In this paper I first present Dan Korman’s (2015) recent defence of a conservative view as regards the existence and composition of material objects, and then go on to criticize some of his arguments. I will focus on two related issues: on the one hand, I argue that his defense of that kind of view by making use of what he calls “arguments from counterexamples” has some metaontological presuppositions that are indeed unacceptable for someone defending the revisionist views he opposes; (...) on the other hand, I also claim that his defence of the epistemic authority of the singular intuitions allegedly backing some key premisses in those arguments is also flawed, as it seems to be in tension with his realist commitments. (shrink)

I consider some of the objections that have been raised against a conceptualist solution to the “grounding problem”, I address in particular two objections that I call Conceptual Validity and Instantiation, and I attempt to answer them on behalf of the conceptualist. My response, in a nutshell, is that the first of these objections fails because it ascribes to the conceptualist some commitments that do not really follow from the view’s basic insight, while the second objection also fails because it (...) denies the conceptualist resources that the alternative positions are allowed to use. (shrink)

Considero la propuesta reciente de Vicente, Fraser y Castroviejo según la cual hay (al menos) dos tipos distintos de lenguaje peyorativo en español, uno de los cuales (el que apela a términos neutros usados como insultos) no ha sido, según los autores, suficientemente apreciado y estudiado. Si bien concuerdo con la importancia de la distinción, sugiero una explicación alternativa a la que ellos dan del fenómeno de los términos neutros usados como insultos, que sugiere entenderlos como un caso particular de (...) uso metafórico, y del contenido peyorativo genérico transmitido, que apela a fenómenos generales de la interpretación de metáforas y de la acomodación de presuposiciones. (shrink)

El artículo que sigue fue publicado originalmente con el título "Causation" en el Journal of Philosophy 70.17 : 556-567, y luego reimpreso en Lewis, D. Philosophical Papers. Vol. II. Oxford:Oxford University Press, 1986. 159-172. Esta traducción se publica conla autorización del Journal of Philosophy y de Oxford University Press.Querría agradecer aquí a Santiago Erpen, María José García Encinas,Diego Morales y Carolina Sartorio por diversos comentarios y sugerencias que me han permitido, espero, mejorar la traducción.

examine Nathan Salmon’s solution to the problem of trivialization, as it arises for conceptions of general term rigidity that construe it as identity of designation across possible worlds. I argue that he does not succeed in showing that some alleged general terms, such as “the colour of the sky” are non-rigid, but also that a small class of different examples that he presents, which can be construed as second order descriptions, are indeed non-rigid general terms, although for reasons different from (...) those he thought. (shrink)

In this paper I present and critically discuss Simon Evnine’s account of hylomorphically complex objects (as presented in his 2016 book Making Objects and Events). On the one hand, I object to the account he gives of how artifacts (which are for him the paradigmatic cases of hylomorphically complex objects) allegedly acquire their existence and identity conditions. I elaborate on two problems I see for this account: first, that it seems unable to explain our knowledge of the kinds to which (...) artifacts belong; second, that it cannot offer a plausible solution to the grounding problem for coincident objects. I also object to the way in which he tries to adapt the sort of account he gave for artifacts to the case of organisms (in my view this fails because both cases are dissimilar at crucial points), and finally I also object to his attempt to extend that account, in a fictional way, to the case of natural non-organic objects (as I try to show, both his arguments to the effect that there are no such objects, and his positive fictionalist proposal to account for our talk about them, are flawed). (shrink)

In the present paper I defend an interpretation of the Cartesian notion of material falsity that it would be adequate to describe as ‘epistemic’, as opposed to most other views in the literature, which could be described as ‘metaphysical’. Whereas metaphysical conceptions of material falsity consider an idea to be such because of some kind of failure in their representative properties, that is, in the relation between what they exhibit and their objects, an epistemic view considers that what makes an (...) idea materially false is some kind of opacity that precludes their representational properties to be known in the first place. In the paper the evidence for these two kinds of reading is assessed, and it is shown that epistemic views are clearly more adequate. (shrink)

I defend in this paper the following two theses: first, that Descartes was a Pluralist as regards extended substances, that is, that for him the extended world includes a plurality of bodies, including ordinary objects, each of which may be adequately described as a substance; and that for him the notion of substance is a rather slim notion, making no specific requirements as regards individuation or persistence conditions, and determining therefore no strict constraints on the kind of material objects that (...) may count as substances. In short, I will be arguing for a certain view concerning the extension of the phrase ‘extended substance’ by defending a specific view of what ‘substance’ means.Keywords: substance, body, Monism, dependence. (shrink)

