We study the selection of adjustment sets for estimating the interventional mean under an individualized treatment rule. We assume a non-parametric causal graphical model with, possibly, hidden variables and at least one adjustment set composed of observable variables. Moreover, we assume that observable variables have positive costs associated with them. We define the cost of an observable adjustment set as the sum of the costs of the variables that comprise it. We show that in this setting there exist adjustment sets (...) that are minimum cost optimal, in the sense that they yield non-parametric estimators of the interventional mean with the smallest asymptotic variance among those that control for observable adjustment sets that have minimum cost. Our results are based on the construction of a special flow network associated with the original causal graph. We show that a minimum cost optimal adjustment set can be found by computing a maximum flow on the network, and then finding the set of vertices that are reachable from the source by augmenting paths. The optimaladj Python package implements the algorithms introduced in this article. (shrink)

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

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

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

Passive frame theory attempts to illuminate what consciousnessis, in mechanistic and functional terms; it does not address the “implementation” level of analysis (how neurons instantiate conscious states), an enigma for various disciplines. However, in response to the commentaries, we discuss how our framework provides clues regarding this enigma. In the framework, consciousness is passive albeit essential. Without consciousness, there would not be adaptive skeletomotor action.

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

The groundbreaking, viewpoint theory of Merker et al. explains several properties of the conscious field, including why the observer cannot directly apprehend itself. We propose that viewpoint theory might also provide a progressive, constitutive marker of consciousness and shed light on why most of the contents of consciousness are encapsulated.

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

Mark Greenberg argues that legal obligations are those moral obligations created by the actions of legal institutions in the legally proper way. Here I defend three main claims. First, I argue that, although very often misunderstood, Joseph Raz is also a defender of MITL. Secondly, I argue that while both Greenberg and Raz are committed to MITL, they disagree about the conditions under which a moral obligation can be said to be created in the legally proper way. Finally, I argue (...) that Raz’s variant of MITL is better than Greenberg’s. It rests on a more plausible account of authority and it avoids one of the crucial defects threatening Greenberg’s view, namely, its overinclusiveness. (shrink)

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

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

The idea of public reason involves a standard of legitimacy that requires that laws and institutions be acceptable to all reasonable people, regardless of their conceptions of the good. Many philosophers have argued that public reason should be understood as an answer to the question of how to justify state coercion. However, some authors have criticized this traditional account because it overlooks noncoercive state actions that seem appropriate topics of public reason. More recently, some philosophers have defended the traditional account (...) against that objection. In this paper, I argue that these approaches cannot effectively deal with that objection and offer a different version of the traditional account that can do so. This version rests on the ideas of overlapping consensus and stability. According to this version, the point of public reason is preserving an overlapping consensus on a coercive system of laws and institutions and achieving a stable society. (shrink)

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

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

Si la familia es o no parte de la estructura básica es un tema que no queda del todo claro en la teoría de John Rawls. Por un lado, el autor afirma que lo es, pero, por otro lado, al analizar esta institución, la equipara con otras instituciones que explícitamente dice que no son parte de la estructura básica, como las iglesias y las universidades. El objetivo de este trabajo es brindar una interpretación de Rawls que solucione este problema.

This article seeks to contribute to the history of the idea of 'middle class', an idea that was fundamental to Aristotle's philosophy but disappeared from the repertoire of political thinking for centuries, re-emerging shortly before the French Revolution to be developed by Diderot and other French liberals. The modern notion of 'middle class' is compared with that of Aristotle, and the similarities between the two contexts of emergence -- the crisis of Ancient Greek democracy and that of the French Ancien (...) Régime -- are explored to cast new light on the meaning and political function of that idea, and on the metaphorical operations it performs. (shrink)

El siguiente trabajo se propone Hamar la atención sobre algunos pasajes de los Dialogos platónicos con el fin de poder extraer de su analisis algunas consideraciones respecto de la noción de logos en relación con la figura del filósofo. Para esto, dividire la exposición segun los siguientes puntos: (I) para constituir una base de apoyo hermeneutico adecuada, recordare primero la naturaleza de la tekhne eidolopoiike tal como es presentada en el Sofista (235d y ss.); luego (II) sefialare la importancia de (...) ciertos pasajes de los Dialogos medios que se refieren a la limitación y función intrinseca del logos ante la captación del ser verdadero; y por ultimo, (III) dare un ejemplo de la superación filosofica del logos teniendo en cuenta lo encontrado en II. En la conclusión intentare realizar una adecuada ponderación de la exposición propuesta.  . (shrink)

The author examines briefly some texts belonging to the thomistic corpus, in which is shown that tolerance is not a proper value of modernity, but it was practiced and explained by Thomas Aquinas who lived in a rich multicultural period of history as the medieval age was, where he defended convincingly his own beliefs with respect and toleration in the presence of all kind of thinkers with whom he didn’t agree entirely. After concluding that prostitution is inmoral but not illegal (...) according to Aquinas, such any tolerant philosopher would do it, the author determines the nature and limits of this ethic virtue, giving good reasons to be cultivated it by anyone. (shrink)

