En este trabajo nos proponemos acercarnos a la noción del conocimiento simbólico en la obra de Gottfried Leibniz, rastreándola en diversos textos de su autoría en que se encuentra diseminada. Comenzamos con la importante distinción entre idea y concepto, que separa el planteo de nuestro autor de las formulaciones de otros como Descartes, Malebranche y Spinoza. Seguimos con la clasificación de los tipos de conceptos que el filósofo de Leipzig lleva acabo, en la que divide a los conceptos simbólicos de (...) los intuitivos. Abordamos después las ventajas epistemológicas que presenta el pensamiento simbólico frente al pensamiento verbal, analizando sus funciones cognitivas y su rol en diferentes tipos de sistemas semióticos. Continuamos asentando el simbolismo epistemológico dentro de una teoría general de la representación, que sostiene cierto isomorfismo entre las esferas del lenguaje, el pensamiento y la realidad. Finalmente, fundamentamos ontológicamente esta analogía representativa estructural en la noción leibniziana de expresión y la vinculamos con el perspectivismo monadológico, poniendo de relieve su cercanía con algunos planteos fenomenológicos y hermenéuticos de nuestros días. (shrink)

This article discusses Rik Peels's response to Williams's argument against voluntary belief. Williams argues that voluntary beliefs must be acquired independently of truth-considerations, so they cannot count as beliefs after all, since beliefs aim at truth. Peels attempted to reply by showing that in cases of self-fulfilling beliefs, a belief can indeed be voluntarily acquired in conditions which retain the necessary truth-orientation. But even if we make two crucial concessions to Peels’s proposal, his argument ultimately fails. The first concession is (...) that beliefs can be weakly voluntary-namely, we can acquire them at will though we do not preserve them at will but on the basis of evidence. Conceding this, however, only lands us in the “acquisition problem”: how a belief can be acquired qua belief when we still do not think we have justification for it. This leads us to the second concession: that knowing in advance that a certain belief is self-fulfilling provides us with such a justification. However, this concession lands us in the ultimate obstacle: that, precisely because such a justification is available both before and at the moment of forming the belief, the cognitive perspective of the subject is identical at both moments, which obscures what it even means to say that at a certain moment she started to have a belief. (shrink)

In a provocative, yet scarcely discussed, argument at the end of Knowing Full Well, Ernest Sosa has attempted to determine what kind of evidence we possess in support of the belief that our cognitive capacities as human beings are reliable. According to Sosa, we can appeal to considerations of coherence to prove that such capacities are reliable. However, Sosa also declares that such considerations are not “determinative, ultima facie” reasons−which is to say, they are to be regarded as defeasible. As (...) we will try to point out, this overall strategy is ultimately incoherent. Furthermore, as we will argue, Sosa fails in attempting to provide us with an analogy between the case of doubting the reliability of the cognitive faculties of an individual and doubting such reliability in the case of the species. (shrink)

Emotion Review, Volume 14, Issue 2, Page 121-131, April 2022. The aim of this article is to explore how some aspects of Gilbert Simondon's philosophy of individuation may contribute to outlining a posthumanist theory of emotions. According to Simondon, the relation between affection and emotion is a key case study for examining the transindividual character of psychosocial individuation. Affection and emotion appear to him not as a binary opposition, but as an example of a transductive operation. The article suggests the (...) concept of ‘transindividual affect’ as a way of challenging some key dualisms. From this perspective, Simondon can contribute to a redefinition of the human from the non-dualistic and non-anthropocentric perspective that characterises critical posthumanism. (shrink)

The 1930s–1940s underwent profound structural economic and political turmoil following the collapse of the nineteenth century liberal market economies. The intellectual debates of the time were dominated by the question of whether Marx’s theory of the tendency of rate of profit to fall was true, or what consequence could be imagined in the survival of capitalist societies. Placed in the middle of such debates was also the reorganization of national productions into war economies. By means of reconstructive analysis, the paper (...) provides a critical overview of the debates that took place within the circle of the Frankfurt School during those years. It also advances an interpretive thesis suggesting that remedies to capitalist crises of the time turned state powers into privatized, illiberal coercive entities. Coercion and privatization reinforced each other. This general tendency is well illustrated by the famous Pollock-Neumann debate. These intellectuals expressed views not only intended to shed light on the historical period of time, but also to formulate long-term considerations on the authoritarian trends embedded in our contemporary democracies. Through historical reconstruction, the paper’s aim is to identify a long-term structural thread of transformation starting from the transformation of the German economy in 1930s and touching upon post Second World War problems of states’ restructuring along privatization/coercion divides. (shrink)

