BackgroundProphylactic Bilateral Salpingo-Oophorectomy reduces the risk of developing ovarian cancer. However, the psychological mechanisms that may affect post-surgery Quality of Life among patients who underwent PBSO are still largely unknown. Thus, this study aimed at exploring the direct and indirect associations of satisfaction with medical communication and cancer anxiety on post-surgery QoL among women at high risk of developing ovarian cancer.MethodFifty-nine women who underwent PBSO took part in this cross-sectional study, filling out a sociodemographic and clinical questionnaire, a battery of (...) validated psychological measures and an ad hoc developed scale for the assessment of cancer anxiety. We first examined the correlations among all variables of interest, and then tested if cancer anxiety mediated the association between satisfaction with medical communication and post-surgery psychological QoL, controlling both for time from surgery and education.ResultsPost-surgery psychological QoL was unrelated from any sociodemographic or clinical variable. Cancer anxiety had a significant direct negative effect on psychological QoL, while satisfaction with medical communication had a significant positive direct effect on it. Finally, cancer anxiety significantly mediated the association between satisfaction with medical communication and post-surgery psychological QoL.DiscussionResults suggest that post-surgery psychological QoL of patients who underwent PBSO may be increased with interventions, delivered in a genetic counselling setting, targeting quality of medical communication and cancer anxiety. (shrink)

In a dissonance case, a person sincerely and with conviction asserts that P, while her overall automatic behaviour suggests that she believes that not-P. In contrast with several mainstream views, this paper defends the contradictory-belief view of some relevant dissonance cases and explores its consequences regarding Moorean propositions. The paper argues that in relevant cases, the dissonant person is justified in asserting a Moorean proposition on the grounds of her explicit view on the subject matter and the recognition of her (...) opposing beliefs. The person is irrational in being dissonant, but not in asserting a Moorean proposition. (shrink)

This paper, based on some historical sources of the IV and the V century, aims to examine the existence of a fundamentalist Christian community, separated from the Catholics, in Sardinia, between 362 AD and the last decades of the IV century. After his years of exile, the bishop Lucifer returned to his diocese and made the Church of Rome community of Cagliari the symbol of the firm resistance by the intransigent anti-Arians to the conciliatory politics of the rest of the (...) Church towards Arianism. Nevertheless, this separation cannot be recognized as a schism from the Church; it was a voluntary isolation encouraged by Lucifer and perpetuated by his successors. (shrink)

This essay aims to emphasize the link between the feelings of insecurity and uncertainty that spreads in contemporary societies and the rise of populism. The triumph of globalization, the crisis of welfare state caused a social atmosphere of insecurity and environmental fear: in this situation the citizens mostly fight for individual security and political leaders suggest a simple and schematic conception of democracy.

ABSTRACTThe study examined the attributes of sexual violence against girls and young women with disabilities in the northern part of Ethiopia. In order to reach the proposed objective, six in-depth...

This book articulates a participatory conception of deliberative democracy that takes the democratic ideal of self-government seriously. It aims to improve citizens' democratic control and vindicate the value of citizens' participation against conceptions that threaten to undermine it. The book critically analyzes deep pluralist, epistocratic, and lottocratic conceptions of democracy. Their defenders propose various institutional ''shortcuts'' to help solve problems of democratic governance such as overcoming disagreements, citizens' political ignorance, or poor-quality deliberation. However, all these shortcut proposals require citizens to (...) blindly defer to actors over whose decisions they cannot exercise control. Implementing such proposals would therefore undermine democracy. Moreover, it seems naive to assume that a community can reach better outcomes 'faster' if it bypasses the beliefs and attitudes of its citizens. Unfortunately, there are no 'shortcuts' to make a community better than its members. The only road to better outcomes is the long, participatory road that is taken when citizens forge a collective will by changing one another's hearts and minds. However difficult the process of justifying political decisions to one another may be, skipping it cannot get us any closer to the democratic ideal. Starting from this conviction, the book defends a conception of democracy ''without shortcuts''. This conception sheds new light on long-standing debates about the proper scope of public reason, the role of religion in politics, and the democratic legitimacy of judicial review. It also proposes new ways to unleash the democratic potential of institutional innovations such as deliberative minipublics. (shrink)

