El presente trabajo consta de tres partes esenciales que tienen como objetivo identificar y describir una parrhesia auténtica en Jesús, a la luz de los cursos dictados por Michel Foucault en el Collège de France. La primera y segunda parte se centran una caracterización,contrastación e indagación de las nociones elementales que constituyen los discursos de verdad en el ministerio de Jesús. En la tercera y última parte presento un acercamiento de Jesús con Diógenes y Sócrates,y cómo ciertos elementos de la (...) presencia de la parrhesia cínica presentes en Jesús posibilitan la idea de Jesús como un "héroe filosófico". (shrink)

Las sociedades democráticas contemporáneas se caracterizan por dos fenómenos empíricos ineludibles: 1) La existencia de profundos, persistentes e inerradicables desacuerdos políticos al interior de cada sociedad democrática; 2) la necesidad de adoptar cursos de acción política comunes a todos los ciudadanos (Waldron, 2005: 18). La concepción democrática agregacionista, receptada por la mayoría de las constituciones políticas, ha mostrado ciertas deficiencias para atender a esta realidad. En respuesta, han surgido dos concepciones democráticas rivales, a saber: a) agonal-pluralista; y b) deliberativa-republicana. Este (...) artículo tendrá por objetivos: 1) reconstruir los presupuestos conceptuales y normativos de estas dos concepciones; 2) contrastarlas; y 3) esbozar argumentos en defensa de una concepción democrática deliberativa-republicana. Para ello, la metodología a emplear será la de la filosofía política analítica, a saber: a) la reconstrucción racional de conceptos; y b) el equilibrio reflexivo. El presente trabajo pretende contribuir al debate actual acerca de cuál es la mejor concepción normativa de democracia a adoptar en las condiciones normativas no ideales contemporáneas. (shrink)

Journal editorials, career features, and the popular press commonly talk of a graduate student mental health crisis. To date, studies on graduate student mental health have employed cross-sectional designs, limiting any causal conclusions regarding the relationship between entry into graduate study and mental health. Here, we draw on data from a longitudinal study of undergraduate students in Aotearoa New Zealand, allowing us to compare participants who did, and did not, transition into PhD study following the completion of their undergraduate degree. (...) Using multilevel Bayesian regression, we identified a difference in mental wellbeing between those who entered PhD study and those who did not. This difference, however, was largely due to those not entering PhD study displaying an increase in mental wellbeing. Participants that entered PhD study displayed a small decrease in mental wellbeing, with the posterior distribution of the simple effect heavily overlapping zero. This latter finding was orders of magnitude smaller than one might expect based on previous cross-sectional research and provides an important message; that a marked drop in mental health is not an inevitable consequence of entering graduate study. (shrink)

El presente artículo tiene como objetivo central analizar algunos ensayos breves de Walter Benjamin de 1917-1918 en los cuales se evidencia una relectura de la experiencia en Kant. Especialmente, se hace una revisión desde el ensayo titulado «Programa de la filosofía venidera » de 1918. Hacia el final del artículo se discute la reformulación que hace Benjamin de la noción de experiencia en aras de una más flexible pero sin dejar de lado el espíritu general del kantismo.

Cancers rely on multiple, heterogeneous processes at different scales, pertaining to many biomedical fields. Therefore, understanding cancer is necessarily an interdisciplinary task that requires placing specialised experimental and clinical research into a broader conceptual, theoretical, and methodological framework. Without such a framework, oncology will collect piecemeal results, with scant dialogue between the different scientific communities studying cancer. We argue that one important way forward in service of a more successful dialogue is through greater integration of applied sciences (experimental and clinical) (...) with conceptual and theoretical approaches, informed by philosophical methods. By way of illustration, we explore six central themes: (i) the role of mutations in cancer; (ii) the clonal evolution of cancer cells; (iii) the relationship between cancer and multicellularity; (iv) the tumour microenvironment; (v) the immune system; and (vi) stem cells. In each case, we examine open questions in the scientific literature through a philosophical methodology and show the benefit of such a synergy for the scientific and medical understanding of cancer. (shrink)

The study of anarchism as a philosophical, political, and social movement has burgeoned both in the academy and in the global activist community in recent years. Taking advantage of this boom in anarchist scholarship, Nathan J. Jun and Shane Wahl have compiled twenty-six cutting-edge essays on this timely topic in New Perspectives on Anarchism.