RESUMEN Intentaremos continuar en este trabajo la propuesta de una solución a la paradoja de McTaggart a partir de la retoma de una línea de análisis que se remonta a Dummett, y su complementación con ciertas tesis de la fenomenología merleaupontyana. Para ello tendremos que profundizar las posiciones del autor de Truth and other enigmas en el sentido de la objeción contra una «descripción completa» de la realidad y que favorecen, por el contrario, de una pluralidad de «descripciones máximas». Nuestro (...) intento no debe, sin embargo, adoptar un «pluralismo» que se exponga a las objeciones de Nicholas Smith, a quien replicaremos a su vez apelando a la noción fenomenológica de «síntesis de transición». Concluiremos que el «pluralismo» de descripciones temporales que nos permite escapar a la paradoja de McTaggart no resulta incompatible con el requisito de «componibilidad» planteado por Smith.PALABRAS CLAVE TIME, MERLEAU-PONTY, MCTAGGART, DUMMETT, SMITHABSTRACTIn this paper we attempt to continue the proposal of a solution to McTaggart’s paradox on the basis of a return to a line of analysis traceable back to Dummett, and its implementation with certain tenets of Merleau-Pontyan phenomenology. With this aim, we have to deepen the positions of the author of Truth and other enigmas which point towards an objection against one “complete description” of reality and favour, on the contrary, a plurality of “maximal descriptions”. Our attempt must not, however, adopt a “pluralism” which can be targeted by Nicholas Smith’s objections, to whom, in turn, we reply by turning to the phenomenological notion of “synthesis of transition”. We conclude that the “pluralism” of temporal descriptions that allows us to escape from McTaggart’s paradox is not incompatible with the requisite of “compossibility” laid out by Smith.KEYWORDS TIME, MERLEAU-PONTY, MCTAGGART, DUMMETT, SMITH. (shrink)

According to Merleau-Ponty, psychologism, sociologism, and historicism, all of which describe human consciousness as “conditioned”, would be incompatible with any claim to knowledge. However, the reason why knowledge would require a postulate of the autonomy of consciousness remains little explored in the specialized literature. Therefore, in our work we try to separate different aspects of the skeptical problem analyzed by Merleau-Ponty and show that the conditioning of thought is associated, successively, with the possible opaque character of the foundations of our (...) own grasp of the position; the possible ephemeral character of the objects of knowledge; and, finally, of the possible relativity of knowledge to our historical period. In other words, we see that Merleau-Ponty’s argumentation, far from being monolithic, calls for three different solutions concerning the “crisis” of knowledge and that, in turn, the very problem that these are trying to solve is described by the phenomenologist in three different ways. We will also see that Merleau-Ponty’s own position during this period can be described as an internalist and universalist position. (shrink)

The article presents a brief reconstruction of naturalized epistemology, understood as a methodological approach. Three emblematic positions within naturalized epistemology are distinguished: rejection of apriorism inepistemology, favoring the use of the results of empirical science; attribution of an instrumental normativity to epistemology; and the thesis of the empirical assessability of the epistemic norms or principles. The text addresses the way in which, historically, these features are presented in the foundational works of Quine and Laudan. Furthermore, it studies how this project (...) is applied by three authors: Howard Sankey, who links naturalism to the debate of epistemic relativism; and Louise Antony and Elizabeth Anderson, who make use of these ideas as a foundation for feminist epistemology. Through these “applications”, it is possible to appreciate that naturalizedepistemology does not lead to the elimination of normative aspects, as was feared by early critics of Quine. It is also possible to appreciate that the approach of Sankey is naturalized because it is empirically informed, but it still depends on a priori arguments. On the contrary, appropriations by feminist epistemology carry out the naturalization project in a deeper sense, that is, they introduce a set of epistemological premises that are themselves empirical. (shrink)

Intentaremos completar el análisis de la relación entre Merleau-Ponty y distintas posiciones escépticas -típicamente restringido a textos más “canónicos” - a partir de su conferencia sobre Le primat de la perception. El fenomenólogo argumenta allí contra la “inducción pesimista” según la cual podemos, a la luz de la refutación de las hipótesis científicas pasadas, prever que las actuales son también falsas: invirtiendo la conclusión de esta inducción, afirma que las transformaciones de nuestro conocimiento son un proceso autocorrectivo, tal que ninguna (...) hipótesis es abandonada sino en la medida en que otra aparece como mejor. Esto nos hará problematizar la noción de refutación científica en Merleau-Ponty, quien ofrece como modelo del progreso epistémico la mutua sustitución de creencias perceptivas, que no involucra la consideración consciente de criterios racionales. Según señalaremos, este punto de partida no puede extrapolarse al caso de hipótesis sopesadas según sus respectivas virtudes. (shrink)

