Con frecuencia, el inmaterialismo de Berkeley ha sido mal comprendido, pese al importante papel que cumple dentro de su filosofía. Dos razones podrían explicar este hecho: de un lado, se ha juzgado que la negación de la existencia de la materia contradice radicalmente el sentido común; de otro lado, se podría pensar que la tesis del inmaterialismo obedece exclusivamente a las motivaciones teológicas que impulsaron las indagaciones de Berkeley. En contraste con estas posturas, el artículo propone hacer una lectura estrictamente (...) filosófica de la negación berkeleyana de la materia, e intenta presentar críticamente los argumentos que le sirven de apoyo. Dicho examen conduce a un análisis de la relación que establece el inmaterialismo de Berkeley con su concepción de la subjetividad. En primer término, el autor se distancia del inmaterialismo sostenido por el filósofo irlandés, pues el argumento central que este último emplea para negar la existencia de la materia se apoya en una interpretación muy cuestionable de la mente. En segundo término, el autor propone valorar históricamente el inmaterialismo de Berkeley como una postura sobre la subjetividad más consistente que la ofrecida por sus predecesores inmediatos: Descartes y Locke. (shrink)

Este artículo intenta responder a la pregunta por el sentido de la filosofía en la época actual. Para tal efecto, se adopta como hilo conductor la cuestión concerniente a la pertinencia del estudio de los autores clásicos en la filosofía actual. En este sentido, el artículo intenta mostrar que tal estudio constituye un fenómeno que se encuentra estrechamente ligado a la esencia de la filosofía. Con el fin de precisar mejor esta tesis, se procede a mostrar que el saber filosófico (...) no puede confundirse con el saber científico, pero tampoco con el "mero opinar". Una vez que se muestra que el saber filosófico debe recibir el apelativo de "crítico", el artículo expone las razones por las cuales es el estudio de los autores clásicos resulta pertinente para la época actual. Esto último se desprende de lo siguiente: el estudio de los autores clásicos permite comprender el propio presente, dando lugar a un ámbito de libertad. El artículo culmina con un cuestionamiento de la perspectiva en él adoptada para responder a la pregunta inicial. (shrink)

According to MODERATISM, perceptual justification requires that one independently takes for granted propositional hinges like <There is an external world>, <I am not a brain in a vat (BIV)>, and so on. This view faces the truth problem: to offer an account of truth for hinges that is not threatened by skepticism. Annalisa Coliva has tried to solve the truth problem by combining the claim that external world propositions have a substantive truth property like correspondence with the claim that hinges (...) have a deflationary truth property. I argue that the resulting view cannot offer a coherent characterization of ‘skeptical switch scenarios’ while providing an effective anti-skeptical strategy. In a more positive vein, I defend an approach that combines a correspondence conception of truth with epistemological disjunctivism. (shrink)

Theories of emotional justification investigate the conditions under which emotions are epistemically justified or unjustified. I make three contributions to this research program. First, I show that we can generalize some familiar epistemological concepts and distinctions to emotional experiences. Second, I use these concepts and distinctions to display the limits of the ‘simple view’ of emotional justification. On this approach, the justification of emotions stems only from the contents of the mental states they are based on, also known as their (...) cognitive bases. The simple view faces the ‘gap problem’: If cognitive bases and emotions (re)present their objects and properties in different ways, then cognitive bases are not sufficient to justify emotions. Third, I offer a novel solution to the gap problem based on emotional dispositions. This solution (1) draws a line between the justification of basic and non-basic emotions, (2) preserves a broadly cognitivist view of emotions, (3) avoids a form of value skepticism that threatens inferentialist views of emotional justification, and (4) sheds new light on the structure of our epistemic access to evaluative properties. (shrink)

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

According to epistemological disjunctivism (ED), in paradigmatic cases of perceptual knowledge, a subject, S, has perceptual knowledge that p in virtue of being in possession of reasons for her belief that p which are both factive and reflectively accessible to S. It has been argued that ED is better placed than both knowledge internalism and knowledge externalism to undercut underdetermination-based skepticism. I identify several principles that must be true if ED is to be uniquely placed to attain this goal. After (...) that, I use those principles to formulate a diachronic skeptical argument. This argument yields the counterintuitive conclusion that understanding a global skeptical hypothesis is all it takes for a rational subject to lose all her perceptual knowledge of the world. Next, I show that a popular Austinian move must reject one or another of the principles that underlie ED. I close by delineating a novel strategy that can block the diachronic skeptical argument while preserving all the principles. The key idea is that perceptual knowledge is grounded in primitive, perceptual and recognitional abilities. This view sheds new light on some puzzling features of global skepticism that have been noted by Descartes and Hume, among others. (shrink)