Contra Jackendoff, we argue that within the parallel architecture framework, the generality of language does not require a rich conceptual structure. To show this, we put forward a delegation model of specialization. We find Jackendoff's alternative, the subdivision model, insufficiently supported. In particular, the computational consequences of his representational notion of modularity need to be clarified.

Nicolas Philibert's 1997 documentary, La moindre des choses, depicts the daily lives of residents and staff at the private psychiatric clinic La Borde, and their production of Witold Gombrowicz's play Operetka. This paper will analyse the aesthetic and ethical implications of La Borde's production of Gombrowicz's play by mapping the documentary, text and production's collective expressions. The film's capacities to reconfigure audience subjectivities through a filmic and intensive entanglement will be explored at length by framing the documentary's cinematography in Félix (...) Guattari's theories of the ethico-aesthetic paradigm and minor cinema. (shrink)

El presente artículo es un conjunto de notas para discutir el lugar de la violencia en el terreno de la política en torno a la obra de Slavoj Žižek. La hipótesis central se articula alrededor de la idea de violencia objetiva, que es inherente al estado normal de las cosas, que el autor desarrolla en su libro Sobre la violencia: Seis reflexiones marginales y que es puesta en discusión con lo que consideramos un interés tangencial por lo político en los (...) textos culturales de Sigmund Freud y la filosofía de Walter Benjamin en el libro Crítica de la violencia. (shrink)

El presente artículo ofrece una caracterización del materialismo antropológico de Walter Benjamin, interpretándolo como el programa teórico-político a través del cual el autor modula en un ámbito profano, concreto y materialista sus intereses metafísicos y antropológicos juveniles, con el objetivo de dotar al marxismo de nuevas perspectivas. El objetivo de nuestro trabajo es abordar el mencionado materialismo antropológico del autor, desglosándolo en cuatro zonas que, sin agotar los temas de su interés, contribuyen a dar una caracterización aproximada de sus problemáticas. (...) La primera de esas zonas vincula el materialismo antropológico a la inauguración retrospectiva de una tradición. La segunda, establece la idea de “cuerpo colectivo” como sujeto político de dicho materialismo. La tercera, hace de este último una tentativa de redefinir las relaciones entre técnica, naturaleza y humanidad en la modernidad. La cuarta, trata de la perspectiva antropológico-materialista como un intento de redibujar los contornos de lo humano a partir de un humanismo “más real”. (shrink)

RESUMEN El presente artículo se propone mostrar que la idea de una "humaneidad no-incrementada", que define el concepto de lo político de Walter Benjamin a principios de la década de 1920, se continúa subrepticiamente en lo que, en los apuntes preparatorios a su ensayo sobre Karl Kraus de 1931, llama "humanismo real de lo no-humano". Las discrepancias que en cada caso Benjamin establece con la célebre noción de Übermensch acuñada por Friedrich Nietzsche será el hilo conductor que permite vincular ambos (...) momentos. A partir de ello, se muestra cómo emerge en los escritos de Benjamin una singular política de lo (post)humano. ABSTRACT This article shows that the idea of an "unenhanced humanness", which defined Walter Benjamin's concept of the political in the early 1920s, is surreptitiously continued in what, in the preparatory notes to his essay about Karl Kraus of 1931, he calls "real humanism of the non-human". The discrepancies that Benjamin establishes in each case with the famous Friedrich Nietzsche's notion of Übermensch will be the common thread that links both moments. From this, it is shown how a singular politics of the (post)human emerges in Benjamin's writings. (shrink)

© 2015, Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.Genetic studies have identified single nucleotide polymorphisms associated with the risk of prostate cancer. It remains unclear whether such genetic variants are associated with disease aggressiveness. The NCI-SPORE Genetics Working Group retrospectively collected clinicopathologic information and genotype data for 36 SNPs which at the time had been validated to be associated with PC risk from 25,674 cases with PC. Cases were grouped according to race, Gleason score and aggressiveness. Statistical analyses were used to compare the frequency (...) of the SNPs between different disease cohorts. After adjusting for multiple testing, only PC-risk SNP rs2735839 was significantly and inversely associated with aggressive and high-grade disease in European men. Similar associations with aggressive and high-grade disease were documented in African-American subjects. The G allele of rs2735839 was associated with disease aggressiveness even at low PSA levels in both European and African-American men. Our results provide further support that a PC-risk SNP rs2735839 near the KLK3 gene on chromosome 19q13 may be associated with aggressive and high-grade PC. Future prospectively designed, case-case GWAS are needed to identify additional SNPs associated with PC aggressiveness. (shrink)

Reseña del libro La justa medida de una distancia. Benjamin y el romanticismo de Jena por D. Fernández.

