Natural modalities are often analysed from an abstract point of view where they are associated with putative laws of nature. However, the way possibilities are represented in physics is more complex. Lagrangian mechanics, for instance, involves two different layers of modalities: kinematical and dynamical possibilities. This paper examines the status of these two layers, both in the classical and quantum case. The quantum case is particularly problematic: we identify four possible interpretive options. The upshot is that a close inspection of (...) the way possibilities are represented in physics could lead to new ways of thinking about natural modalities. (shrink)

This is a commentary on Andrea Lavazza and Murilo Vilaça's article "Human Extinction and AI: What We Can Learn from the Ultimate Threat" (Lavazza & Vilaça, 2024). I discuss the potential concern that their proposal to create artificial successors to "insure" against the tragedy of human extinction might mean being too quick to accept that catastrophic prospect as inevitable, rather than single-mindedly focusing on avoiding it. I also consider the question of the value that we might reasonably assign to such (...) a future of artificial successors under the assumption that they do not enjoy phenomenal consciousness. (shrink)

A radical new interpretation of liberalism, viewing it not merely as a political philosophy or set of political precepts, but as a personal orientation and way of living.

In their target article, Kammerer and Frankish (K&F) wonder what forms introspection could take in non-human animals, enhanced humans, artificial intelligences, and aliens. In this short note, I focus on disordered or neurodiverse minds. More specifically, I assess a claim that has often been made more or less implicitly to the effect that, in virtue of their conditions, people with schizophrenia or depersonalization disorder have superior introspective abilities that allow them to discern some important but normally hidden characteristics of our (...) experiences — call this the superintrospectionitis thesis. In the course of my argumentation, I introduce distinctions and questions concerning the nature of the architecture and the function of introspection that might enrich K&F's framework. (shrink)

According to a common philosophical intuition, the deep nature of things is hidden from us, and the world as we know it through perception and science is somehow shallow and lacking in reality. For all we knwo, the intuition goes, we could be living in a cave facing shadows, in a dream or even in a computer simulation, This “intuition of unreality” clashes with a strong, but perhaps more naive, intuition to the effect that the world as we know it (...) seems perfectly real. Shadows, dreams, or informational structures appear too unreal to be identical to the world as we know it! This clash between the two intuitions forms the basis of the "problem of reality." At the turn of the nineteenth century psychiatrists encountered patients they referred to as “metaphysician doubters” who constantly questioned the reality of the world. This essay draws on the study of these patients to reject, and indeed diagnose, the intuition of unreality and recent metaphysical doctrines drawing on it, such as structuralism, digitalism, and virtual realism. (shrink)

The Image of Law is the first book to examine law through the work of Gilles Deleuze, activating his thought within problems of jurisprudence and developing a concept of judgment that acknowledges its inherently creative capacity.

According to David Chalmers, the virtual entities found in Virtual Reality (VR) and Augmented Reality (AR) environments instantiate virtual properties of a specific kind. It has recently been objected that such a view (i) can’t extend to all types of properties; (ii) leads to a proliferation of property-types; (iii) implausibly ascribes massive errors to VR and AR users; and (iv) faces an analogue of Jackson’s “many-property problem”. My first objective here is to show that advocates of virtual properties can deal (...) with each of these objections. The other goal of this paper is to examine the consequences of Chalmers’ theory in the particular case of AR. If we countenance virtual properties, AR highlights that non-virtual objects can possess both non-virtual and virtual properties. With AR, it also appears that a same non-virtual object can have different and even incompatible properties across augmented environments. Lastly, considering properties in light of AR highlights the risk of an “augmented solipsism”, and calls forth interesting questions about the persistence conditions of non-virtual objects in AR environments. (shrink)

The German Tradition of Self-Cultivation (Bil dung) and its Historical Meaning. This article aims at analysing the historical meaning of the German ideal of self-cultivation (Bildung), considering its different uses and interpretations over time. Based on the historical semantics of Reinhart Koselleck and the bibliography on the subject, it reconstructs the core transformations in its semantic structure from the beginnings in the late Middle Ages to its institutionalization in the German school system in the nineteenth century. The development of the (...) ideal of Bildung in Germany is characterised by the tension between its function as means of integration through education and its function as instrument of social distinction. The reflexion on this educational ideal is presented as a counterpoint to some of the contemporary educational practices, based on the imperatives of the market and the neoliberal management of human capital. (shrink)

