulo: Edições Loyola, 2005. Tradução (do inglês) por Adail Sobral e Maria Stela Gonçalves.

We discuss some basic issues underlying the natural numbers: induction and recursion. We examine recursive formulations and their use in establishing universal and particular properties.

Esta resenha versa sobre a obra Cidadania e Democracia Deliberativa de Catherine Audard que se refere à uma articulação rawlsiana entre uma teoria da justiça e as teses centrais do seu liberalismo político sobre o pluralismo razoável, democracia deliberativa, cidadania participativa, razão pública, direito dos povos e multiculturalismo.

The main issue André Porto raises in his paper concerns the use of dot notation to indicate an infinite set of hypotheses. Whereas I agree that one cannot extract a unique infinite expansion from a finite initial segment, in my response I argue that this holds for finite expansions as well. I further explain how my remarks on infinite proof structures are neither motivated by the impact of Gödel’s incompleteness theorems on Hilbert’s program, nor by a negative view (...) of strict finitism.O problema central que André Porto discute em seu artigo diz respeito ao uso da notação de pontos para indicar um conjunto infinito de hipóteses. Mesmo estando de acordo não ser possível extrair uma expansão infinita a partir de um segmento inicial finito, em minha réplica argumento que isto vale igualmente para expansões finitas. Explico também que minhas observações sobre estruturas de prova infinitas não são motivadas pelo impacto dos teoremas de incompletude de Gödel no programa de Hilbert, e tampouco por uma visão negativa do finitismo estrito. (shrink)

O artigo se propõe a uma investigação da potência filosófica presente na poesia japonesa clássica conhecida como waka. O aspecto formal mais proeminente do waka é a sua curta estrutura composta geralmente de 31 sílabas moraicas divididas, respectivamente, em 5 versos de 5, 7, 5, 7 e 7 sílabas cada. Para erguer-se como uma forma poética, o waka emprega o recurso rítmico da pausa e uma retórica que vinculam cada poema individual ao todo da tradição através de precedentes. Defendemos que (...) na tradição intelectual constituída pelo waka há uma filosofia do real – que denominamos intertextualidade do real – que entende a realidade como vazia e impermanente. Dessa forma, seria o waka a forma mais adequada através da qual exprimir o real uma vez que ele é mais profundo e excelente a medida em que cria um movimento de esvaziamento e tornar impermanente através de seus recursos formais e retóricos: seu cerne, sua disposição e significado e suas palavras. (shrink)

Presenting a fascinating analysis of the idea of what can't be said, this book ascertains whether the notion of there being a truth, or a state of affairs, or knowledge that can't be expressed linguistically is a coherent notion. The author distinguishes different senses in which it might be said that something can't be said. The first part looks at the question of whether ineffability is a coherent idea. Part two evaluates two families of arguments regarding whether ineffable states of (...) affairs actually exist: the argument from mysticism and the argument from epistemic boundedness. Part three looks more closely at the relation between mystic and non-mystic stances. In the fourth and final part the author distinguishes five qualitatively different types of ineffability. _Ineffability and Philosophy_ is a significant contribution to this area of research and will be essential reading for philosophers and those researching and studying the philosophy of language. (shrink)

Experiences of absence are common in everyday life, but have received little philosophical attention until recently, when two positions regarding the nature of such experiences surfaced in the literature. According to the Perceptual View, experiences of absence are perceptual in nature. This is denied by the Surprise-Based View, according to which experiences of absence belong together with cases of surprise. In this paper, I show that there is a kind of experience of absence—which I call frustrating absences—that has been overlooked (...) by the Perceptual View and by the Surprise Based-View and that cannot be adequately explained by them. I offer an alternative account to deal with frustrating absences, one according to which experiencing frustrating absences is a matter of subjects having desires for something to be present frustrated by the world. Finally, I argue that there may well be different kinds of experiences of absence. (shrink)