La problematica de una critica genuina sobre nuestro presente exige reflexionar acerca de las herencias y las condiciones actuales de la propia critica. Un camino que Nicolas Casullo emprende interpelando la saga mas consecuente y fecunda que contuvo la historia moderna en terminos de disconformidad con lo dado y cuestionamiento a sus presupuestos y logicas. Desde Rousseau y Voltaire, Marx y Nietzxhe, Weber y Lukacs, Canetti y Kraus, recuperando los planteos de Adorno y Benjamin y el debate entre izquierdas y (...) derechas ideologicas en nuestro siglo, este libro recorre la biografia de la critica hasta situarla en la actualidad argentina, atravesada por la memoria del terror genocida, la muerte y las politicas sobre la historia. Su escritura rastrea la conflictiva consitutcion de una cultura critica sobre lo civilizatorio, diferenciando esa saga de pensamiento radicalizado de la de una critica, cada vez mas en boga, que queda acotada simplemente a sus objetos de estudio o a sus productos culturales. (shrink)

Avicenna and the Aristotelian Left is the first English rendition of Ernst Bloch's thought-provoking monograph dedicated to the thought of Ibn Sīnā, the prominent eleventh-century Persian polymath. Published in 2019 by Columbia University Press as part of the New Directions in Critical Theory series, it joins a growing list of translations that goes back to the 1966 Spanish version by Jorge Deike Robles and, more recently, to Claude Maillard's and Nicola Allesandrini's French and Italian renditions, respectively. This new English edition (...) is based on Bloch's final version of the essay--a revised version of the original 1952 text, later incorporated as an... (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to begin to respond to the question of how to engage the presence of catastrophic climate change as a locus of philosophical thought. What has to be thought is the end of the world. Central to that project is Heidegger’s “The Origin of the Work of Art,” and in particular, Heidegger’s thinking of the earth/world relation, both in itself and in terms of the limits it encounters. Heidegger’s use of “examples” of artwork, as well (...) as works by Nicolas Poussin and Anselm Kiefer, are deployed in order to begin to understand the role of art in thinking the end of the world. (shrink)

Resumen En el marco de la filosofía de la mente, este artículo aborda el problema de la causación mental en el proyecto naturalista biológico de John Searle. A partir de la concepción de la mente como un fenómeno emergente de procesos cerebrales, evalúo las críticas que Jaegwon Kim realiza a la eficacia causal de la consciencia, centrándome en los argumentos de sobredeterminación y violación del principio de clausura físico causal. Luego analizo el debate de la causación mental a partir de (...) los descubrimientos de Benjamin Libet respecto a la existencia de actividad neuronal pre-consciente en la conducta motora voluntaria. Dicha actividad, llamada potencial de preparación, junto a la noción de causación trabajada en neurociencia, avala la eficacia causal de los estados mentales, pero en un sentido distinto al propuesto por Searle.Within the framework of philosophy of mind, this paper addresses the problem of mental causation in John Searle's biological naturalist project. Beginning with the conception of the mind as a phenomenon emerging from cerebral processes, I evaluate the criticisms that Jaegwon Kim makes to the causal efficacy of consciousness, focusing on the arguments of overdetermination and violation of the principle of physical causal closure. Then, I analyze the debate on mental causation from the findings of Benjamin Libet regarding the existence of pre-conscious neural activity in voluntary motor behavior. This activity, called readiness potential, and the notion of causation worked in neuroscience, support the causal efficacy of mental states, but in a different sense from that proposed by Searle. (shrink)