In The Grammar of Society, first published in 2006, Cristina Bicchieri examines social norms, such as fairness, cooperation, and reciprocity, in an effort to understand their nature and dynamics, the expectations that they generate, and how they evolve and change. Drawing on several intellectual traditions and methods, including those of social psychology, experimental economics and evolutionary game theory, Bicchieri provides an integrated account of how social norms emerge, why and when we follow them, and the situations where we are (...) most likely to focus on relevant norms. Examining the existence and survival of inefficient norms, she demonstrates how norms evolve in ways that depend upon the psychological dispositions of the individual and how such dispositions may impair social efficiency. By contrast, she also shows how certain psychological propensities may naturally lead individuals to evolve fairness norms that closely resemble those we follow in most modern societies. (shrink)

In Norms in the Wild, distinguished philosopher Cristina Bicchieri argues that when it comes to human behavior, social scientists place too much stress on rational deliberation. In fact, she says, many choices occur without much deliberation at all. Two people passing in a corridor automatically negotiate their shared space; cars at an intersection obey traffic signals; we choose clothing based on our instincts for what is considered appropriate. Bicchieri's theory of social norms accounts for these automatic components of coordination, (...) where individuals react automatically to cues that focus their attention on what the norm is in that situation. Social norms thus act as rules for making choices in a social world where people expect others -- often unconsciously -- to follow the same rule. Some norms enable seamless social co-operation, while others are less beneficial to human flourishing.Bicchieri is famous for her interdisciplinary work on game theory and most recently her work on social norms, and Norms in the Wild represents her latest challenge to many of the fundamental assumptions of the social sciences. Bicchieri's work has broad implications not only for understanding human behavior, but for changing it for better outcomes. People have a strongly conditioned preference for following social norms, but that also means that manipulating their expectations can cause major behavioral changes. Bicchieri has been working recently with UNICEF and other NGO's to explore the applicability of her views to issues of human rights around the world. Is it possible to change social expectations around forced marriage, genital mutilations, and public health practices like vaccinations and sanitation? If so, how? What tools might we use? This short book explores how social norms work, and how changing them - changing preferences, beliefs, and especially social expectations - can potentially improve lives all around the world. It will appeal to an unusually broad range of readers including philosophers, psychologists and others in behavioral sciences, and anyone involved in public policy or at NGOs. (shrink)

In this paper we introduce the concept of attentional scaffolds and show the resemblance between social media platforms and slot machines, both functioning as hostile attentional scaffolds. The first section establishes the groundwork for the concept of attentional scaffolds and draws parallels to the mechanics of slot machines, to argue that social media platforms aim to capture users’ attention to maximize engagement through a system of intermittent rewards. The second section shifts focus to the interplay between emotions and attention, revealing (...) how online attentional capture through emotionally triggering stimuli leads to distraction. The final section elucidates the collective implications of scaffolding attention through social media platforms. The examination of phenomena such as emotional contagion and the emergence of group emotions underscores the transition from individual experiences to shared collective outcomes. Employing online moral outrage as a case study, we illustrate how negative emotions serve as scaffolds for individuals’ attention, propagate within social groups, and give rise to collective attitudes. (shrink)

The paper presents a simulation of the dynamics of impersonal trust. It shows how a “trust and reciprocate” norm can emerge and stabilize in populations of conditional cooperators. The norm, or behavioral regularity, is not to be identified with a single strategy. It is instead supported by several conditional strategies that vary in the frequency and intensity of sanctions.

The paper presents a simulation of the dynamics of impersonal trust. It shows how a "trust and reciprocate" norm can emerge and stabilize in populations of conditional cooperators. The norm, or behavioral regularity, is not to be identified with a single strategy. It is instead supported by several conditional strategies that vary in the frequency and intensity of sanctions.

The thesis of mental fragmentation has recently attracted increased attention as a way of explaining facts about mind and language. This volume provides an accessible introduction and essays on foundations and applications of fragmentation.

Cristina Lafont draws upon Hilary Putnam's work in particular to criticize the linguistic idealism and relativism of the German tradition, which she traces back to the assumption that meaning determines reference.