Evidence from cognitive science supports the claim that humans and other animals see the world as divided into objects. Although this claim is widely accepted, it remains unclear whether the mechanisms of visual reference have representational content or are directly instantiated in the functional architecture. I put forward a version of the former approach that construes object files as icons for objects. This view is consistent with the evidence that motivates the architectural account, can respond to the key arguments against (...) representational accounts, and has explanatory advantages. I draw general lessons for the philosophy of perception and the naturalization of intentionality. (shrink)

Object files are mental representations that enable perceptual systems to keep track of objects as numerically the same. How is their reference fixed? A prominent approach, championed by Zenon Pylyshyn and John Campbell, makes room for a non-satisfactional use of properties to fix reference. This maneuver has enabled them to reconcile a singularist view of reference with the intuition that properties must play a role in reference fixing. This paper examines Campbell’s influential defense of this strategy. After criticizing it, a (...) new approach is sketched. The alternative view introduces representational contents to explain perceptual individuation. After arguing that those contents are not satisfactional, it is concluded that there is room for a third view of reference fixing that does not fit into the singularist/descriptivist dichotomy. (shrink)

Epistemological disjunctivism (ED) has been thought to solve the conditionality problem for epistemic externalism. This problem arises from externalists’ characterization of our epistemic standings as conditional on the obtaining of worldly facts which we lack any reflective access to. ED is meant to avoid the conditionality problem by explicating subjects’ perceptual knowledge in paradigmatic cases of perceptual knowledge via their possession of perceptual reasons that are both factive and reflectively accessible. I argue that ED’s account of reflectively accessible factive perceptual (...) reasons is also prey to the conditionality problem. After that, I submit that Stroud’s influential formulation of the conditionality problem relies on a methodological requirement that is potentially dissociable from ED. So, it is possible to put ED in the service of a more modest anti-skeptical strategy. I close by suggesting that this modest anti-skeptical strategy successfully undercuts the underdetermination-based skeptical paradox. Nevertheless, it does not have substantial advantages over some forms of epistemic externalism. (shrink)

Radical skepticism relies on the hypothesis that one could be completely cut off from the external world. In this paper, I argue that this hypothesis can be rationally motivated by means of a conceivability argument. Subsequently, I submit that this conceivability argument does not furnish a good reason to believe that one could be completely cut off from the external world. To this end, I show that we cannot adequately conceive scenarios that verify the radical skeptical hypothesis. Attempts to do (...) so fall prey to one or another of three pitfalls: they end up incomplete, reveal a deep contradiction or recreate a non-skeptical hypothesis. I use these results to improve upon Pritchard’s recent attempt at undercutting radical skepticism. (shrink)

Austere relationism rejects the orthodox analysis of hallucinations and illusions as incorrect perceptual representations. In this article, I argue that illusions of optimal motion present a serious challenge for this view. First, I submit that austere-relationist accounts of misleading experiences cannot be adapted to account for IOMs. Second, I show that any attempt at elucidating IOMs within an austere-relationist framework undermines the claim that perceptual experiences fundamentally involve relations to mind-independent objects. Third, I develop a representationalist model of IOMs. The (...) proposed analysis combines two ideas: Evans' dynamic modes of presentation and Fine's relational semantics for identity. (shrink)

It is widely assumed that perception is a source of reasons (SR). There is a weak sense in which this claim is trivially true: even if one characterizes perception in purely causal terms, perceptual beliefs originate from the mind's interaction with the world. When philosophers argue for (SR), however, they have a stronger view in mind: they claim that perception provides pre- or non-doxastic reasons for belief. In this article I examine some ways of developing this view and criticize them. (...) I exploit these results to formulate a series of constraints that a satisfactory account of the epistemic role of perception should fulfil. I also make a positive suggestion: coherentists are right when they claim that only beliefs can be reasons for other beliefs. Nevertheless, I depart from traditional coherentism, for I do not buy its conception of perception as bare sensation, nor explicate the justificatory status of beliefs in terms of coherence. My point is rather that, when one invokes experience to justify a belief, the justifying state must have structural features of beliefs. (shrink)