Resumen En el marco de la filosofía de la mente, este artículo aborda el problema de la causación mental en el proyecto naturalista biológico de John Searle. A partir de la concepción de la mente como un fenómeno emergente de procesos cerebrales, evalúo las críticas que Jaegwon Kim realiza a la eficacia causal de la consciencia, centrándome en los argumentos de sobredeterminación y violación del principio de clausura físico causal. Luego analizo el debate de la causación mental a partir de (...) los descubrimientos de Benjamin Libet respecto a la existencia de actividad neuronal pre-consciente en la conducta motora voluntaria. Dicha actividad, llamada potencial de preparación, junto a la noción de causación trabajada en neurociencia, avala la eficacia causal de los estados mentales, pero en un sentido distinto al propuesto por Searle.Within the framework of philosophy of mind, this paper addresses the problem of mental causation in John Searle's biological naturalist project. Beginning with the conception of the mind as a phenomenon emerging from cerebral processes, I evaluate the criticisms that Jaegwon Kim makes to the causal efficacy of consciousness, focusing on the arguments of overdetermination and violation of the principle of physical causal closure. Then, I analyze the debate on mental causation from the findings of Benjamin Libet regarding the existence of pre-conscious neural activity in voluntary motor behavior. This activity, called readiness potential, and the notion of causation worked in neuroscience, support the causal efficacy of mental states, but in a different sense from that proposed by Searle. (shrink)

Hernán Borisonik. Persistencia de la pregunta por el arte. Buenos Aires: Miño y Dávila, 2022, 132 páginas. Valentín Díaz. Tensión y materia. El método del Barroco en Walter Benjamin. Buenos Aires: 17grises, 2023, 456 páginas.

ABSTRACTThis paper makes a claim about Constant’s intellectual sources in order to throw additional light on the nature of his liberalism. It assesses Constant’s views against the background of a tradition of political rationalism. Constant both criticized and inherited that tradition. This paper shows how this process of critical re-appropriation occurred principally with two figures that had a particular significance for Constant: the very Francophile William Godwin and Nicolas de Condorcet. Constant resisted these authors’ desire to replace a consent-based decision-making (...) model by a truth-based decision-making model, and condemned their tendency to enrol individual judgment at the service of a politics of truth. At the same time, Constant did not renounce completely to their dream of bringing certainty into politics. As this double-move shows, it is not clear to what extent Constant succeeded in distancing himself from this tradition of political rationalism in order to establish what I call a rationalist liberalism. This problematic intellectual lineage not only challenges received interpretations of Constant’s liberalism either in terms of ‘scepticism’ or ‘pluralism.’ It should also invite us to reconsider the widespread idea according to which the French liberal tradition had a common and exclusive source in Montesquieu. (shrink)

Kierkegaard’s Concepts is a comprehensive, multi-volume survey of the key concepts and categories that inform Kierkegaard’s writings. Each article is a substantial, original piece of scholarship, which discusses the etymology and lexical meaning of the relevant Danish term, traces the development of the concept over the course of the authorship, and explains how it functions in the wider context of Kierkegaard’s thought. Concepts have been selected on the basis of their importance for Kierkegaard’s contributions to philosophy, theology, the social sciences, (...) literature and aesthetics, thereby making this volume an ideal reference work for students and scholars in a wide range of disciplines. -/- Contents: Envy, Janne Kylliäinen; Epic, Nassim Bravo Jordán; Epigram, David R. Law; Ethics, Azucena Palavicini Sánchez; Evil, Azucena Palavicini Sánchez and William McDonald; Exception/Universal, Geoffrey Dargan; Existence/Existential, Min-Ho Lee; Experience, Jakub Marek; Fairytale, Nathaniel Kramer; Faith, William McDonald; Finitude/Infinity, Erik M. Hanson; Forgiveness, John Lippitt; Freedom, Diego Giordano; Genius, Steven M. Emmanuel; God, Paul Martens and Daniel Marrs; Good, Azucena Palavicini Sánchez; Governance/Providence, Jack Mulder, Jr.; Grace, Derek R. Nelson; Gratitude, Corey Benjamin Tutewiler; Guilt, Erik M. Hanson; Happiness, Benjamin Miguel Olivares Bøgeskov; Hero, Sean Anthony Turchin; History, Sean Anthony Turchin; Holy Spirit, Leo Stan; Hope, William McDonald; Humility, Robert B. Puchniak; Humor, Alejandro González; Hypocrisy, Thomas Martin Fauth Hansen; Identity/Difference, Claudine Davidshofer; Imagination, Frances Maughan-Brown; Imitation, Leo Stan; Immanence/Transcendence, Leo Stan; Immediacy/Reflection, Zizhen Liu; Immortality, Lee C. Barrett; Incognito, Martijn Boven. (shrink)

