Kris McDaniel has recently defended a criterion for being an ontological pluralist that classifies the quantifier variantist as one. In this paper, I argue that this is a mistake. There is an important difference between the two views, which is sometimes obscured by a common view in the metaphysics of fundamentality. According to the simple analysis, a language is ideal—it allows for a maximally metaphysically perspicuous description of reality—just in case all its primitives are perfectly natural. I argue that this (...) analysis struggles to distinguish quantifier variance from ontological pluralism, and then I discuss various accounts that can do better. I then propose a criterion for being an ontological pluralist that does not misclassify the quantifier variantist. Finally, I discuss some additional advantages of my proposal. (shrink)

According to the cohabitation account, all the persons that result from a fission event cohabit the same body prior to fission. This article concerns a problem for this account. Suppose Manuel and Jimena are suffering from an equally painful migraine. Unlike Jimena, however, Manuel will undergo fission. Assuming you have a spare painkiller, whom should you give it to? Intuitively, you have no more reason to give it to one or the other. The problem is that the cohabitation account suggests (...) otherwise. According to the account, there are two persons cohabiting Manuel’s body, in which case you should arguably give them the pill, since doing so alleviates the pain of more beings. One response argues that the two persons cohabiting Manuel’s body share one pain. Thus, giving them the pill alleviates no more pain than giving it to Jimena, and therefore you have no more reason to do one or the other. The goal of this article is to show that this response fails. (shrink)

Jonathan Schaffer has provided three putative counterexamples to the transitivity of grounding, and has argued that a contrastive treatment of grounding is able to provide a resolution to them, which in turn provides some motivation for accepting such a treatment. In this article, I argue that one of these cases can easily be turned into a putative counterexample to a principle which Schaffer calls differential transitivity. Since Schaffer's proposed resolution rests on this principle, this presents a dilemma for the contrastivist: (...) either he dismisses the third case, which weakens the motivation for accepting his treatment of grounding, or else he accepts it, in which case he is faced with a counterexample to a principle that his proposed resolution to the original cases depends on. In the remainder of the article, I argue that the prima facie most promising strategy the contrastivist could take, which is to place some restriction on which contrastive facts are admissible so as to rule out the purported counterexample to differential transitivity, faces some important difficulties. Although these difficulties are not insurmountable, they do pose a substantial challenge for the contrastivist. (shrink)

Given one conception of biological individuality (evolutionary, physiological, etc.), can a holobiont – that is the host + its symbiotic (mutualistic, commensalist and parasitic) microbiome – be simultaneously a biological individual and an ecological community? Herein, we support this possibility by arguing that the notion of biological individuality is part‐dependent. In our account, the individuality of a biological ensemble should not only be determined by the conception of biological individuality in use, but also by the biological characteristics of the part (...) of the ensemble under investigation. In the specific case of holobionts, evaluations of their individuality should be made either host‐relative or microbe‐relative. We support the claim that biological individuality is part‐dependent by drawing upon recent empirical evidence regarding the physiology of hosts and microbes, and the recent characterization of the ‘demibiont’. Our account shows that contemporary disagreements about the individuality of the holobiont derive from an incorrect understanding of the ontology of biological individuality. We show that collaboration between philosophers and biologists can be very fruitful in attempts to solve some contemporary biological debates. (shrink)

Holobionts are symbiotic assemblages composed by a host plus its microbiome. The status of holobionts as individuals has recently been a subject of continuous controversy, which has given rise to two main positions: on the one hand, holobiont advocates argue that holobionts are biological individuals; on the other, holobiont detractors argue that they are just mere chimeras or ecological communities, but not individuals. Both parties in the dispute develop their arguments from the framework of the philosophy of biology, in terms (...) of what it takes for a “conglomerate” to be considered an interesting individual from a biological point of view. However, the debates about holobiont individuality have important ontological implications that have remained vaguely explored from a metaphysical framework. The purpose of this paper is to cover that gap by presenting a metaphysical approach to holobionts individuality. Drawing upon a conception of natural selection that puts the focus on the transgenerational recurrence of the traits and that supports the thesis that holobionts are units of selection, we argue that holobionts bear emergent traits and exert downward powers over the entities that compose them. In this vein, we argue, a reasonable argument can be made for conceiving holobionts as emergent biological individuals. (shrink)