We present five studies investigating the effects of approach and avoidance behaviours when individuals do not enact them but, instead, learn that others have performed them. In Experiment 1, when participants read that a fictitious character (model) had approached a previously unknown product, they ascribed to this model a liking for the object. In contrast, they ascribed to the model a disliking for the avoided product. In Experiment 2, this result emerged, with a smaller effect size, even when it was (...) clear that the behaviours followed specific instructions from a third party. The model had been a mere executor instead of behaving autonomously. Finally, in Experiments 3, 4, and 5, we showed, with direct and indirect measures of attitudes, that reading that the model had approached vs avoided products was sufficient to create preferences in the participant for the approached one, regardless of whether it was explained that the model was a mere executor. This research highlights the largely unexplored effects of vicarious approach/avoidance behaviours. Theoretical and practical implications and possible developments of this line of research are discussed. (shrink)

We report the results of an experiment designed to determine the effects of psychological proximity—proxied by awareness of pain and friendship—on moral reasoning. Our study tests the hypotheses that a moral agent’s emphasis on justice decreases with proximity, while his/her emphasis on care increases. Our study further examines how personality, gender, and managerial status affect the importance of care and justice in moral reasoning. We find support for the main hypotheses. We also find that care should be split into two (...) components, one related to protection and the other to the preservation of relationships. Although gender does not affect moral reasoning directly, we find that it does so indirectly via personality, controlling for age, professional status, and professional background. We do not find a significant effect of managerial status on ethics of justice, but do find that holding a managerial position has a negative impact on ethics of care. Regarding personality, we detect significant positive effects of conscientiousness on ethics of justice and of neuroticism on ethics of care. (shrink)

The Internet has been identified in human enhancement scholarship as a powerful cognitive enhancement technology. It offers instant access to almost any type of information, along with the ability to share that information with others. The aim of this paper is to critically assess the enhancement potential of the Internet. We argue that unconditional access to information does not lead to cognitive enhancement. The Internet is not a simple, uniform technology, either in its composition, or in its use. We will (...) look into why the Internet as an informational resource currently fails to enhance cognition. We analyze some of the phenomena that emerge from vast, continual fluxes of information–information overload, misinformation and persuasive design—and show how they could negatively impact users’ cognition. Methods for mitigating these negative impacts are then advanced: individual empowerment, better collaborative systems for sorting and categorizing information, and the use of artificial intelligence assistants that could guide users through the informational space of today’s Internet. (shrink)

Many hypotheses have been advanced to explain the collective irrationality of COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy, such as partisanship and ideology, exposure to misinformation and conspiracy theories or the effectiveness of public messaging. This paper presents a complementary explanation to epistemic accounts of collective irrationality, focusing on the moral reasons underlying people’s decisions regarding vaccination. We argue that the moralization of COVID-19 risk mitigation measures contributed to the polarization of groups along moral values, which ultimately led to the emergence of collective irrational (...) behaviors. Collective irrationality arises from groups explicitly or implicitly endorsing values that ultimately harm both themselves and those around. The role of social media platforms in amplifying this polarization and contributing to the emergence of collective irrationality is also examined. Finally, potential strategies for addressing the moral sources of collective irrationality are discussed. (shrink)

Providing people with information is considered an important first step in encouraging them to behave sustainably as it influences their consumption beliefs, attitudes and intentions. However, too much information can also complicate these processes and negatively affect behaviour. This is exacerbated when people have accepted the need to live a more sustainable lifestyle and attempt to enact its principles. Drawing on interview data with people committed to sustainability, we identify the contentious role of knowledge in further disrupting sustainable consumption ideals. (...) Here, knowledge is more than just information; it is familiarity and expertise or how information is acted upon. We find that more knowledge represents a source of dilemma, tension and paralysis. Our data reveal a dark side to people’s knowledge, leading to a ‘self-inflicted sustainable consumption paradox’ in their attempts to lead a sustainable consumption lifestyle. Implications for policy interventions are discussed. (shrink)

In this paper, we aim to enhance our understanding about the processing of implicit and explicit temporal chronological relations by investigating the roles of temporal connectives and verbal tenses, separately and in interaction. In particular, we investigate how two temporal connectives (ensuiteandpuis, both meaning ‘then’) and two verbal tenses expressing past time (the simple and compound past) act as processing instructions for chronological relations in French. Theoretical studies have suggested that the simple past encodes the instruction to relate events sequentially, (...) unlike the more flexible compound past, which does not. Using an online experiment with a self-paced reading task, we show that these temporal connectives facilitate the processing of chronological relations when they are expressed with both verbal tenses, and that no significant difference is found between the two verbal tenses, nor between the two connectives. By means of an offline experiment with an evaluation task, we find, contrary to previous studies, that comprehenders prefer chronological relations to be overtly marked rather than implicitly expressed, and prefer to use the connectivepuisin particular. Furthermore, comprehenders prefer it when these relations are expressed using the compound past, rather than the simple past. Instead of using thecontinuityhypothesis (Segal et al. 1991,Murray 1997) to explain the processing of temporal relations, we conclude that a more accurate explanation considers a cluster of factors including linguistic knowledge (connectives, tenses, grammatical and lexical aspect) and world knowledge. (shrink)