Alexander Pho and Benjamin A. White respond to Nicolas Dixon’s critique of mixed martial arts (MMA) through a ‘companions in innocence’ argument. Taking up a counterexample that Dixon is quick to dismiss, the authors argue that MMA techniques are on a par with the ‘pain-leveraging’ tactics used by cyclists and that pressing for a moral distinction between cycling and MMA leads to absurd conclusions about other practices. So, because cycling is morally permissible, MMA is morally permissible. This companions in innocence (...) argument fails. But cycling can be used to develop a better, though only partial, defense of MMA. (shrink)

How might a human communication system be bootstrapped in the absence of conventional language? We argue that motivated signs play an important role (i.e., signs that are linked to meaning by structural resemblance or by natural association). An experimental study is then reported in which participants try to communicate a range of pre-specified items to a partner using repeated non-linguistic vocalization, repeated gesture, or repeated non-linguistic vocalization plus gesture (but without using their existing language system). Gesture proved more effective (measured (...) by communication success) and more efficient (measured by the time taken to communicate) than non-linguistic vocalization across a range of item categories (emotion, object, and action). Combining gesture and vocalization did not improve performance beyond gesture alone. We experimentally demonstrate that gesture is a more effective means of bootstrapping a human communication system. We argue that gesture outperforms non-linguistic vocalization because it lends itself more naturally to the production of motivated signs. (shrink)

This paper compares two explanations of the process by which human communication systems evolve: iterated learning and social collaboration. It then reports an experiment testing the social collaboration account. Participants engaged in a graphical communication task either as a member of a community, where they interacted with seven different partners drawn from the same pool, or as a member of an isolated pair, where they interacted with the same partner across the same number of games. Participants’ horizontal, pair‐wise interactions led (...) “bottom up” to the creation of an effective and efficient shared sign system in the community condition. Furthermore, the community‐evolved sign systems were as effective and efficient as the local sign systems developed by isolated pairs. Finally, and as predicted by a social collaboration account, and not by an iterated learning account, interaction was critical to the creation of shared sign systems, with different isolated pairs establishing different local sign systems and different communities establishing different global sign systems. (shrink)

The empirical study of belief is emerging at a rapid clip, uniting work from all corners of cognitive science. Reliance on belief in understanding and predicting behavior is widespread. Examples can be found, inter alia, in the placebo, attribution theory, theory of mind, and comparative psychological literatures. Research on belief also provides evidence for robust generalizations, including about how we fix, store, and change our beliefs. Evidence supports the existence of a Spinozan system of belief fixation: one that is automatic (...) and independent of belief rejection. Independent research supports the existence of a system of fragmented belief storage: one that relies on large numbers of causally isolated, context-sensitive stores of belief in memory. Finally, empirical and observational data support at least two systems of belief change. One system adheres, mostly, to epistemological norms of updating; the other, the psychological immune system, functions to guard our most centrally held beliefs from potential inconsistency with newly formed beliefs. Refining our under- standing of these systems can shed light on pressing real-world issues, such as how fake news, propaganda, and brainwashing exploit our psychology of belief, and how best to construct our modern informational world. (shrink)

This paper explores the role of iconicity in spoken language and other human communication systems. First, we concentrate on graphical and gestural communication and show how semantically motivated iconic signs play an important role in creating such communication systems from scratch. We then consider how iconic signs tend to become simplified and symbolic as the communication system matures and argue that this process is driven by repeated interactive use of the signs. We then consider evidence for iconicity at the level (...) of the system in graphical communication and finally draw comparisons between iconicity in graphical and gestural communication systems and in spoken language. (shrink)

This paper explores the role of iconicity in spoken language and other human communication systems. First, we concentrate on graphical and gestural communication and show how semantically motivated iconic signs play an important role in creating such communication systems from scratch. We then consider how iconic signs tend to become simplified and symbolic as the communication system matures and argue that this process is driven by repeated interactive use of the signs. We then consider evidence for iconicity at the level (...) of the system in graphical communication and finally draw comparisons between iconicity in graphical and gestural communication systems and in spoken language. (shrink)