I critically discuss Sutton’s 2012 attempt to solve the so-called “grounding problem” for coincident objects, namely, the difficulty of explaining how such objects, such as a statue and the lump of clay from which it was made, can have distinct kind and modal properties, even though they share the same proper parts and basic microphysical properties. Sutton bases her solution on an account of the extrinsic composition of the different sorts of objects involved in such cases - in particular, artefacts, (...) organisms and persons. I show that the accounts she gives of their composition are flawed, and that her proposal therefore does not solve the grounding problem. (shrink)

I argue in this paper that Descartes is committed both to a compatibilist view concerning the relation between free will and divine preordination, namely, one according to which both of these views come out true, and to a libertarian view as regards human free will. I defend here that what allows our author to maintain both of these committments is what I call Mysterism, namely, the view according to which God's immense and incomprehensible nature explains our incapacity to understand fully (...) that compatibility through our own finite reason. (shrink)

In this essay, I present a problem that originates in Kripke's contention, in Naming and Necessity, that natural kind terms are rigid, namely, the problem of how to understand the notion of rigidity when it is applied to general terms. I also give an account, in a principled way, of the main theoretical options that seem to be available to solve that problem, and sketch the main features of Michael Devitt's proposal against that background. En este trabajo, hago una presentación (...) de un problema que Kripke deja planteado al sostener, en El nombrar y la necesidad, que los términos de género natural son rígidos, a saber, el de cómo debería ser entendida la noción de rigidez cuando ésta es aplicada a los términos generales. Asimismo, trazo un panorama de las distintas opciones teóricas disponibles, y presento las tesis centrales de la propuesta de Michael Devitt a la luz de este marco. (shrink)

I consider a problem that arises in connection with (alleged) cases of coincident objects (such as a statue and the lump of clay it is made of) and that affects the two main accounts that have been given of such cases, namely, Pluralism (according to which statue and lump are distinct) and Monism (according to which they are one). The problem is that both views seem committed to accepting strained interpretations of some of the statements used to describe the situation. (...) I consider Pickel’s arguments against the Pluralist’s strategy of interpreting ‘is’ as expressing constitution in sentences such as ‘The statue is the lump of clay’, and provide reasons for rejecting them—so as to vindicate, eventually, the Pluralist position. (shrink)

En este trabajo, critico una estrategia argumental que ha sido utilizada para defender la concepción de la rigidez para expresiones predicativas entendida como identidad de lo designado en los distintos mundos posibles. Se trata de una estrategia basada en la suposición de que las descripciones tendrían la capacidad de designar individuos inusuales en la misma medida en que ciertas expresiones predicativas descriptivas serían capaces de designar propiedades inusuales. Señalo que esta suposición no es compatible con ciertos principios que gobiernan el (...) funcionamiento semántico de las descripciones y con la verdad intuitiva de ciertas predicaciones que las incluyen.In this paper, I criticize an argumentative strategy that has been used in the literature to defend the view according to which rigidity for predicative expressions should be understood as identity of designation across possible worlds. It is a strategy that is based on the supposition that definite descriptions could designateunusual individuals just as well as some descriptive predicative expressions are able to designate unusual properties. I point out that this presupposition is at odds with some principles governing the semantic behaviour of definite descriptions and with the intuitive truth of some predications that include them. (shrink)

In the present paper, I examine how Michael Devitt's proposal as to how to understand the notion of rigidity for general terms fares as regards what I have called the 'criterion of extensional adequacy' for any such notion -namely, the condition according to which any notion of general term rigidity should make the class of rigid terms coincide with that of natural kind terms. I try to show that Devitt's defense of his view from the usual objections raised in the (...) literature fails. In the first place, the proposal seems to overgeneralize, as terms such as 'television set' or 'table', would also be rigid appliers; as I try to show here, the arguments presented by Devitt in order to show that that is not the case are based on some alleged properties of those terms that are also true of some of the expressions he does consider as rigid. In the second place, the proposal also undergeneralizes; even though Devitt himself accepts that this is so, I try to show that his strategy to lessen the disappointment this causes also fails. En este trabajo examino el desempeño de la propuesta acerca de cómo entender la noción de rigidez para términos generales defendida por Michael Devitt respecto de lo que denomino el 'criterio de adecuación extensional' para una noción de rigidez -a saber, la condición según la cual una noción de rigidez para términos generales debería hacer coincidir la clase de términos rígidos con la clase de términos de género natural. Intento mostrar que las estrategias desplegadas por Devitt para defender su postura de las objeciones usuales no son exitosas. En primer lugar, la propuesta parece sobregeneralizar, dado que términos como 'televisor' o 'mesa' también serían aplicadores rígidos; en efecto, según intento defender aquí, los argumentos de Devitt tendientes a mostrar que no lo son se basan en supuestas características de estos términos que son igualmente válidas respecto de las expresiones que él considera rígidas. En segundo lugar, la propuesta también subgeneraliza; si bien Devitt acepta esto, hago notar que su estrategia para quitar dramatismo a este resultado también falla. (shrink)