Contemporary biological research has suggested that some host–microbiome multispecies systems (referred to as “holobionts”) can in certain circumstances evolve as unique biological individual, thus being a unit of selection in evolution. If this is so, then it is arguably the case that some biological adaptations have evolved at the level of the multispecies system, what we call hologenomic adaptations. However, no research has yet been devoted to investigating their nature, or how these adaptations can be distinguished from adaptations at the (...) species-level (genomic adaptations). In this paper, we cover this gap by investigating the nature of hologenomic adaptations. By drawing on the case of the evolution of sanguivory diet in vampire bats, we argue that a trait constitutes a hologenomic adaptation when its evolution can only be explained if the holobiont is considered the biological individual that manifests this adaptation, while the bacterial taxa that bear the trait are only opportunistic beneficiaries of it. We then use the philosophical notions of emergence and inter-identity to explain the nature of this form of individuality and argue why it is special of holobionts. Overall, our paper illustrates how the use of philosophical concepts can illuminate scientific discussions, in the trend of what has recently been called metaphysics of biology. (shrink)

This study aims to find out whether speakers of different language backgrounds are sensitive to semantic associations attached respectively to two purported phonaesthemes. Participants completed the task in oral and written conditions. They had to match phonaestheme-related definitions with either of two non-words. The results obtained indicate that participants significantly chose non-words beginning with /tr-/ when the definition activated a meaning related to forcible contact, and non-words starting with /fl-/ when the definitions made reference to fluids in the four languages. (...) The results point to the existence of non-arbitrary sound-meaning relations. A corpus-driven study of frequencies of lemmas and word tokens starting with the purported phonaesthemes also sheds light on the possible origin of the phonaesthemic associations, suggesting that both iconicity and systematicity motivate such associations. The results obtained are interpreted in the context of a functional, usage-based model of language, which can accommodate the existence of iconic tendencies, the role of learning and linguistic experience in language, and arbitrariness. (shrink)

Durante las cuatro últimas décadas, Javier Muguerza ha contribuido como nadie a la modernización del pensamiento español, dando a conocer y comentando lo mejor que se publicaba en otras lenguas, particularmente a lo tocante a la filosofía analítica, a la teoría crítica y a las corrientes morales y políticas anglosajonas y alemanas, además de tener muy en cuenta todo lo que se escribía en español y prestar una especial atención al espíritu del pensamiento práctico kantiano. La deuda que con (...) él tiene contraída la filosofía en castellano es muy difícil de calcular. En el libro Disenso e incertidumbre. Un homenaje a Javier Muguerza, un grupo de importantes filósofos analiza su obra en profundidad ofreciendo al lector la oportunidad única de conocerla desde múltiples puntos de vista. (shrink)

1. Categories and the Scientific Turn of Metaphysics: The Notion of World-Fundamentality What are the fundamental inhabitants of the world? This question, as old as it is new, is about the fundamental structure of our world. Is our world a world of Aristotle's ordinary substances, Locke's physical substances, Husserl's wholes, Wittgenstein's facts, Sellars's processes, or Quine's sets? In order to distinguish the sort of metaphysical fundamentality at stake in this discussion from other possible types of fundamentality, I shall call it (...) from now on "world-fundamentality." In this article I want to make a proposal in the context of this metaphysical dispute. The proposal is the addition of a new criterion of world-fundamentality to the existing catalog of independence and simplicity, among some other prominent classical examples. I call this criterion "the materialist criterion of world-fundamentality" because it states that metaphysicians should not decide the question of whether our world is a world of facts rather than a world of sets or other categories without considering the explanatory power of such categories to account for the relation between "the manifest image" and "the scientific image," to use the words of Wilfrid Sellars. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to defend a naturalistic approach to instantiation and the Principle of Instantiation. I argue that the instantiation of an ordinary property F consists of two coordinated relationships at the levels of the manifest and scientific images, namely, constituency and entailment. Also, I offer an account of the Principle of Instantiation related to this conception of instantiation based on the notion of scientific prediction.