This paper argues that contemporary philosophical literature on meaning in life has important implications for the debate about our obligations to non-human animals. If animal lives can be meaningful, then practices including factory farming and animal research might be morally worse than ethicists have thought. We argue for two theses about meaning in life: that the best account of meaningful lives must take intentional action to be necessary for meaning—an individual’s life has meaning if and only if the individual acts (...) intentionally in ways that contribute to finally valuable states of affairs; and that this first thesis does not entail that only human lives are meaningful. Because non-human animals can be intentional agents of a certain sort, our account yields the verdict that many animals’ lives can be meaningful. We conclude by considering the moral implications of these theses for common practices involving animals. (shrink)

Research seeking a scientific foundation for the theory of art appreciation has raised controversies at the intersection of the social and cognitive sciences. Though equally relevant to a scientific inquiry into art appreciation, psychological and historical approaches to art developed independently and lack a common core of theoretical principles. Historicists argue that psychological and brain sciences ignore the fact that artworks are artifacts produced and appreciated in the context of unique historical situations and artistic intentions. After revealing flaws in the (...) psychological approach, we introduce a psycho-historical framework for the science of art appreciation. This framework demonstrates that a science of art appreciation must investigate how appreciators process causal and historical information to classify and explain their psychological responses to art. Expanding on research about the cognition of artifacts, we identify three modes of appreciation: basic exposure to an artwork, the artistic design stance, and artistic understanding. The artistic design stance, a requisite for artistic understanding, is an attitude whereby appreciators develop their sensitivity to art-historical contexts by means of inquiries into the making, authorship, and functions of artworks. We defend and illustrate the psycho-historical framework with an analysis of existing studies on art appreciation in empirical aesthetics. Finally, we argue that the fluency theory of aesthetic pleasure can be amended to meet the requirements of the framework. We conclude that scientists can tackle fundamental questions about the nature and appreciation of art within the psycho-historical framework. (shrink)

What does it mean to be a morally good person? It can be tempting to think that it is simply a matter of performing certain actions and avoiding others. And yet there is much more to moral character than our outward actions. We expect a good person to not only behave in certain ways but also to experience the world in certain ways within.

Human cognition and behavior are dominated by symbol use. This paper examines the social learning strategies that give rise to symbolic communication. Experiment 1 contrasts an individual-level account, based on observational learning and cognitive bias, with an inter-individual account, based on social coordinative learning. Participants played a referential communication game in which they tried to communicate a range of recurring meanings to a partner by drawing, but without using their conventional language. Individual-level learning, via observation and cognitive bias, was sufficient (...) to produce signs that became increasingly effective, efficient, and shared over games. However, breaking a referential precedent eliminated these benefits. The most effective, most efficient, and most shared signs arose when participants could directly interact with their partner, indicating that social coordinative learning is important to the creation of shared symbols. Experiment 2 investigated the contribution of two distinct aspects of social interaction: behavior alignment and concurrent partner feedback. Each played a complementary role in the creation of shared symbols: Behavior alignment primarily drove communication effectiveness, and partner feedback primarily drove the efficiency of the evolved signs. In conclusion, inter-individual social coordinative learning is important to the evolution of effective, efficient, and shared symbols. (shrink)

v. 1. Charmides. Lysis. Laches. Protagoras. Euthydemus. Cratylus. Phaedrus. Ion. Symposium.--v. 2. Meno. Euthyphro. Apology. Crito. Phaedo. Georgias. Appendix I: Lesser Hippias. Alcibiades I. Menexenus. Appenddix II: Alcibiades II. Eryxias.--v. 3. Republic. Timaeus. Critias.--v. 4. Pharmenides. Theaetetus. Sophist. Statesman. Philebus.--v. 5 Laws. Index to the writings of Plato.