El artículo que sigue fue publicado originalmente con el título "Causation" en el Journal of Philosophy 70.17 (1973): 556-567, y luego reimpreso (con comentarios posteriores que no se incluyen enla presente versión) en Lewis, D. Philosophical Papers. Vol. II. Oxford:Oxford University Press, 1986. 159-172. Esta traducción se publica conla autorización del Journal of Philosophy y de Oxford University Press.Querría agradecer aquí a Santiago Erpen, María José García Encinas,Diego Morales y Carolina Sartorio por diversos comentarios y sugerencias que me han permitido, (...) espero, mejorar la traducción. (shrink)

In a recent paper, Daniel Whiting has argued that there are no exclusionary reasons (i.e., second-order reasons not to act for a reason). The premise of the argument is what he calls the motivation constraint, according to which for the fact that p to be a reason for you to ϕ, it must be possible for you to ϕ for the reason that p. However, the argument goes, it is not possible to act (or not to act) for a reason (...) for a reason. Therefore, he concludes, there are no second-order reasons. In this paper, I shall argue that Whiting's argument ought to be rejected. Thus, I will argue that we should not accept the motivation constraint on which it is based. It is true that for the fact that p to be a reason for you to ϕ, it must be possible for you to ϕ guided in the right way by the consideration that p favours you ϕing. However, I shall argue that it is possible for exclusionary reasons to guide us in the right way, even if it not possible for us to not to ϕ for a reason for a reason. (shrink)

This volume brings together this new knowledge in a single, concise source, covering most if not all of the basic questions regarding human action: What are the ...

What is the primary function of consciousness in the nervous system? The answer to this question remains enigmatic, not so much because of a lack of relevant data, but because of the lack of a conceptual framework with which to interpret the data. To this end, we have developed Passive Frame Theory, an internally coherent framework that, from an action-based perspective, synthesizes empirically supported hypotheses from diverse fields of investigation. The theory proposes that the primary function of consciousness is well-circumscribed, (...) serving the 'somatic nervous system[. For this system, consciousness serves as a frame that constrains and directs skeletal muscle output, thereby yielding adaptive behavior. The mechanism by which consciousness achieves this is more counterintuitive, passive, and “low level” than the kinds of functions that theorists have previously attributed to consciousness. Passive frame theory begins to illuminate (a) what consciousness contributes to nervous function, (b) how consciousness achieves this function, and (c) the neuroanatomical substrates of conscious processes. Our untraditional, action-based perspective focuses on olfaction instead of on vision and is 'descriptive' (describing the products of nature as they evolved to be) rather than 'normative' (construing processes in terms of how they should function). Passive frame theory begins to isolate the neuroanatomical, cognitive-mechanistic, and representational (e.g., conscious contents) processes associated with consciousness. (shrink)

The basic nuts and bolts underlying human behavior remain mysterious from a scientific point of view. Everyday acts -- naming an object, suppressing the urge to say something, or grabbing a waiter's attention with a "cappuccino, please" -- remain difficult to understand from a mechanistic standpoint. Despite these challenges, research has begun to illuminate, not only the basic processes underlying human action production, but the role of conscious processing in the control of behavior. This Research Topic, "Consciousness and the Control (...) of Action," is devoted to surveying and synthesizing these developments from disparate fields of study. (shrink)

¿Las sociedades latinoamericanas están mal gobernadas o son simplemente ingobernables? Tal es la incógnita que orienta este trabajo. En el primer caso, los déficits de gobernabilidad que se manifiestan en casi todo el continente serían adjudicables a una insuficiente provisión de gobierno; en el segundo, a una demanda sobredimensionada que superaría toda posibilidad de satisfacción. Este artículo analiza la provisión y demanda de gobierno en un país del Cono Sur, la República Argentina, a lo largo de los últimos 70 años.