In this challenging study, André Gallois proposes and defends a thesis about the character of our knowledge of our own intentional states. Taking up issues at the centre of attention in contemporary analytic philosophy of mind and epistemology, he examines accounts of self-knowledge by such philosophers as Donald Davidson, Tyler Burge and Crispin Wright, and advances his own view that, without relying on observation, we are able justifiably to attribute to ourselves propositional attitudes, such as belief, that we consciously (...) hold. His study will be of wide interest to philosophers concerned with questions about self-knowledge. (shrink)

Lorenz proposed in his (1935) articulation of a theory of behavioral instincts that the objective of ethology is to distinguish behaviors that are “innate” from behaviors that are “learned” (or “acquired”). Lorenz’s motive was to open the investigation of certain “adaptive” behaviors to evolutionary theorizing. Accordingly, since innate behaviors are “genetic”, they are open to such investigation. By Lorenz’s light an innate/acquired or learned dichotomy rested on a familiar Darwinian distinction between genes and environments. Ever since Lorenz, ascriptions of innateness (...) have become widespread in the cognitive, behavioral, and biological sciences. The trend continues despite decades of strong arguments that show, in particular, the dichotomy that Lorenz invoked in his theory of behavioral instincts is literally false: no biological trait is the product of genes alone. Some critics suggest that the failure of Lorenz’s account shows that innateness is not well-defined in biology and the practice of ascribing innateness to various biological traits should be dropped from respectable science. Elsewhere (Ariew 1996) I argued that despite the arguments of critics, there really is a biological phenomenon underlying the concept of innateness. On my view, innateness is best understood in terms of C.H. Waddington’s concept of “canalization”, i.e. the degree to which a trait is innate is the degree to which its developmental outcome is canalized. The degree to which a developmental outcome is canalized is the degree to which the developmental process is bound to produce a particular endstate despite environmental fluctuations both in the development’s initial state and during the course of development. The canalization account differs in many ways to the traditional ways that ethologists such as Konrad Lorenz originally understood the concept of innateness. Most importantly, on the canalization account the distinction between innate and acquired is not a dichotomy, as Konrad Lorenz had it, but rather a matter of degree difference that lies along a spectrum with highly canalized development outcomes on the one end and highly environmentally sensitive development outcomes on the other end. Nevertheless, I justified the canalization account on the basis of a set of desiderata or criteria that I suggested falls-out of what seemed uncontroversial about Lorenz’s account of innateness (briefly): innateness is a property of a developing individual, innateness denotes environmental stability, and innate-ascriptions are useful in certain natural selection explanations (more below). From that same set of desiderata I argued (in my 1996) that neither the concept of heritability nor of norms of reactions—two concepts from population genetics—suffice to ground innateness. In this essay, I wish to provide further support of the canalization account in two ways. First, I wish to better motivate the desiderata by revisiting a debate between Konrad Lorenz and Daniel Lehrman over the meaning and explanatory usefulness of innate ascriptions in ethology. Second, I wish to compare my canalization account of innateness with accounts proposed by contemporary philosophers, one by Stephen Stich (1975), another by Elliott Sober (forthcoming), and a third by William Wimsatt (1986). (shrink)

This book presents a comprehensive and detailed exploration of the relationship between the thought of G.W.F. Hegel and that of John McDowell, the latter of whom is widely considered to be one of the most influential living analytic philosophers. It serves as a point of entry in McDowell’s and Hegel’s philosophy, and a substantial contribution to ongoing debates on perceptual experience and perceptual justification, naturalism, human freedom and action. The chapters gathered in this volume, as well as McDowell’s responses, make (...) it clear that McDowell’s work paves the way for an original reading of Hegel’s texts. His conceptual framework allows for new interpretive possibilities in Hegel’s philosophy which, until now, have remained largely unexplored. Moreover, these interpretations shed light on various aspects of continuity and discontinuity between the philosophies of these two authors, thus defining more clearly their positions on specific issues. In addition, they allow us to see Hegel’s thought as containing a number of conceptual tools that might be useful for advancing McDowell’s own philosophy and contemporary philosophy in general. (shrink)