The rule account of self-conscious thought holds that a thought is self-conscious if and only if it contains a token of a concept-type that is governed by a reflexive rule. An account along these lines was discussed in the late 70s. Nevertheless, very few philosophers endorse it nowadays. I shall argue that this summary dismissal is partly unjustified. There is one version of the rule account that can explain a key epistemic property of self-conscious thoughts: Guarantee. Along the way, I (...) will rebut a number of objections and introduce two constraints on how the reflexive rule is implemented. (shrink)

Abstract: In Mind and World, McDowell conceives of the content of perceptual experiences as conceptual. This picture is supposed to provide a therapy for skepticism, by showing that empirical thinking is objectively and normatively constrained. The paper offers a reconstruction of McDowell's view and shows that the therapy fails. This claim is based on three arguments: 1) the identity conception of truth he exploits is unable to sustain the idea that perception-judgment transitions are normally truth conducing; 2) it could be (...) plausible only from an externalist point of view that is in tension with the view of normativity that motivates conceptualism; 3) the identity conception of truth is incompatible with McDowell's recent version of conceptualism in terms of ‘non-propositional intuitive contents’. (shrink)

A traditional view holds that the self-concept is essentially indexical. In a highly influential article, Ruth Millikan famously held that the self-concept should be understood as a Millian name with a sui generis functional role. This article presents a novel explanatory argument against the Millian view and in favor of the indexical view. The argument starts from a characterization of the self-concept as a device of information integration. It then shows that the indexical view yields a better explanation of the (...) integration function than the Millian view. The resulting account can rebut Millikan’s objections and it has broader implications for the debate on the essential indexical. (shrink)

Research in vision science, developmental psychology, and the foundations of cognitive science has led some theorists to posit referential mechanisms similar to indices. This hypothesis has been framed within a Fodorian conception of the early vision module. The article shows that this conception is mistaken, for it cannot handle the ‘interface problem’—roughly, how indexing mechanisms relate to higher cognition and conceptual thought. As a result, I reject the inaccessibility of early vision to higher cognition and make some constructive remarks on (...) the perception–cognition interface. -/- 1 The Case for Visual Indices 1.1 Preliminary assumptions 1.2 Transcendental arguments 1.3 Evidence from vision science 2 Visual Indices, Object Files, and Fodorian Modularity 3 The Interface Problem 3.1 Top-down attention and modularity 3.2 Selective attention and information 4 Revising the Indexing Hypothesis 4.1 Revising the perception–cognition interface 4.2 Revising the modularity of early vision 5 Concluding Remarks. (shrink)

Carter and Pritchard (2016) and Pritchard (2010, 2012, 2016) have tried to reconcile the intuition that perceptual knowledge requires only limited discriminatory abilities with the closure principle. To this end, they have introduced two theoretical innovations: a contrast between two ways of introducing error-possibilities and a distinction between discriminating and favoring evidence. I argue that their solution faces the “sufficiency problem”: it is unclear whether the evidence that is normally available to adult humans is sufficient to retain knowledge of the (...) entailing proposition and come to know the entailed proposition. I submit that, on either infallibilist or fallibilist views of evidence, Carter and Pritchard have set the bar for deductive knowledge too low. At the end, I offer an alternative solution. I suggest that the knowledge-retention condition of the closure principle is not satisfied in zebra-like scenarios. (shrink)

Analytic philosophy was introduced in Latin America in the mid-twentieth century. Its development has been heterogeneous in different countries of the region but has today reached a considerable degree of maturity and originality, with a strong community working within the analytic tradition in Latin America. This entry describes the historical development of analytic philosophy in Latin America and offers some examples of original contributions by Latin American analytic philosophers.