The hologenome concept of evolution is a hypothesis about the evolution of animals and plants. It asserts that the evolution of animals and plants was partially triggered by their interactions with their symbiotic microbiomes. In that vein, the hologenome concept posits that the holobiont (animal host + symbionts of the microbiome) is a unit of selection. -/- The hologenome concept has been severely criticized on the basis that selection on holobionts would only be possible if there were a tight transgenerational (...) host-genotype-to-symbiont-genotype connection. As our current evidence suggests that this is not the case for most of the symbiont species that compose the microbiome of animals and plants, the opportunity for holobiont selection is very low in relation to the opportunity for selection on each of the species that compose the host microbiome. Therefore, holobiont selection will always be disrupted ‘from below’, by selection on each of the species that compose the microbiome. -/- This thesis constitutes a conceptual effort to defend philosophically the hologenome concept. I argue that the criticism according to which holobiont selection requires tight transgenerational host-genotype-to-symbiont-genotype connection is grounded on a metaphysical view of the world according to which the biological hierarchy needs to be nested, such that each new level of selection includes every entity from below. Applied to hologenomes, it entails that the hologenome is a collection of genomes, and selection of hologenomes is assumed to entail cospeciation of the host with the species that constitute its microbiome. -/- Against that interpretation, I propose the ‘stability of traits’ account, according to which hologenome evolution is the result of the action of natural selection in a non-nested hierarchical world. In that vein, hologenome evolution does not entail cospeciation, and thus it does not require tight transgenerational host-genotype-to-symbiont-genotype connection. By embracing a multilevel selection perspective, I argue that hologenome evolution results from the simultaneous action of natural selection on each of the lineages that compose the microbiome, and on the assemblage composed by the host genome plus the functional traits of its microbiome. Hologenome selection occurs when the evolution of the traits of the microbiome result from their effects on the fitness of the host, and it can take the form of multilevel selection 1, or multilevel selection 2. In both cases, hologenome selection entails the evolution of microbiome traits, as well as evolution of the host genome, rather than cospeciation of lineages. (shrink)

This article develops a dilemma for Buddhist Reductionism that centers on the nature of normative reasons. This dilemma suggests that Buddhist Reductionism lacks the resources to make sense of normative reasons and, furthermore, that this failure may cast doubt on the plausibility of Buddhist Reductionism as a whole.

The paper defends an interactive theory of the distinctiveness of criminal law. It argues that criminal law’s distinctive behavior can be connected to the interaction between five traits: it is an institutional practice administered by a large and special bureaucracy, playing a substantial role in authorizing the use of coercive police force, leading to a harsh sanctioning regime linked, at least in part, with core wrongs and notions of personal responsibility. Although none of these features is exclusive to criminal law, (...) their interaction leads to modes of behavior that set it apart from other institutions. The paper argues that putting attention on the effects of this interaction provides us with powerful tools to both understand and asses the value and problems of criminal law. (shrink)

Javier Muguerza’s Ethics and Perplexity makes a highly original contribution to the debate over dialogical reason. The work opens with a letter that establishes a parallel between Ethics and Perplexity and Maimonides’s classic Guide of the Perplexed. It concludes with an interview that repeatedly strikes sparks on Spanish philosophy’s emergence from its “long quarantine,” as Muguerza puts it. These informal pieces—witty, informative, conversational—orbit the nucleus of the work: a formidable critique of dialogical reason. The result is a volume by (...) turns vivid and profound. (shrink)

Escritos por onze renomados filósofos os ensaios pretendem, de forma acessível e didática, explicitar as principais tendências e perspectivas da reflexão ética contemporânea. Indicado a estudantes e docentes de filosofia ética, teologia, sociologia e interessados em geral. -/- Prefàcio 1.Tendencias neoaristotelicas na etica atual - Sergio Cremaschi 2. Alasdair MacIntyre e o retorno as tradicoes morais de pesquisa racional - Helder Buenos Aires de Carvalho 3. Etica da finitude - Zeljko Loparic 4. Por uma etica ilustrada e progressista: uma defesa (...) do utilitarismo - Maria Cecilia Maringoni de Carvalho 5. A relacao da filosofia analitica com a teologia moral - Terence Kennedy 6. Rawls: uma teoria etico-politica da justica - Sonia T. Felipe 7. Etica do discurso - F. Javier Herrero 8. Hans Jonas: o principio responsabilidade - Oswaldo Giacoia Junior 9. Etica de coerencia dialetica - Carlos Cirne-Lima 10. Etica intencionalista-teleologica em vittorio hosle - Manfredo Araujo de Oliveira. (shrink)

This essay explains why there are good reasons to practice philosophy as a way of life. The argument begins with the assumption that we should live well but that our understanding of how to live well can be mistaken. Philosophical reason and reflection can help correct these mistakes. Nonetheless, the evidence suggests that philosophical reasoning often fails to change our dispositions and behavior. Drawing on the work of Pierre Hadot, the essay claims that spiritual exercises and communal engagement mitigate the (...) factors that prevent us from living in accord- ance with our conceptions of the good life. So, many of us have reasons to engage in philosophical reasoning along with behavioral, cognitive, and social strategies to alter our behavior and attitudes so that they’re in line with our philosophical commitments. In these respects, many of us should practice philosophy as a way of life. (shrink)

In this paper I argue against Armstrong’s recent truthmaking account of possibility. I show that the truthmaking account presupposes modality in a number of different ways, and consequently that it is incapable of underwriting a genuine reduction of modality. I also argue that Armstrong’s account faces serious difficulties irrespective of the question of reduction; in particular, I argue that his Entailment and Possibility Principles are both false.