Embodied approaches in cognitive science hold that the body is crucial for cognition. What this claim amounts to, however, still remains unclear. This paper contributes to its clarification by confronting three ways of understanding embodiment—the sensorimotor approach, extended cognition and enactivism—with Locked-in syndrome. LIS is a case of severe global paralysis in which patients are unable to move and yet largely remain cognitively intact. We propose that LIS poses a challenge to embodied approaches to cognition requiring them to make explicit (...) the notion of embodiment they defend and its role for cognition. We argue that the sensorimotor and the extended functionalist approaches either fall short of accounting for cognition in LIS from an embodied perspective or do it too broadly by relegating the body only to a historical role. Enactivism conceives of the body as autonomous system and of cognition as sense-making. From this perspective embodiment is not equated with bodily movement but with forms of agency that do not disappear with body paralysis. Enactivism offers a clarifying perspective on embodiment and thus currently appears to be the framework in embodied cognition best suited to address the challenge posed by LIS. (shrink)

pt. 1. Apuntes autobiográficos.--pt. 2. Páginas selectas.

By promising, requesting and commanding we can give ourselves and each other reasons for acting as promised, requested, and commanded. Call this our capacity to give reasons robustly. According to the triggering account, we give reasons robustly simply by manipulating the factual circumstances in a way that triggers pre-existing reasons. Here I claim that we ought to reject the triggering account. By focusing on David Enoch’s sophisticated articulation of it, I argue that it is overinclusive; it cannot adequately distinguish between (...) threats and robust reason-giving; and it cannot adequately explain why epistemic reasons cannot be robustly given. I suggest that when we give reasons robustly, we do so directly, without explanatory intermediaries. (shrink)

Se suele plantear que a comienzos del siglo XX las investigaciones acerca del control social abandonan la prisión como tema central para pensar el problema del orden a partir de la ciudad. Sin embargo, poco se ha dicho de la conexión, a veces subterránea, que ello guarda con la obra de Franz Kafka. Consideramos posible rastrear en la literatura del autor checo el proceso por el cual la ciudad va convirtiéndose en un eje en el cual se desarrollan un sinnúmero (...) de sucesos, justamente cuando en la Escuela de Chicago comenzaban a elaborarse las bases para una teoría ecológica de la organización social. (shrink)

Ante el padecimiento de un dolor social producido en un entorno signado por la exclusión, la juventud despliega distintas estrategias entre las que pueden ubicarse las autoagresiones corporales. Este art í culo analiza los hallazgos de un estudio socioeducativo que recupera narrativas del dolor en las experiencias estudiantiles. *Este artículo recoge los resultados de una investigación finalizada con sede en el Programa de Investigación “Transformaciones sociales, subjetividad y procesos educativos”, bajo la dirección de Carina V. Kaplan, del Instituto de Investigaciones (...) en Ciencias de la Educación, Facultad de Filosofía y Letras, Universidad de Buenos Aires. Proyecto UBACyT N° 20020170100464BA – periodo 2018-2021: “Violencias, estigmatización y condición estudiantil. Una sociología de la educación sobre las emociones y los cuerpos”. (shrink)

En la tesina hemos examinado el problema de la tolerancia religiosa, a partir de los escritos de Marsilio de Padua, Thomas Hobbes y John Locke. La elección de los pensadores modernos ha respondido a la relevancia de sus contribuciones para la discusión acerca del problema que supone la tolerancia religiosa en la Modernidad.1 La interpretación que hemos propuesto en relación con los aportes de Hobbes, ha permitido considerarlo como un autor que exhortó a la diversidad como una estrategia para la (...) regulación de la religión. En cuanto a Locke, hemos señalado su defensa de la tolerancia en nombre de la racionalidad, su reivindicación de la utilidad de una actitud tolerante como medio para preservar la coexistencia pacífica. Observamos que las contribuciones de ambos pensadores trascendieron ampliamente los horizontes de su tiempo para arribar a nuestros días con una vigencia sorprendente. De allí que estos autores se convierten en lecturas obligatorias sobre esta materia al intentar buscar posibles soluciones a uno de los problemas políticos más apremiantes. Sin embargo, es importante señalar que, en la historia del pensamiento político, el principio de tolerancia fue desarrollado, no solo por autores modernos, sino asimismo por autores medievales, entre ellos, Marsilio de Padua. Este pensador tuvo una influencia decisiva en el pensamiento filosófico-político de los teóricos modernos anteriormente mencionados a raíz de sus aportes a la discusión de la tolerancia, sus contribuciones en lo que se refiere a la circunscripción del poder pontificio, su crítica a la doctrina de la plenitudo potestatis papal y sus reflexiones en torno a la relación entre el poder temporal y espiritual. Por tal motivo, dedicamos un primer capítulo a presentar y analizar los argumentos filosóficos-políticos centrales de Marsilio de Padua, con el fin de señalar los alcances de este antecedente medieval en el desarrollo de la noción moderna del principio de tolerancia religiosa. En el segundo capítulo, examinamos los argumentos de Hobbes, e intentamos señalar que su preocupación central fue, no tanto la tolerancia religiosa, sino antes bien el problema de la regulación de la religión. En el tercer capítulo, pasamos revista de los aportes de Locke en lo que respecta a esta materia desde una perspectiva liberal. Por último, en el cuarto capítulo realizamos un estudio comparativo entre Marsilio y Hobbes, por un lado, y entre este último y Locke, por otro. (shrink)