Neurosteroid 17 beta-estradiol (E2) is a steroid synthesized de novo in the nervous system that might influence neuronal activity and behavior. Nevertheless, the impact of E2 on the functioning of those neural systems in which it is slightly synthesized is less questioned. The vestibulo-ocular reflex (VOR) adaptation, may provide an ideal arena for investigating this issue. Indeed, E2 modulates cerebellar parallel fiber-Purkinje cell synaptic plasticity that underlies encoding of VOR adaptation. Moreover, aromatase expression in the cerebellum of adult rodents is (...) maintained at very low levels and localized to Purkinje cells. The significance of age-related maintenance of low levels of aromatase expression in the cerebellum on behavior, however, has yet to be explored. Our aim in this study was to determine whether E2 synthesis exerts an effective and persistent modulation of VOR adaptation in adult male rats. To answer this question, we investigated the acute effect of blocking E2 synthesis on gain increases and decreases in VOR adaptation using an oral dose (2.5 mg/kg) of the aromatase inhibitor Letrozole in peri-pubertal and post-pubertal male rats. We found that Letrozole acutely impaired gain increases and decreases in VOR adaptation without altering basal ocular-motor performance and that these effects were similar in peri-pubertal and post-pubertal rats. Thus, in adult male rats neurosteroid E2 effectively modulates VOR adaptation in both of the periods studied. These findings imply that the adult cerebellum uses E2 synthesis for modulating motor memory formation and suggest that low and extremely localized E2 production may play a role in adaptive phenomena. (shrink)

Dans Adv. math., X, 216-218, Sextus Empiricus rapporte une mystérieuse doctrine d' « Énésidème selon Héraclite » d'après laquelle le temps est identifié à un corps. L'hypothèse défendue ici est que cette formule exprime une théorie à usage dialectique et critique, construite par Énésidème afin d'inserer la thèse d' Héraclite dans un débat fictif où interviennent d'autres positions dogmatiques. Alors que la plupart des historiens de la philosophie nient l'authenticité héraclitéenne de ce témoignage, dans ses Leçons sur l'histoire de la (...) philosophie Hegel l'accepte sans réticence, aussi bien du point de vue historique que du point de vue théorique et y voit l'anticipation de sa propre notion du temps comme première forme du devenir. In Adv. Math., X, 216-218, Sextus Empiricus recalls a mysterious doctrine of a so-called « Enesidemus according to Heraclitus » according to which time is identified to a body. The hereby sustained hypothesis goes to saying that such a saying expresses some kind of theory meant to be used both dialectically and critically. It is said to have been erected by Enesidemes so as to be able to insert Heraclitus' thesis into a fictitious debate in which other dogmatic positions may interplay. Whereas most historians of philosophy deny the Heraclitean authenticity of such a testimony, Hegel, in his Lessons on the History of Philosophy, accepts it without any form of reticence, both on the historical point of view and on the theoretical point of view, thus viewing in it the foresight of his own concept of time as first form of the becoming. (shrink)

This essay focuses on recent proposals to confer decisional status upon deliberative minipublics such as citizen juries, Deliberative Polls, citizen’s assemblies, and so forth. Against such proposals, I argue that inserting deliberative minipublics into political decision-making processes would diminish the democratic legitimacy of the political system as a whole. This negative conclusion invites a question: which political uses of minipublics would yield genuinely democratic improvements? Drawing from a participatory conception of deliberative democracy, I propose several uses of minipublics that could (...) enhance the democratic legitimacy of political decision-making in current societies. (shrink)

In this essay, I address several questions and challenges brought about by the contributors to the special issue on my book Democracy without Shortcuts. In particular, I address some implications of my critique of deep pluralism; distinguish between three senses of ‘blind deference’: political, reflective, and informational; draw a critical parallelism between the populist conception of representation as embodiment and the conception of ‘citizen-representatives’ often ascribed to participants in deliberative minipublics; defend the democratic attractiveness of participatory uses over empowered uses (...) of deliberative minipublics; clarify why accepting public reason constraints does not imply limiting deliberation to questions about constitutional rights, and argue that overcoming a state-centric conception of democracy does not require replacing the ‘all subjected’ principle with the ‘all affected’ principle. (shrink)