During the past decade, a small but rapidly growing number of Law&Tech scholars have been applying algorithmic methods in their legal research. This Article does it too, for the sake of saving disclosure regulation failure: a normative strategy that has long been considered dead by legal scholars, but conspicuously abused by rule-makers. Existing proposals to revive disclosure duties, however, either focus on the industry policies (e.g. seeking to reduce consumers’ costs of reading) or on rulemaking (e.g. by simplifying linguistic intricacies). (...) But failure may well depend on both. Therefore, this Article develops a `comprehensive approach', suggesting to use computational tools to cope with linguistic and behavioral failures at both the enactment and implementation phases of disclosure duties, thus filling a void in the Law & Tech scholarship. Specifically, it outlines how algorithmic tools can be used in a holistic manner to address the many failures of disclosures from the rulemaking in parliament to consumer screens. It suggests a multi-layered design where lawmakers deploy three tools in order to produce optimal disclosure rules: machine learning, natural language processing, and behavioral experimentation through regulatory sandboxes. To clarify how and why these tasks should be performed, disclosures in the contexts of online contract terms and privacy online are taken as examples. Because algorithmic rulemaking is frequently met with well-justified skepticism, problems of its compatibility with legitimacy, efficacy and proportionality are also discussed. (shrink)

Qu'est-ce que la 'déconstruction'? Quelles sont les origines philosophiques de ce mot magique, brandi par tous ceux dont le but, déclaré ou non, est de criminaliser l'Occident en le réduisant à une expression du racisme, de l'esclavagisme, de l' 'hétéro-patriarcat' et de l'impérialisme colonial? Cette civilisation redoutable dont les proies seraient les peuples dominés, racisés, opprimés, et les minorités essentialisées en tant que victimes systémiques? Ainsi la civilisation occidentale se trouve-t-elle convoquée devant un nouveau grand Tribunal de l'Histoire pour répondre (...) de ses crimes, imaginaires ou réels, et, surtout, elle est la seule civilisation à être mise au banc des accusés. Au croisement de la recherche universitaire et du militantisme politique, le décolonialisme, l'intersectionnalité, la 'théorie critique de la race', la 'théorie queer', la 'théorie du genre', mais aussi le 'wokisme', né d'une corruption idéologique de l'antiracisme et du féminisme importée des campus étatsuniens, se sont peu à peu diffusés dans les médias et dans la société tout entière grâce à une propagande violente et culpabilisante puisant dans un imaginaire victimaire. Dans ce livre incisif et documenté, qui part d'une réflexion sur la pensée de Nietzsche et sur ses mésusages par les disciples français de Heidegger, Pierre-André Taguieff analyse ces théories aussi foisonnantes qu'inconsistantes et dénonce l'émergence de ce nouvel esprit totalitaire qu'il faut se garder de réduire à ses effets les plus médiatisés, comme ces 'déboulonnages' spectaculaires illustrant la violence purificatrice de la 'cancel culture'. De fait, ce néo-puritanisme obscurantiste, inquisitorial et punitif représente, dans les démocraties occidentales, un défi majeur pour les défenseurs de la liberté d'expression, de pensée et de création."--Back cover. (shrink)

ABSTRACT In this article, we seek, based on the analysis of publications and receptions of works that comprise the referential of Dialogic Discourse Analysis (DDA) in Brazil and a resumption of the trajectory already traced by Brazilian researchers, discuss the path that led to the consolidation of DDA in the country. Thus, four phases of DDA in Brazil are listed. At the first reception phase, scattered readings were identified, based on publications of some works from the Bakhtin Circle in Russian, (...) French, English, Spanish and Italian. The second phase, on its turn, was marked by the publication of the first Brazilian editions of the Circle’s works. At the third phase, Brazilian scholars sought to systematize the concepts and methodologies present in the Circle’s works. Finally, at the last phase, in which we currently are, we seek to consolidate and contextualize DDA more and more through, mainly, the publication of works translated by DDA’s researchers, with critical and historical notes. (shrink)