Depersonalization consists in a deep modification of the way things appear to a subject, leading him to feel estranged from his body, his actions, his thoughts, and his mind, and even from himself. Even though, when it was discovered at the end of the 19th century, this psychiatric condition was widely used to probe certain aspects of bodily awareness, and more specifically the sense of bodily ownership (SBO), it has been strangely neglected in contemporary debates. In this chapter, I argue (...) that because of three specific features, depersonalization raises some important challenges for current theories of the SBO. The first feature — call it “generality” — is that depersonalization does not only affect the sense of bodily ownership but also, typically, the sense of ``mental ownership’’ (SMO), the sense of agency or ``action ownership’’ (SOA), and the subject’s core sense of herself (CSS), that is, her awareness of herself as an I. The second feature is that except for the symptoms of depersonalization, depersonalized patients are hard to distinguish, psychologically, from normal subjects. This makes it hard to find psychological features that might explain their condition. The last feature, call it “fundamentality” is that the psychological features that do seem abnormal among depersonalized patients seem more likely to be explained by depersonalization than to explain it. These three features raise three challenges — the centrality challenge, the dissociation challenge, and the grounding challenge. Taken together, I will argue, these challenges suggest that the SBO depends on a form of phenomenal “mineness” that would mark my mental states as mine and that cannot be accounted for in sensorimotor, cognitive, or even affective terms. A phenomenal mineness that indeed seems to be psychologically primitive, and only accountable in neurophysiological terms. (shrink)

Among the very architects of the recent re-emergence of emergentism in the physical sciences, Robert B. Laughlin certainly occupies a prominent place. Through a series of works beginning as early as his Nobel lecture in 1998, a lecture given after having been awarded, together with Störmer and Tsui, the Nobel prize in physics for its contribution in the elucidation of the fractional quantum Hall effect, Laughlin openly and relentlessly advocated a strongly anti-reductionistic view of physics – and, more particularly, of (...) the interface between condensed matter and particles physics – which culminated in what can be considered his emergentist manifesto: A Different Universe. Reinventing Physics from the Bottom Down (2005). In spite of this prominent role in the vindication of emergentism, rare are the philosophers, among whom even those sympathetic to the idea of emergence, who have paid serious attention to Laughlin’s insights. The subtleties of his view – it is true, often concealed in many technicalities – have accordingly, and somewhat unfortunately, mainly passed unnoticed. (shrink)

David Chalmers a récemment soutenu que la réalité virtuelle est réelle, plutôt que fictionnelle. Dans cet article, j’examine les implications ontologiques de ce « réalisme virtuel ». Comme je le suggère, cette position s’associe naturellement à une ontologie algorithmique, qui identifie les objets virtuels à des structures de données comprises de manière fonctionnelle. Je présente ensuite plusieurs objections à cette ontologie algorithmique. Tant que celles-ci ne sont pas réglées, la question de l’identité des mondes et des objets virtuels reste encore (...) en suspens. (shrink)

Modified numerals, such as at least three and more than five, are known to sometimes give rise to ignorance inferences. However, there is disagreement in the literature regarding the nature of these inferences, their context dependence, and differences between at least and more than. We present a series of experiments which sheds new light on these issues. Our results show that the ignorance inferences of at least are more robust than those of more than, the presence and strength of the (...) ignorance inferences triggered by both at least and more than depends on the question under discussion, and whether ignorance inferences are detected in a given experimental setting depends partly on the task that participants are asked to perform. We offer an Optimality Theoretic account of these findings. In particular, the task effect is captured by assuming that in performing an acceptability task, participants take the speaker’s perspective in order to determine whether an expression is optimal given a certain epistemic state, while in performing an inference task they take the addressee’s perspective in order to determine what the most likely epistemic state of the speaker is given a certain expression. To execute the latter task in a fully rational manner, participants have to perform higher-order reasoning about alternative expressions the speaker could have used. Under the assumption that participants do not always perform such higher-order reasoning but also often resort to so-called unidirectional optimization, the task effect finds a natural explanation. This also allows us to relate our finding to asymmetries between comprehension and production that have been found in language acquisition. (shrink)