In this new study, Cristina Chimisso explores the work of the French Philosopher of Science, Gaston Bachelard by situating it within French cultural life of the first half of the century. The book is introduced by a study - based on an analysis of portraits and literary representations - of how Bachelard's admirers transformed him into the mythical image of the Philosopher, the Patriarch and the 'Teacher of Happiness'. Such a projected image is contrasted with Bachelard's own conception of (...) philosophy and his personal pedagogical and moral ideas. This pedagogical orientation is a major feature of Bachelard's texts, and one which deepens our understanding of the main philosophical arguments. The primary thesis of the book is based on the examination of the French educational system of the time and of French philosophy taught in schools and conceived by contemporary philosophers. This approach also helps to explain Bachelard's reception of psychoanalysis and his mastery of modern literature. _Gaston Bachelard: Critic of Science and the Imagination_ thus allows for a new reading of Bachelard's body of work, whilst at the same time providing an insight into twentieth century French culture. (shrink)

Using samples from three diverse populations, we test evolutionary hypotheses regarding how people reason about the inheritance of various traits. First, we provide a framework for differentiat-ing the outputs of mechanisms that evolved for reasoning about variation within and between biological taxa and culturally evolved ethnic categories from a broader set of beliefs and categories that are the outputs of structured learning mechanisms. Second, we describe the results of a modified “switched-at-birth” vignette study that we administered among children and adults (...) in Puno, Yasawa, and adults in the United States. This protocol permits us to study perceptions of prenatal and social transmission pathways for various traits and to differentiate the latter into vertical versus horizontal cultural influence. These lines of evidence suggest that people use all three mechanisms to reason about the distribution of traits in the population. Participants at all three sites develop expectations that morphological traits are under prenatal influence, and that belief traits are more culturally influenced. On the other hand, each population holds culturally specific beliefs about the degree of social influence on non-morphological traits and about the degree of vertical transmission—with only participants in the United States expecting parents to have much social influence over their children. We reinterpret people's differentiation of trait transmission pathways in light of humans' evolutionary history as a cultural species. (shrink)

With disparate rates of morbidity and mortality among minoritized communities, COVID-19 illuminated the need for equity-informed practices in public health. Pacia et al posit FQHCs as entities that addressed inequity when others failed. This commentary further situates how FQHCs address the public health crisis of institutional racism and related health inequities every day and presents a FQHC-led Ethics and Equity Framework and Workflow Checklist to guide ethical and equitable engagement with FQHCs.

The COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated many social problems and put the already vulnerable, such as racial minorities, low-income communities, and older individuals, at an even greater risk than before. In this paper we focus on older adults’ well-being during the COVID-19 pandemic and show that the risk-mitigation measures presumed to protect them, alongside the generalization of an ageist public discourse, exacerbated the pre-existing marginalization of older adults, disproportionately affecting their well-being. This paper shows that states have duties to adopt and (...) put into practice redress measures to compensate for the negative consequences of COVID-19 public health policies on older adults’ overall well-being. These duties flow from the minimal ethical requirement of respect for persons. We show that respect is a morally basic attitude that presupposes taking the others’ interests into account, with the aim of advancing their well-being. This duty is not limited to kinship, relatives, and friends but it extends to states and the rest of the civil society. In the conclusion, we draw lessons from the COVID-19 pandemic and sketch some redress measures that could compensate for the decrease in older adults’ well-being as a result of the adoption of measures to contain the spread of the virus. (shrink)

David Lewis is usually thought to reject what Quine called “Aristotelian essentialism”. The starting point of this paper is to define and explain Aristotelian essentialism and locate it in the context of the criticism that Quine made of quantified modal logic. Indeed, according to Quine, Aristotelian essentialism would be one of the consequences of accepting quantified modal logic. After having explained Lewis’s stance in the Quinean debate against quantified modal logic, this paper will deal with the question as to whether (...) Lewis accepts or rejects Aristotelian essentialism. I think there are different plausible interpretations of the essentialist thesis, and I will distinguish between three such interpretations. This distinction between different interpretations of essentialism is both interesting per se and helpful in understanding the senses in which Lewis is or is not an antiessentialist. I will say, in fact, that while it is true that Lewis rejects Aristotelian essentialism under the first two understandings of the essentialist thesis, he endorses such a thesis according to a third understanding. I will then take this to show that there is a sense in which Aristotelian essentialism survives in Lewis’s metaphysical theory. (shrink)