O presente artigo explora a attitude ambígua de Robert Burton face aos Jesuítas, centrando-se na sua leitura dos Commentarii Collegii Conimbricensis Societatis Iesu. Após uma contextualização da sua detecção da Companhia de Jesus nas peças teatrais de Burton, passo em revista as referências do académico à articulação da melancholia nos manuais do curso conimbricense ao longo da Anatomia da Melancolia. Por forma a identificar e compreender as especificidades da sua leitura, pautada por adaptações selectivas e imprecisões, empreenderei uma apresentação da (...) doutrina dos temperamentos dos Conimbricenses. Sustento que, apesar da sua riqueza, da qual os ecos na obra de Burton dão testemunho esmaecido, a abordagem de De Góis permaneceu como um episódio obliterado na história médica e intelectual da melancolia. Este percurso permitirá uma compreensão das perspectivas terapêutica e organizacional subjacentes ao ensino conimbricense. Trata-se, como se tornará evidente, de valências e aplicações dos Commentarii que Burton ignora. Ironicamente, uma parte significativa do seu conhecimento das terras distantes, as suas viagens por “mapa e carta” e as suas perspectivas socioeconómicas sobre a China, aspectos centrais da transição de uma observação da melancolia para uma observação melancólica, bem patente no recurso à sátira e à utopia como vias terapêuticas, está consideravelmente dependente da articulação entre as capacidade formativa e a organização das missões jesuíticas. (shrink)

The development of Easter as a fifty-day season in the church year was an extended historical process that allowed major theological themes to find their place as a part of this central celebration in the life of the church. Careful attention to the embodiment of these themes in our Easter celebration can foster the work of renewal in our own diverse communities of faith.

This book is devoted to the welfare of invertebrates, which make up 99% of animal species on earth. Addressing animal welfare, we do not often think of invertebrates; in fact we seldom consider them to be deserving of welfare evaluation. And yet we should. Welfare is a broad concern for any animal that we house, control or utilize – and we utilize invertebrates a lot. The Authors start with an emphasis on the values of non-vertebrate animals and discuss the need (...) for a book on the present topic. The following chapters focus on specific taxa, tackling questions that are most appropriate to each one. What is pain in crustaceans, and how might we prevent it? How do we ensure that octopuses are not bored? What do bees need to thrive, pollinate our plants and give us honey? Since invertebrates have distinct personalities and some social animals have group personalities, how do we consider this? And, as in the European Union’s application of welfare consideration to cephalopods, how do the practical regulatory issues play out? We have previously relegated invertebrates to the category ‘things’ and did not worry about their treatment. New research suggest that some invertebrates such as cephalopods and crustaceans can have pain and suffering, might also have consciousness and awareness. Also, good welfare is going to mean different things to spiders, bees, corals, etc. This book is taking animal welfare in a very different direction. Academics and students of animal welfare science, those who keep invertebrates for scientific research or in service to the goals of humans, as well as philosophers will find this work thought-provoking, instructive and informative. (shrink)

This contribution has two main goals which might be labelled for convenience as apars construensandpars denstruensreversing the usual order of these terms. The first aim is to offer an overview of the main tenets of the book, while the second aim is to raise some critical concerns while remaining sympathetic to the author’s overall project. With regard to the first point, I present the context of intellectual debate where Buchanan’s contribution fits comfortably: Darwin’s evolutionary theory, anthropology, psychology, moral analysis etc. (...) The target here is to show the internal complexity and different layers of analysis of the book. These initial reconstructions are, next, used to formulate some thoughts on what I consider possible problematic points in need of clarification. In particular, first, I hold that Buchanan presents too narrow oppositional views between intergroup relations whereupon the notion of “tribalism” is constructed. Such strong identitarian conception does not seem to depict adequately the sociological dynamics of intergroup relations. Second, I consider the terms in which it can be addressed the notion of the rise of the moral mind in evolutionary terms. The suggestion is to consider in a milder form the author’s key concept of a “Great Uncoupling” for the moral reason. (shrink)

The author traces the main outlines of the scientific work and teaching of the late Professor Giuliano Marini, who was a distinguished member of the Scientific Board of the «Archivio di storia della cultura» since its foundation in 1988.

This paper gives an account of Vittorio Sainati’s intellectual biography, particularly by showing the principal tendencies of his relationship with Gentile’s neo-idealism.

We put forward a new, ‘coherentist’ account of quantum entanglement, according to which entangled systems are characterized by symmetric relations of ontological dependence among the component particles. We compare this coherentist viewpoint with the two most popular alternatives currently on offer—structuralism and holism—and argue that it is essentially different from, and preferable to, both. In the course of this article, we point out how coherentism might be extended beyond the case of entanglement and further articulated.