In our research, we examine the efforts made by Latin American business schools in the last decade to deliver a value-based education. We carry out a survey with a sample of faculty members and program directors from the whole region. We find that societal demands influenced the direction of managerial education toward values and social responsibility, changing contents and teaching methodologies in the process. Our research shows that the teaching of value-based contents—social responsibility, business ethics and environmental sustainability—has gained ground (...) in the region in the last decade, and that the emphasis on value-based contents goes hand-in-hand with a more intensive use of active learning methodologies—the case method in particular. From the perspective of respondents, the emphasis on active learning seems to correlate positively with observed changes in students’ civility. (shrink)

Anjan Chakravartty sostiene que – tradicionalmente - el debate realismo-antirrealismo científico ha sido eminentemente epistémico, estando en juego si debemos comprometernos o no con la creencia de que nuestras mejores teorías científicas son verdaderas o aproximadamente verdaderas y sus términos centrales refieren exitosamente a los aspectos del mundo. Sin embargo, las versiones contemporáneas del realismo científico muestran una clara tendencia hacia la profundización de los aspectos metafísicos de la ciencia, a tal punto que una de las características más prominentes de (...) estas son tesis metafísicas sustanciales. Frente a esta situación, Chakravartty afirma que, más allá de ciertos compromisos metafísicos “básicos” - basados en la práctica científica -, el realista científico puede mantener una postura más pragmática - incluso escéptica - frente a los compromisos metafísicos más “profundos”, más propios de la metafísica de la ciencia que del debate que nos compete. El presente trabajo se propone demostrar que los argumentos esgrimidos por Chakravartty no logran justificar dicha postura pragmática y ofrece un ejemplo en el cual dicha postura resulta insostenible para el realista científico. (shrink)

Contra las imágenes que pretendían representar a las sociedades del siglo XXI como sociedades del conocimiento reflexivo (Beck, Giddens y Lash, 1997), en las que se habría vuelto finalmente posible un uso autorreflexivo y un control democrático de los efectos de la ciencia y la tecnología, vemos cómo reaparecen en la actualidad los viejos dilemas que Habermas había diagnosticado a finales de la década de 1960 sobre la función ideológica de la ciencia y la técnica. Tanto el dilema político, que (...) abarca el dislocamiento trágico entre la libertad y el sometimiento del sujeto que produce el discurso científico, como el dilema teórico, en el que la ciencia oscila entre la apertura y la clausura del mundo cultural, generan una serie de problemas que continúan exigiendo investigaciones teóricas y prácticas. En esta ocasión, quisiera pensar la actualidad de estos dilemas políticos y teóricos de la relación de la ciencia con la sociedad a través de una reflexión en dos pasos: primero, voy a intentar reactualizar el diagnóstico crítico que estudiaba las transformaciones de la ciencia y la técnica como nuevas formas de ideología, que seguía de cerca a las transformaciones de la esfera pública y el desarrollo de nuevas formas de poder que se justifican exclusivamente con criterios de perfeccionamiento técnico; luego, intentaré demarcar, mediante un análisis de algunos límites que este planteo podría tener en nuestra actualidad, cuáles son a mi entender los principales desafíos que la ciencia y la técnica vuelven a plantearle a nuestro mundo social contemporáneo. (shrink)

La crítica del sujeto moral realizada por Adorno resulta clave para comprender su proyecto filosófico. Por un lado, permite reconstruir los momentos esenciales de su crítica a la filosofía del sujeto. Pero la crítica moral también ofrece la posibilidad de realizar una indagación más formal de su obra, dado que la misma figura como uno de los objetos privilegiados de la Dialéctica Negativa. De este modo, al revisar su crítica moral uno tiene la oportunidad de plantear la difícil pregunta por (...) la forma de esa filosofía que se presenta a sí misma como una dialéctica que exacerba la negatividad del pensamiento. (shrink)