Current work in language models (LMs) helps us speed up or even skip thinking by accelerating and automating cognitive work. But can LMs help us with critical thinking -- thinking in deeper, more reflective ways which challenge assumptions, clarify ideas, and engineer new concepts? We treat philosophy as a case study in critical thinking, and interview 21 professional philosophers about how they engage in critical thinking and on their experiences with LMs. We find that philosophers do not find LMs to (...) be useful because they lack a sense of selfhood (memory, beliefs, consistency) and initiative (curiosity, proactivity). We propose the selfhood-initiative model for critical thinking tools to characterize this gap. Using the model, we formulate three roles LMs could play as critical thinking tools: the Interlocutor, the Monitor, and the Respondent. We hope that our work inspires LM researchers to further develop LMs as critical thinking tools and philosophers and other 'critical thinkers' to imagine intellectually substantive uses of LMs. (shrink)

The existence of causal explanations in science has been an issue of interest in Western philosophy from its very beginnings. That is the reason this work, following an idea of Mario Bunge, makes a historical review of this matter. The modern treatment of this subject takes place since the postulation by Popper and Hempel of the D-N model of scientific explanation, whose viability is scrutinized here from different points of view in the current philosophy of science. The main object of (...) this paper is to present two arguments against the possibility of causal explanations in theoretical physics. The first one concerns the existence, in certain cases, of inter-theoretical incompatibilities, and the second refers to the need to resort, in other cases, to concatenations of laws of different theories and disciplines. The final conclusion will be the defence of a form of theoretical explanation, which follows the Popper-Hempel model, but devoid of any ontological and metaphysical connotations. (shrink)

Normal 0 21 false false false MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Tabela normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0cm; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-ansi-language:#0400; mso-fareast-language:#0400; mso-bidi-language:#0400;} Podemos ver na ausência de luz, e ouvir na ausência de som? Em seu livro Seeing Dark Things: The Philosophy of Shadows (2008), Roy Sorensen defende que sim, que podemos ver a escuridão na ausência de luz, e ouvir o silêncio na ausência de som. Neste artigo, defendo que (...) na escuridão nada vemos, no silêncio nada ouvimos, e que experienciar a ausência de luz e som é uma questão afetiva, e não perceptual. (shrink)

In this paper, I present a position that I call erotetic amelioration, according to which we must evaluate and, eventually, improve our answers to questions of the form “What is x?”. My focus will be on cases where x stands for a strongly social kind, such as marriage. Such a position is offered as an alternative to the idea-sometimes called conceptual engineering-according to which we should evaluate and, eventually, seek to improve our concepts. After introducing the idea of erotetic amelioration, (...) I will show how it can be put into work to deal with what I call the topic preservation challenge, and what advantages it has in relation to a similar position available in the literature, namely, Cappelen’s (2018) Austerity Framework. (shrink)

It is widely believed by philosophers that we human beings are capable of stepping back from inclinations to act in a certain way and consider whether we should do so. If we judge that there are enough reasons in favour of following our initial inclination, we are definitely motivated, and, if all goes well, we act. This view of human agency naturally leads to the idea that our actions are self-determined, or controlled by ourselves. Some go one step further to (...) the point of saying that we should extend the fundamental aspects of this view of human agency to the epistemic realm. This we call ‘the control-view”. Here we will make a strong case against the control-view. While we have a substantial control over our practical lives, it is very unlikely that this extends to our epistemic lives. Our discussion will proceed in three stages. We will present two asymmetries between our practical and epistemic lives which are followed by a general argument against the control-view. (shrink)

A. Selbstverortung: Der hermssche Blick auf andere Religionen -- b. Öffnung zu Anderen: Das Problem geschlossener Rationalitätsformen -- ii. Einheit in der Vielfalt. Die interpretative Vernunft -- III. 3.C. Schlussfolgerungen. Bildung der Weltanschauungen -- IV. Ergebnisse und Ausblicke -- IV. 1. Perspektiven des Theorievergleichs -- IV. 1.A. Eine 'Topik der Verständigung' - als Struktur der Forschungsfragen -- IV. 1.B. Vernunft und Religion als komplementäre Konkurrenz -- IV. 2. Möglichkeiten interkultureller Koexistenz -- IV. 2.A. Evangelischer Glaube im Horizont des globalen Wandels (...) -- IV. 2.B. Diskurskultur und Diskurs der Kulturen -- IV. 2.C. Konstitutionalisierung der Wirkungsgemeinschaft der Menschheit -- Bibliografie -- Literatur von Jürgen Habermas -- Literatur von Eilert Herms -- Weitere Literatur -- Personenregister -- Sachregister. (shrink)

But what are functions? Here, 15 leading scholars of philosophy of psychology and philosophy of biology present new essays on functions.