This paper focuses on the puzzling situation of having beliefs that are resistant to one’s own critical reasoning. This phenomenon happens, for example, when an individual does not succeed in eliminating a belief by evaluating it as false. I argue that this situation involves a specific type of irrationality—not yet properly identified in the literature—which I call ‘critical doxastic resistance’. The aim of this paper is to characterize this type of irrationality. Understanding such a phenomenon sheds light on the type (...) of agency that we exercise when we reason critically. Moreover, it illustrates one relevant relationship between agential rational control of our beliefs and the rational functioning of beliefs as being responsive to reasons. I argue that critical doxastic resistance is characterized by a failure to meet the following rational norm: in critical reasoning, the results of evaluative reasoning should automatically transfer into, and be implemented by, the reasoning or beliefs under evaluation. (shrink)

Este ensayo busca evaluar la optimista afirmación de Leibniz según la cual el nuestro es el “mejor de los mundos posibles”. para ello, se intenta leerla a la luz del contexto original del cual se extrae dicha frase, es decir, adentrarse aunque sea brevemente en el sistema que Leibniz formuló para rastrear los motivos que lo llevaron a expresarse de ese modo. en suma, se intenta comprender no solo el sentido de dicha frase, sino (en contra de voltaire quizá) al (...) propio Leibniz, o en todo caso, a su optimismo. Con eso en mente, primero se plantea la tesis leibniziana de la multiplicidad de mundos posibles (§1), para preguntarse luego por qué, de entre ellos, nuestro mundo habría de ser el mejor, lo cual conduce a examinar el principio de razón suficiente (§2). Al hacerlo aparece inevitablemente el tema de dios, lo cual motiva a su vez la pregunta de por qué dios eligió crear este mundo en particular en vez de otro (§3). Finalmente se vincula la armonía preestablecida con el optimismo. (shrink)

Toda la dialéctica ascendente y descendente que seguimos en las Meditaciones y en los Principios quizá no se comprenda bien sino gracias a la concepción cartesiana del tiempo. Se ha insistido con demasiada frecuencia en la teoría cartesiana del espacio. Pero, para darse cuenta de la manera en que se constituye la filosofía de Descartes, parece que no podemos otorgarle un lugar menor a los resultados de sus meditaciones sobre el tiempo.

Este repertorio registra los artículos sobre Nietzsche que se encuentran en la Hemeroteca de la Biblioteca Central de la Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú. El listado abarca las publicaciones existentes hasta el primer semestre del 2003.

El ensayo que presentamos a continuación consta de dos actos y un excurso. Los dos actos están dedicados al análisis del Cármides de Platón. En el primero, introducimos al tema del diálogo, la sophrosyne o sensatez, y mostramos el tránsito que se da, en el diálogo mismo, de la pregunta por la sensatez a la pregunta por el conocimiento. En el segundo, desarrollamos más detenidamente el tema de nuestro interés: las conclusiones respecto del conocimiento que van desprendiéndose de la indagación (...) respecto de la sensatez y, principalmente, que un saber que se precie de ser un saber de sí mismo o un saber del saber no solo nos conduce a sinsentidos, sino que resulta ser inútil. Estas conclusiones no parecen ser del todo percibidas por los interlocutores de Sócrates, y muy probablemente sea por ello que no pasan a un nivel mayor de análisis. De este modo, si bien el diálogo no llega a una definición cabal de la sensatez (ni, asimismo, del conocimiento), pensamos que sí pueden extraerse de él consideraciones fundamentales respecto del conocimiento, las cuales serán brevemente reseñadas al final de nuestro trabajo. En el excurso pretendemos presentar una suerte de ejercicio que consiste en usar esta refutación de la posibilidad y utilidad de un conocimiento exclusivamente reflexivo que arroja el Cármides de Platón para examinar las primeras meditaciones metafísicas de Descartes. Nos interesa evaluar con estas pistas, y de manera sumamente breve y libre, qué resultado puede obtener una empresa como la que pretendió realizar, varios siglos después, el filósofo francés. (shrink)