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

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

A proposal for the biological grounding of intrinsic teleology and sense-making through the theory of autopoiesis is critically evaluated. Autopoiesis provides a systemic lan- guage for speaking about intrinsic teleology but its original formulation needs to be elaborated further in order to explain sense-making. This is done by introducing adaptivity, a many-layered property that allows organisms to regulate themselves with respect to their conditions of via- bility. Adaptivity leads to more articulated concepts of behaviour, agency, sense-construction, health, and temporality than (...) those given so far by autopoiesis and enaction. These and other implications for understanding the organismic generation of values are explored. (shrink)

Meister Eckhart escribió textos en alemán y en latín. Pero, fuera del ámbito de los estudios eckhartianos, es conocido sobre todo por su obra alemana. De la obra latina, los textos menos frecuentados son los llamados “sermones latinos”: una serie de notas o borradores que podrían haber servido como material preparatorio para lo que en el Prologus generalis in Opus tripartitum el mismo Eckhart llama el Opus sermonum, del que no tenemos más noticia que la del Prologus mencionado. En castellano, (...) el destino de la obra latina de Eckhart no ha sido hasta ahora demasiado afortunado. Pocas son las traducciones. Y, en cuanto a los “sermones latinos”, ninguno ha sido traducido todavía. Ofrecemos la traducción de uno de estos sermones, el XXXVII, en el que Eckhart comenta un texto de Pablo (Efesios 4, 1-6): Unus deus et pater omnium. En el estudio preliminar se ofrece (1) una introducción a la obra latina de Eckhart en general y, en particular, a los “sermones latinos” y (2) un comentario del texto traducido. (shrink)

Meister Eckhart escribió textos en alemán y en latín. Pero, fuera del ámbito de los estudios eckhartianos, es conocido sobre todo por su obra alemana. De la obra latina, los textos menos frecuentados son los llamados “sermones latinos”: una serie de notas o borradores que podrían haber servido como material preparatorio para lo que en el _Prologus generalis in Opus tripartitum_ el mismo Eckhart llama el _Opus sermonum_, del que no tenemos más noticia que la del _Prologus_ mencionado. En castellano, (...) el destino de la obra latina de Eckhart no ha sido hasta ahora demasiado afortunado. Pocas son las traducciones. Y, en cuanto a los “sermones latinos”, ninguno ha sido traducido todavía. Ofrecemos la traducción de uno de estos sermones, el XXXVII, en el que Eckhart comenta un texto de Pablo (Efesios 4, 1-6): _Unus deus et pater omnium_. En el estudio preliminar se ofrece (1) una introducción a la obra latina de Eckhart en general y, en particular, a los “sermones latinos” y (2) un comentario del texto traducido. (shrink)

El concepto de los fenómenos saturados y su posterior desarrollo y evolución en la obra de Marion han suscitado la discusión por el problema de la hermenéutica. En esta discusión surge la necesidad de un discernimiento hermenéutico de los fenómenos y la posibilidad de clarificar criterios para este, abriendo el debate a una ética de la fenomenalidad. Para esto proponemos revisar la obra de Marion para encontrar los elementos que nos puedan ayudar en este camino.

This paper discusses a set of arguments launched in Salomon Maimon’s 1800 Der moralische Skeptiker against Kant’s notion of the moral law. Apart from being an almost overlooked chapter in the history of post-Kantian ethics, this work is one in which Maimon takes issue with four related aspects of the ethical thesis and methodology presented in Kant’s second Kritik. At the core of the discussion is Maimon’s emphasis on a major incongruity in the correlation of Kant’s notions of theoretical and (...) practical reason: objectively valid statements in ethics should not qualitatively diverge from those in theoretical science. It is in this context that the paper discusses the late Maimonian thesis that Kant’s factual notion of the moral law cannot be reconciled with his notion of theoretical rigor. It also shows why, for Maimon, the highest principle of Kantian ethics should reveal itself to be theoretically untenable and dogmatic, and hence lead to skepticism. (shrink)

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

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

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

Several authors have made claims about the compatibility between the Free Energy Principle and theories of autopoiesis and enaction. Many see these theories as natural partners or as making similar statements about the nature of biological and cognitive systems. We critically examine these claims and identify a series of misreadings and misinterpretations of key enactive concepts. In particular, we notice a tendency to disregard the operational definition of autopoiesis and the distinction between a system’s structure and its organization. Other misreadings (...) concern the conflation of processes of self-distinction in operationally closed systems and Markov blankets. Deeper theoretical tensions underlie some of these misinterpretations. FEP assumes systems that reach a non-equilibrium steady state and are enveloped by a Markov blanket. We argue that these assumptions contradict the historicity of sense-making that is explicit in the enactive approach. Enactive concepts such as adaptivity and agency are defined in terms of the modulation of parameters and constraints of the agent-environment coupling, which entail the possibility of changes in variable and parameter sets, constraints, and in the dynamical laws affecting the system. This allows enaction to address the path-dependent diversity of human bodies and minds. We argue that these ideas are incompatible with the time invariance of non-equilibrium steady states assumed by the FEP. In addition, the enactive perspective foregrounds the enabling and constitutive roles played by the world in sense-making, agency, development. We argue that this view of transactional and constitutive relations between organisms and environments is a challenge to the FEP. Once we move beyond superficial similarities, identify misreadings, and examine the theoretical commitments of the two approaches, we reach the conclusion that far from being easily integrated, the FEP, as it stands formulated today, is in tension with the theories of autopoiesis and enaction. (shrink)

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