The first purpose of this article is to present a new theory of libertarian free will—the boundary theory of libertarian free will—which provides a new framework by means of employing boundaries as a “conceptual scheme” for understanding libertarian free will. This theory consists of two parts. One part suggests that the agent’s will should be viewed as the intermediate boundary between an agent’s reasons and his alternative choices. The second part is a model where the agent’s will is a faculty (...) that solely operates by permitting or resisting reasons (that are potential causes) to become actual causes for the agent’s choices. The second purpose of the paper is to argue that the boundary theory of libertarian free will has several advantages, the most important of which are: (a) it defeats the charge that libertarian free will is a mystery; (b) it defeats the standard objections against the compatibility of libertarian free will and indeterminism (that is, the luck argument, the roll-back argument, the difference argument, the assimilation argument, etc.); and (c) it is simultaneously an argument for indeterminism as such (that is, that determinism is false). (shrink)

A comparison between the standard adiabatic piston dynamics and that of a perfectly conducting (diathermal) piston helps to clarify their different behaviors and, in particular, the anomalously large random displacement of the adiabatic piston as compared to the diathermal one. It is shown to be associated with a situation where the presence of a single massive “particle” (the piston), acting as an internal constraint in a many-particle system, plays a somewhat unexpected relevant role. A significant physical insight accounting for the (...) above difference is gained by means of a simple analysis of the phase space available to our system. (shrink)

IN the last decade deliberative democracy has developed rapidly from a “theoretical statement” into a “working theory.”1 Scholars and practitioners have launched numerous initiatives designed to put deliberative democracy into practice, ranging from deliberative polling to citizen summits.2 Some even advocate deliberation as a new “revolutionary now.”3 Deliberative democracy has also experienced the beginning of an empirical turn, making significant gains as an empirical (or positive) political science. This includes a small, but growing body of literature tackling the connection between (...) the normative standards of deliberation, how well they are met, and the empirical consequences of meeting them.4 This trend has, for instance, included the use of methods and frameworks borrowed from other fields, such as political and social psychology. Such studies suggest that cases approaching ideal deliberation are rare, but that group interaction sometimes works surprisingly well according to such ideals.5. (shrink)

L'unique tâche philosophique de Lequier a consisté dans la recherche d'une première vérité. Le récit existentiel est la voie qu'il a choisie. Cette voie, loin de mettre en question la métaphysique, expose, sous une forme phénoménologique, comment la vérité peut s'accomplir comme liberté dans l'histoire grâce à laquelle un être humain affirme son identité.

Los sesgos cognitivos afectan negativamente la toma de decisiones en todas las esferas de la vida, incluyendo las decisiones de los jueces. La imposibilidad de eliminarlos por completo de la práctica del derecho, o incluso de controlar sus efectos, contrasta con el anhelo de que las decisiones judiciales sean el resultado exclusivo de un razonamiento lógico-jurídico correcto. Frente el efecto sistemático, recalcitrante y porfiado de los sesgos cognitivos, una posible estrategia para disminuir su efecto es enfocarse, no en modificar el (...) comportamiento de los agentes judiciales, sino en moldear su entorno para que los sesgos tengan menos oportunidades de aparecer. En particular, es más provechoso concentrar los esfuerzos en identificar aquellas reglas procesales que faciliten o limiten el efecto de los sesgos. En este ensayo propongo un diálogo fructífero entre el derecho y la psicología que puede llevar a mejorar la calidad de los sistemas judiciales. La propuesta está basada en la creación de guías de práctica judicial que puedan servir de base para la creación de protocolos procesales que limiten en la medida de lo razonable sus efectos negativos y conduzcan a mejores decisiones judiciales. (shrink)