‘Modest’ and ‘full-blooded’ conceptions of meaning disagree on whether we should try to provide explanations of reference. In this paper, I defend a psychological brand of the full-blooded program. As I understand it, there are good reasons to provide a psychological explanation of referential abilities. This explanation is to be framed at an intermediary level of description between the personal level and the explanations provided by neuroscience. My defense of this program has two parts: First, I display the explanatory insufficiency (...) of truth-conditional semantics and, second, I respond to some widespread arguments against psychological explanations of referential abilities. (shrink)

Any theory of perceptual experience should elucidate the way humans exploit it in activities proper to responsible agents, like justifying and revising their beliefs. In this paper I examine the hypothesis that this capacity requires the positing of a perceptual awareness involving a pre-doxastic actualization of concepts. I conclude that this hypothesis is neither necessary nor sufficient to account for empirical rationality. This leaves open the possibility to introduce a doxastic account, according to which the epistemic function of perception is (...) fulfilled by perceptual beliefs. I develop this claim by showing that the doxastic account satisfies a series of intuitive requirements of justification and belief revision. (shrink)

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

Conceptualism conceives of perceptual experience as a source of reasons. This claim can be read in two ways: in a strong reading, perceptual experience is taken to provide necessary and sufficient conditions to justify doxastic states. In a weak reading, it is assumed to provide only the materials to form reasons, which are conceived as “hybrid entities” made from perceptual contents plus doxastic force. The paper shows that whereas the strong version is in error, the weak version is committed to (...) a dualistic understanding of perception-judgment transitions. This result leads to three further conclusions: conceptualism cannot rule out the existence of nonconceptual content, it is a version of the Myth of the Given, and pace conceptualists, only beliefs can justify other beliefs. (shrink)

It is shown here that the modal logic K and any extension of it with a finite number of axioms can be characterised by a polynomial semantics. Moreover, some comments are made about the possibility of using algebraic computation to determine deducibility on these logics.

En la crítica platónica al relativismo de Protágoras en el Teeteto se pueden distinguir dos ámbitos: el plano del aparecer conforme a la percepción y el plano del aparecer que dirige la acción. Held reconstruye los argumentos de dicha crítica, al tiempo que intenta mostrar cómo Platón proyecta superar ambas formas de relativismo, descubriendo que la base de la crítica es el pensamiento de las Ideas. En contraste, Held sugiere dos perspectivas distintas desde las cuales podría intentar superarse la tesis (...) de Protágoras: Heráclito y Aristóteles. Finalmente, se llama la atención sobre el camino que deja abierto el diálogo respecto al vínculo existente entre filosofia práctica y teórica, pues ambas tienen como raíz común el aparecer. (shrink)

Review of Penelope Maddy, What Do Philosophers Do? Skepticism and the Practice of Philosophy (Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2017, 248 pp.).

Libro reseñado: El escepticismo y la filosofía trascendental. Autor: Luis Eduardo Hoyos.

ABSTRACT This article interprets a recently recovered manuscript, Tratado de astronomía y la reformaçión del tiempo, composed by Antonio Sánchez in New Granada c.1696, in the context of the Spanish and Renaissance cosmographies. Sánchez’s Tratado proposes a spherical astronomy, in which celestial bodies – including comets — move in orbs containing pyramidal knots that explain the changing speed observed in the motion of planets. From this astronomy and following the peninsular style of repertorios, Sánchez derives two major conclusions: the corrected (...) length of the solar year and a revised birth date of Jesus. Taking as center of reference Vélez, where Sánchez was based, these claims led to conclusions in domains ranging from calendric astronomy to eschatology, including the incorporation of the indigenous peoples into salvation narrative and a demonstration of the arrangement of the celestial orbs at the Last Judgment. Sánchez’s Tratado constitutes an expansion of the Spanish mathematical cosmography that sheds light on the production of knowledge in the Spanish-American world and, at the same time, provides elements to reassess our understanding of the global circulation of Renaissance and early modern ideas. (shrink)

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

La teoría neoliberal, leída en clave antropológica -- Educación, investigación y universidad en Friedrich Hayek -- Educación y formación universitaria en Milton Friedman -- Sujeto, educación y formación universitaria en el neoliberalismo en y para América Latina -- Apropiación de la antropología neoliberal: el otro sendero -- Educación y formación universitaria en El ladrillo -- Educación y formación universitaria en los organismos internacionales: Banco Mundial, CEPAL y UNESCO -- Educación y formación universitaria en José Joaquín Brunner -- Sujeto, educación y (...) formación universitaria en los críticos latinoamericanos -- Una concepción economicista de la educación -- Concepción y formación reduccionistas del sujeto -- La universidad en peligro -- Reflexiones finales: sobre la normatividad, el lenguaje y las categorías de la crítica. (shrink)