This commentary further explores some of the ethical issues raised by Prof. Peter Singer in his Lanson Lecture “Pandemic Ethics: Five Lessons”. In the first part, I distinguish a prioritarian approach to the allocation of scarce medical resources, from the utilitarian one advocated by Singer. I suggest that the prioritarian view better matches common intuitions about fair distribution, even though it likely needs to be balanced with other principles if it is to have plausibility in contexts like vaccine allocation. In (...) the second part of the commentary, I take a global perspective (as Singer himself does regarding the ethics of lockdowns), and highlight the controversial implications of adopting a fully cosmopolitan ethical outlook when deciding how to distribute Covid-19 vaccines. I also raise justice-related concerns about Singer’s proposal to use well-being as a single metric for evaluating public health policies. (shrink)

According to a common philosophical intuition, the deep nature of things is hidden from us, and the world as we know it through perception and science is, just like a dream, shadows, or a computer simulation, somehow shallow and lacking in reality. This “intuition of unreality” clashes with a strong, but perhaps more naive, intuition to the effect that the world as we know it seems perfectly real. Shadows, dreams, or informational structures appear too unreal to be identical to the (...) world as we know it! This clash between the two intuitions forms the basis of the “problem of reality.” In the late nineteenth century psychiatrists encountered patients they referred to as “metaphysician doubters” who constantly questioned the reality of the world. This essay draws on studies of these patients in order to reject, and indeed diagnose, the intuition of unreality and recent metaphysical doctrines drawing on it, such as structuralism, digitalism, and virtual realism. (shrink)

John Rawls was what we might call a “frenemy” to Stanley Cavell. Time and again, Cavell states his admiration for Rawls's political philosophy but criticizes it for two reasons. First, he believes that Rawls too hastily dismisses a perfectionist tradition that is essential for a flourishing liberal democracy. Second, he attacks certain aspects of Rawls's theory of justice as moralistic and legalistic. The first half of this article examines Cavell's critique of Rawls and argues that the two authors are more (...) closely aligned than suspected. It begins by reconstructing Cavell's critique of Rawls, and using archival materials from Harvard University, presents for the first time Rawls's interpretation of this critique. The second half of the article highlights perfectionist themes in Rawls's A Theory of Justice. The contribution of this article is to reevaluate the relationship between two of the most important moral philosophers of the twentieth century and also to provide a more expansive theory of liberalism that incorporates the psychological depth, moral subtlety and political hopefulness of moral perfectionism. (shrink)

Trata-se da tradução de um ensaio clássico publicado por Rudolf Carnap na revista Erkenntnis. A tradução é precedida por um texto de apresentação, que situa o ensaio e sua importância no contexto da filosofia contemporânea e na obra de Carnap. No ensaio, Carnap indica as principais características que distinguem o que ele chama de nova lógica (a lógica simbólica matemática derivada das obras de Frege, Peano e Hilbert, entre outros) da lógica filosófica tradicional e explica a sua importância como novo (...) método do filosofar. (shrink)

L’auteur relève les différents enjeux de la médecine prédictive pour le secteur de l’assurance.

Originally published in English in 1973. This volume traces the development of the revolution which so drastically altered manâes view of the universe in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The "astronomical revolution" was accomplished in three stages, each linked with the work of one man. With Copernicus, the sun became the centre of the universe. With Kepler, celestial dynamics replaced the kinematics of circles and spheres used by Copernicus. With Borelli the unification of celestial and terrestrial physics was completed by (...) abandonment of the circle in favour the straight line to infinity. (shrink)

The article proposes that managers can counteract and/or prevent the detrimental effects of destructive anger by cultivating the virtue of humility. Traditional psychological conceptualisations of anger are examined, a need for a novel approach to understanding the origins of this emotion is highlighted, and the recently introduced concept of self-immanent pride is reviewed. The first contribution of the article delves into how destructive managerial anger stems from self-immanent pride leading to negative workplace outcomes. The second contribution proposes a shift from (...) reacting to anger to adopting a proactive approach that emphasises nurturing managerial humility. The third contribution offers practical suggestions, highlighting the importance of self-reflection for understanding how self-immanent pride leads to anger. The article considers boundary conditions and recommends future avenues for research into anger, pride and humility from an ethical perspective. (shrink)