Interest in the computational aspects of modeling has been steadily growing in philosophy of science. This paper aims to advance the discussion by articulating the way in which modeling and computational errors are related and by explaining the significance of error management strategies for the rational reconstruction of scientific practice. To this end, we first characterize the role and nature of modeling error in relation to a recipe for model construction known as Euler’s recipe. We then describe a general model (...) that allows us to assess the quality of numerical solutions in terms of measures of computational errors that are completely interpretable in terms of modeling error. Finally, we emphasize that this type of error analysis involves forms of perturbation analysis that go beyond the basic model-theoretical and statistical/probabilistic tools typically used to characterize the scientific method; this demands that we revise and complement our reconstructive toolbox in a way that can affect our normative image of science. (shrink)

Malebranche's Dialogues on Metaphysics and on Religion is in many ways the best introduction to his thought, and provides the most systematic exposition of his philosophy as a whole. In it, he presents clear and comprehensive statements of his two best-known contributions to metaphysics and epistemology, namely, the doctrines of occasionalism and vision in God; he also states his views on such central issues as self-knowledge, the existence of the external world and the problem of theodicy. His skilful handling of (...) the dialogue form enables the reader to see how he responds to objections made to his earlier work The Search after Truth. This edition presents a translation of the text which is clear, readable and more accurate than any of its predecessors, together with an introduction that analyses Malebranche's central teachings and explains the importance of the Dialogues in the context of seventeenth-century philosophy. (shrink)

Syllogisms (e.g. “All A are B; All B are C; What is true about A and C?”) are a long‐studied area of human reasoning. Riesterer, Brand, and Ragni compare a variety of models to human performance and show that not only do current models have a lot of room for improvement, but more importantly a large part of this improvement must come from examining individual differences in performance.

We aim to do two things in this article. On the positive end, our goal is to explain how some seemingly incompatible aspects of belief live together, by presenting distinct mechanistic explanations of each of them: in particular we want to show how belief can be discerning, credulous, rational, and irrational. After clarifying our positive view, we take aim at some competitor views in the second half of the paper, particularly offering critiques of epistemic vigilance and social marketplace accounts of (...) belief. We conclude by inviting proponents to provide an architecture for belief that can be tested against existing models. (shrink)

A scholarly edition of Nicolas Malebranche's Treatise on Nature and Grace by Patrick Riley. The edition presents an authoritative text, together with an introduction, commentary notes, and scholarly apparatus.

This book is the first extensive treatment of Husserl's phenomenology of time-consciousness. Nicolas de Warren uses detailed analysis of texts by Husserl, some only recently published in German, to examine Husserl's treatment of time-consciousness and its significance for his conception of subjectivity. He traces the development of Husserl's thinking on the problem of time from Franz Brentano's descriptive psychology, and situates it in the framework of his transcendental project as a whole. Particular discussions include the significance of time-consciousness for other (...) phenomenological themes: perceptual experience, the imagination, remembrance, self-consciousness, embodiment, and the consciousness of others. The result is an illuminating exploration of how and why Husserl considered the question of time-consciousness to be the most difficult, yet also the most central, of all the challenges facing his unique philosophical enterprise"--Provided by publisher. (shrink)

This article discusses conceptions of modesty and humility and their key features. It gives a brief historical overview of debates about whether or not they’re really virtues at all. It also discusses theories of modesty and humility that root them in the presence or absence of particular beliefs, emotions, desires, and attention. it also discusses related phenomena in epistemology: rational limits on self-ascription of error, attitudes to disagreement, and openness to alternative views.

In Virtual Worlds, Benjamin Woolley examines the reality of virtual reality.

Modern mathematical sciences are hard to imagine without appeal to efficient computational algorithms. We address several conceptual problems arising from this interaction by outlining rival but complementary perspectives on mathematical tractability. More specifically, we articulate three alternative characterizations of the complexity hierarchy of mathematical problems that are themselves based on different understandings of computational constraints. These distinctions resolve the tension between epistemic contexts in which exact solutions can be found and the ones in which they cannot; however, contrary to a (...) persistent myth, we conclude that having an exact solution is not generally more epistemologically beneficial than lacking one. (shrink)

The relatively recent increase in prominence of computer simulations in scientific inquiry gives us more reasons than ever before for asserting that mathematics is a wonderful tool. In fact, a practical knowledge of scientific computation has become essential for scientists working in all disciplines involving mathematics. Despite their incontestable success, it must be emphasized that the numerical methods subtending simulations provide at best approximate solutions and that they can also return very misleading results. Accordingly, epistemological sobriety demands that we clarify (...) the circumstances under which simulations can be relied upon. With this in mind, this paper articulates a general perspective to better understand and compare the strengths and weaknesses of various error-analysis methods. (shrink)