This article develops a framework to analyze how political actors adopt social media in systems characterized by clientelism and populism, tracing the consequences and disruptive capabilities of the forms of social media adoption. The framework proceeds in two analytical stages. The first locates actors’ structural positions in the political system (internal/external) and their relationship with the mainstream media (allied/antagonistic). The second builds on pragmatism focusing on iterative problem situations actors face that explain forms of social media adoption. In examining the (...) structural positions and problem-solving stages of Colombian political actors, this article articulates three paths of adoption: habit preservation, internal innovation, and external innovation. Preservationists understand the new technology in old terms, projecting their understandings of old media onto the new one. Internal innovators combine clientelist practices and communication ones, upholding core routines while integrating new ones; they show a potential to reshape the system internally, making viable part of it, but changing the balance of power between existing elites. External innovators develop practices that integrate physical spaces and online communication, displaying a disruptive potential for existing core practices and the political system. In this way, the framework and empirical case link and develop the literatures on clientelism and political communication. (shrink)

Este artículo plantea un diálogo sobre la ficción y su relevancia narrativa dentro del relato histórico contemporáneo colombiano, a la luz de sus relaciones transversales. Tras el Acuerdo de Contribución a la Verdad Histórica y la Reparación y de la consolidación del trabajo llevado a cabo por el Centro Nacional de Memoria Histórica iniciado hace casi una década con su primer informe, es pertinente volver sobre algunas ideas relacionadas con la manera en la que se narra la historia en Colombia. (...) En este sentido, se constata el valor histórico de la ficción, así como la vitalidad de sus diversos actores sociales y culturales, en sus intersecciones y recorridos por la memoria colectiva, en su materialidad y en su reinvención histórica. Los textos de ficción, por tanto, ofrecen caminos de reinvención de los relatos históricos, que no los sustituyen, pero sí empoderan a sus participantes/enunciantes, sus lectores/receptores y sus versiones/ relatos dentro de los procesos de memorias nacionales y humanas de la Colombia de hoy. Lo significativo de esta propuesta radica en que estos relatos son inclusivos, plurales y carecen del juicio moral hecho por una voz narradora autoritaria y única. (shrink)

Resumen: Este artículo trata del método y su relación con la investigación educativa. El objetivo es analizar la relevancia del método en ciencias humanas y sociales, en especial, en educación. Para ello, dividimos este artículo en tres secciones: 1. ¿Hay método? 2. ¿Hay uno o varios métodos? 3. La discusión sobre el método en la investigación educativa. A la primera pregunta, respondemos que hay método. Respondemos a la segunda señalando la necesidad de adoptar un pluralismo metodológico. La tercera sección defiende (...) que las discusiones sobre el método de investigación educativa implican dimensiones ontológicas, epistemológicas y éticas que se han tornado críticas, y se hace una revisión de cada una de ellas. En el apartado conclusivo, sugerimos algunas vías para desanudar esos asuntos críticos en la investigación educativa.: This article deals with method and its relation to educational research. The objective is to analyze the relevance of method in human and social sciences, especially in education. To this end, we divide this article into three sections: 1. Is there a method? 2. Is there one or more methods? 3. The discussion on method in educational research. To the first question, we answer that there is a method. We answer the second question by pointing out the need to adopt methodological pluralism. The third section argues that discussions on the method of educational research involve ontological, epistemological, and ethical dimensions that have become critical, and a review is made of each of them. In the concluding section, we suggest some ways to disentangle these critical issues in educational research. (shrink)

This paper introduces a body of research on Organizational Behavior and Industrial/organizational Psychology that expands the range of empirical evidence relevant to the ongoing character-situation debate. This body of research, mostly neglected by moral philosophers, provides important insights to move the debate forward. First, the OB/io scholarship provides empirical evidence to show that social environments like organizations have significant power to shape the character traits of their members. This scholarship also describes some of the mechanisms through which this process of (...) reshaping character takes place. Second, the character-situation debate has narrowly focused on situational influences that affect behavior episodically and haphazardly. The OB/io research, however, highlights the importance of distinguishing such situational influences from influences that, like organizational influences, shape our character traits because they are continuous and coordinated. Third, the OB/io literature suggests that most individuals display character traits that, while local to the organization, can be consistent across situations. This puts pressure on the accounts of character proposed by traditional virtue ethics and situationism and provides empirical support to interactionist models based on cognitive-affective processing system theories of personality. Finally, the OB/io literature raises important challenges to the possibility of achieving virtue, provides valuable and untapped resources to cultivate character, and suggests new avenues of normative and empirical research. (shrink)