En este trabajo analizamos críticamente el enfoque mecanicista de explicación científica centrándonos principalmente en la forma en la que este da cuenta de los fenómenos biológicos. Nos proponemos complementar esta perspectiva con una concepción de nivel como intervalo de cuasi-descomponibilidad que nos permite fundamentar metafísicamente las propuestas mecanicistas clásicas en las propiedades sistémicas características de las entidades biológicas. A través del análisis de ejemplos concretos, demostraremos cómo nuestra propuesta permite superar algunas de las limitaciones de los enfoques predominantes de explicación (...) mecanística. (shrink)

Si l'on s'en tient à la distinction qu'établit l'Introduction de L'histoire naturelle de la religion entre la question du fondement de la religion dans la raison et celle de son origine dans la nature humaine, on sera tenté d'attribuer à chacun des deux principaux textes de Hume sur la religion - L'histoire naturelle de la religion et les Dialogues sur la religion naturelle -un objet propre, déterminant un type de discours philosophique particulier. L'histoire naturelle développerait un discours causal, principalement généalogique, (...) sur les religions positives, toutes populaires en leur fond, tandis que les Dialogues auraient à charge de mener l'examen critique des prétentions philosophiques de la religion naturelle. Il y aurait d'un côté la religion du peuple, ou de l'humanité encore inculte, et de l'autre la religion des savants, ou de l'humanité civilisée. Mais les choses ne sont pas si simples. Car d'une part, en montrant que le polythéisme, religion primitive de l'humanité inculte, conduit naturellement au théisme, L'histoire naturelle montre par là même que le théisme, dans lequel il faut comprendre la religion naturelle elle-même, a ses origines dans la superstition populaire. D'autre part, les trois dernières parties des Dialogues, consacrées aux attributs moraux de la divinité (parties X et XI) et à l'utilité ou la nécessité de la religion pour la morale et la société (partie XII), mettent en évidence les prétentions pratiques, et non simplement spéculatives, de la religion naturelle. Autrement dit, la superstition populaire a un devenir philosophique ou spéculatif, dans le théisme, et inversement la religion naturelle rejoint les religions positives dans leur prétention à régir la conduite humaine. C'est pourquoi, loin d'être totalement distincts et indépendants, le discours de L'histoire naturelle et celui des Dialogues se croisent et sont dans un rapport d'étroite intertextualité. Si une lecture interne de L'histoire naturelle suffit pour comprendre que la religion naturelle est bien, au même titre que les autres sortes de religion, l'objet de cette dissertation, ainsi comprise, L'histoire naturelle porte néanmoins un éclairage sur les Dialogues, en ce qu'elle permet de montrer que le ressort des arguments de Cléanthe et de Déméa n'est autre que la superstition. (shrink)

The aim of this text, derived from an investigation, is to propose a reflection on the future of the university, from the problematization of the neoliberal rationality impact on the forms of knowledge production and organization of academic life. To develop this analysis, the main transformations of the modern university since its advent with the founding of the Berlin University by Wilhelm von Humboldt, in 1810, who created the model of the research university, until the emergence of the neoliberal university (...) model. The purpose of the article is to highlight the rationalities that govern the transformation of the university over time. This historical analysis attempts to demonstrate that no model can be considered natural, absolute, inevitable, non-negotiable, and that and that the university as an institution is inhabited by a mixture of contradictory rationalities. To conclude, the Derrida's essay (2001), is used to show that the uncontested adoption of the neoliberal model can destroy the autonomy of research and teaching that until today characterized the modern university, and compromise its mission in the future. (shrink)

Due to its discussion of the question of non-being and its intention of grounding the philosophical discourse, Plato ́s dialogue The Sophist occupies a central position in the history of philosophy. The purpose of this article is to relate the definition method used by Plato in the dialogue (the diaeresis) with his conception of philosophical discourse. The different definitions for the sophist proposed in the dialogue are not only part of Plato's polemic against sophistry, but underpin the very Platonic conception (...) of the philosopher and philosophical discourse. While dialectics would be the method employed by the philosopher to arrive at knowledge and wisdom, sophistry would be only an imitation of true knowledge and true wisdom. (shrink)

The aim of this article is to analyze the semantic change of the German ideal of Bildung in the time of Nietzsche and the reinterpretation that the philosopher proposes of the concept. Bildung is one of the fundamental concepts of modernity in Germany, and in its classical formulation designated a moral imperative of self-improvement of the individual and humanity as a normative ideal. Nietzsche criticized the degradation of this ideal in mere general culture and the cultural philistinism of his time. (...) In its place, Nietzsche proposes a typology of cultures. He reinterprets the concept of culture as a unit of style and the idea of cultivating individuality as a new imperative of the individual who has disengaged himself from traditional morality. (shrink)

The enhancement of athletic performance using procedures that increase physical ability, such as anabolic steroids, is a familiar phenomenon. Yet recent years have also witnessed the rise of direct interventions into the brain, referred to as “neuro-doping”, that promise to also enhance sports performance. This paper discusses one potential objection to neuro-doping, based on the contribution to athletic achievement, particularly within endurance sports, of effortfully overcoming inner challenges. After introducing the practice of neuro-doping, and the controversies surrounding it, I describe (...) two major mechanisms some have proposed to explain how it might produce its putative performance-enhancing effects. I then clarify the notion of effort, and its relationship to neuro-doping. I also briefly address common concerns about access and safety. My central argument invokes considerations of effort to maintain that we have at least a significant reason for prohibiting the use of neuro-doping in officially regulated endurance competitions – though only conditional upon a specific set of empirical assumptions. I consider three possible objections: that neuro-doping is no different from widely accepted enhancement methods, that it can make athletic competition fairer, and that a broader range of factors can compensate for a reduced scope for effort than I recognize. I ultimately conclude that these objections do not refute the argument from effort, while stressing nonetheless that this argument applies more clearly to hypothetical improved forms of neuro-doping than to existing ones, and is not meant to offer a final overall verdict on how neuro-doping should be regulated. (shrink)

Cet article propose un réexamen du regard porté par Nietzsche sur le travail en tant qu’activité. Plutôt que d’expliquer les positions de Nietzsche sur le thème du travail par sa philosophie, nous éclairons sa philosophie – et en particulier son rejet conjoint du libéralisme et du socialisme – à partir de sa critique du travail. Cette option méthodologique permet ainsi de prendre pleinement en compte les deux aspects de sa critique du travail tout en rendant compte de son dégoût de (...) la modernité et des idéologies politiques qui lui sont corollaires. Codes JEL : A13, B19, P16, Z1. (shrink)

This paper aims to discuss how the themes of individuality, freedom and education are articulated in Stirner's thought. It begins with a brief history of Stirner's reception. Next, the paper analyzes the subversion of Hegelian dialectics and the critique of Feuerbach's and Marx's atheistic humanism, which remain linked to Christian theology by deifying an abstract human essence. Then, the focus shifts to Stirnerian nominalism and its criticism of God, State, humanity and society as ideological constructs that dominate the concrete individual. (...) Finally, the paper analyzes the proposal of a new ethics and a new education, based on the singularity of the mortal and corporeal self. (shrink)

The aim of this article is to examine and defend videogame cognitivism (VC). According to VC, videogames can be a source of cognitive successes (such as true beliefs, knowledge or understanding) for their players. While the possibility of videogame-based learning has been an extensive topic of discussion in the last decades, the epistemological underpinnings of these debates often remain unclear. I propose that VC is a domain- specific brand of aesthetic cognitivism, which should be carefully distinguished from other views that (...) also insist on the cognitive or educational potential of videogames. After these clarifications, I discuss and assess different broad strategies to motivate VC: propositionalism, experientialism, and neocognitivism. These map the different ways in which videogames can prove epistemically valuable, showing them to be, respectively, sources of propositional knowledge, experiential knowledge, and understanding. I eventually argue that neocognitivism is a particularly promising and yet underexplored way to defend VC. (shrink)

Mente y mundo es un ensayo filosófico en el que se da respuesta al viejo problema de cómo se vinculan el lenguaje y el pensamiento con el mundo, pero desde una perspectiva enteramente nueva: la que en la actualidad nos proporcionan la psicología cognitiva y la neurología.

This investigation is a conversation-analytic study of Mexican Spanish news interviews. It focuses on the question-answer adjacency pair in which interviewees are questioned, directly or indirectly, by the interviewers about the legality of their wealth in light of corruption allegations. The questions examined display strategies to generate news: content questions elicit a contrast; statement formulated questions followed by a request for confirmation give the opportunity to accept or deny the allegations, in contrast to statements which create a confrontational context. Non-type-conforming (...) answers evade answering and type-conforming answers contain resistance elements. The IE minimize the allegations by repairing and providing a downgraded version, or use other resources to suggest that their activities are of common order, hence not newsworthy. The IE display evasion by addressing only certain elements of the question and counter the allegations by casting doubt on the professionalism of the IR. (shrink)

In this article, I contest Brian Epstein’s argument (2014) against the applicability of global supervenience to relate micro and macroeconomic properties. Epstein rejects supervenience via a causal-chain relation inside the macroeconomic set in his criticism. Accordingly, the rise of the macro set is fixed by a weather event without any mediation from the realm of microeconomics. As it stands, this idea would demonstrate the autonomy of macroeconomics from microeconomics. However, as I intend to argue, in Epstein’s weather-cases scenarios, the corresponding (...) macroeconomic sets are fixed by their micro bases that codify weather events and thereby fix the macro. This is so because the microeconomic base must include institutional facts; they are as much necessary as the facts about people’s conditions. In so doing, we re-establish bottom–top determination from the micro to the macro, rescuing the applicability of global supervenience. (shrink)

En el análisis internacional contemporáneo, es un error ignorar a uno de los países que tiene una de las mayores tasas de crecimiento de los últimos años. El autor del libro es especialista en la región de Asia y en particular de China. En el texto se ofrece un análisis serio y profundo de la evolución de un país que se mantiene por la senda del crecimiento. Jean-Luc Domenach es autor de libros como: “China: el olvidado archipiélago (1992)”; “China 1949-1994 (...) (1994)”; “Asia en situación de ri.. (shrink)

Dans cet essai, je compte me concentrer sur certains aspects épistémologiques de l’expertise car le risque engendre de nouveaux et difficiles défis dans ce domaine. Ma question sera d’identifier et de circonscrire des facteurs qui diminuent la confiance qu’un agent cognitif pourrait avoir envers un expert et ce, en contexte de risque. Ceci n’exclut bien sûr pas que d’autres aspects (par exemple sociaux et politiques) soient importants et je renvoie le lecteur à la vaste littérature sur le sujet. De manière (...) concrète, je mettrai en évidence comment la question du risque accentue le problème du rôle des valeurs contextuelles en épistémologie. Pour ce faire, dans la première section, je compte brièvement expliquer comment l’expertise scientifique implique une forme aigüe du problème de la connaissance par témoignage. Dans la deuxième section, j’exposerai comment la notion de risque introduit le problème des valeurs non-épistémiques en science et ce, de deux façons : par l’évaluation et la valorisation. La troisième section sera consacrée à exposer quelques approches pour sauvegarder l’intégrité et la crédibilité de l’expertise scientifique en contexte de risque. (shrink)

This essay explores the ontological movement of poetry, its language and words, by establishing a dialogue with the thought of three Japanese thinkers, Ki no Tsurayuki, Motoori Norinaga and Fujitani Mitsue, and the German philosopher Martin Heidegger. The overall purpose, as we progress from one to the other, is to present, explore and disclose a horizon where poetry gradually becomes the locus of a philosophy of language that places it at the genesis of mutual understanding, ethics and, thus, of community.

O objetivo desse artigo é evidenciar que o realismo interno pode ser um arcabouço teórico capaz de garantir que haja objetividade nos contextos linguísticos que estruturam nossas inter-relações comunitárias. Isso é parte de um projeto que Putnam tem desenvolvido desde a metade da década de 1970 e que, se lograr êxito, poderá ajudar a solucionar, a uma só vez, os problemas suscitados pelo relativismo cultural e dar um encaminhamento programático no que se refere à viabilidade de compreensão da realidade social (...) e política em que está assentado o Ocidente, no que concerne à condição irreversível do pluralismo contemporâneo. Desse modo, nosso intuito será o de deixar evidenciado que é possível haver objetividade fundamentada em uma alternativa moderada do realismo que rejeita o realismo da metafísica tradicional e também as consequências mais comuns desse alijamento, qual seja, o relativismo cultural. (shrink)