The aim of this paper is to offer two novel solutions to two perennial problems of categorial ontology, namely, the problem of the categorial structure: how are the categories related to one another? And the problem of categorial completeness: how is the completeness of a proposed list of categories justified? First, I argue that a system of categories should have a structure such that there is a most basic category that is a bearer of all other categories and that has (...) what I shall call “combinatorial conditions”. To do so, I compare this approach to categorial structure with the approaches given by substantialist, mereological, factualist, and geo ontologies. Second, I argue that the problem of categorial completeness is only a problem for certain ontologies. In this connection, I explore views on categorial completeness proposed by substantialists and geo-ontologists. Lastly, I conclude that factualism does a better job of accounting for categorial structure and categorial completeness than other categorial ontologies. (shrink)

This volume has 41 chapters written to honor the 100th birthday of Mario Bunge. It celebrates the work of this influential Argentine/Canadian physicist and philosopher. Contributions show the value of Bunge’s science-informed philosophy and his systematic approach to philosophical problems. The chapters explore the exceptionally wide spectrum of Bunge’s contributions to: metaphysics, methodology and philosophy of science, philosophy of mathematics, philosophy of physics, philosophy of psychology, philosophy of social science, philosophy of biology, philosophy of technology, moral philosophy, social and political (...) philosophy, medical philosophy, and education. The contributors include scholars from 16 countries. Bunge combines ontological realism with epistemological fallibilism. He believes that science provides the best and most warranted knowledge of the natural and social world, and that such knowledge is the only sound basis for moral decision making and social and political reform. Bunge argues for the unity of knowledge. In his eyes, science and philosophy constitute a fruitful and necessary partnership. Readers will discover the wisdom of this approach and will gain insight into the utility of cross-disciplinary scholarship. This anthology will appeal to researchers, students, and teachers in philosophy of science, social science, and liberal education programmes. 1. Introduction Section I. An Academic Vocation Section II. Philosophy Section III. Physics and Philosophy of Physics Section IV. Cognitive Science and Philosophy of Mind Section V. Sociology and Social Theory Section VI. Ethics and Political Philosophy Section VII. Biology and Philosophy of Biology Section VIII. Mathematics Section IX. Education Section X. Varia Section XI. Bibliography. (shrink)

Uno de los desafíos más apremiantes para Latinoamérica y el Caribe, considerada la región más diversa del mundo biológica y culturalmente, es detener la pérdida de especies provocada por la destrucción del hábitat y degradación del territorio. En la actualidad, todavía se considera el establecimiento de áreas naturales protegidas que excluyen toda actividad humana como la alternativa más eficaz para conservar la biodiversidad. Sin embargo, las áreas naturales protegidas (ANP) están siendo sometidas a fuertes presiones ejercidas por la expansión de (...) las actividades agropecuarias, silvícolas e industriales, cuyos terrenos rodean y aíslan las ANP’s, reduciendo su calidad como hábitat natural a la escala de paisaje. Entre los diferentes tipos de ANP que se han propuesto, destacan las reservas de biosfera debido a su explícito propósito por conciliar el desarrollo social y la conservación biológica. El manejo de este tipo de reservas es el más propenso a integrar las perturbaciones naturales y humanas, las prácticas tradicionales de manejo de ecosistemas, así como la participación de los sectores económico y social en su administración. Las reservas de biosfera han proliferado por todo el mundo, sumando actualmente 531 distribuidas en 105 países. A pesar que el diseño de reserva de biosfera se fundamenta en el concepto de paisaje, aún requiere tomar en cuenta la escala del ecosistema y los potenciales efectos a largo plazo de las perturbaciones. Además, requiere mejorar la integración de los grupos étnicos que viven en ellas, otorgando mayor consideración a su experiencia y conocimiento tradicional. Esto demanda una transformación de las funciones de las zonas núcleo, de amortiguamiento y de transición de dichas reservas. El actual diseño de las reservas de biosfera es centrípeto, puesto que la función principal de la zona de amortiguamiento es proteger la biodiversidad contenida en el núcleo de la reserva. Nosotros proponemos un modelo centrífugo, en el que la biodiversidad de la zona núcleo se expande sin restricciones hacia las áreas con mayor influencia humana. En este modelo, la zona de amortiguamiento funciona como un conector. El mantenimiento e incremento de dicha conectividad puede promover prácticas de uso del suelo acordes con el funcionamiento de los ecosistemas, así como con la conservación de la biodiversidad en los paisajes naturales, semi-naturales, urbanos e industriales. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to propose a qualitative approach to the theory of conceptual spaces, in contrast to the usual metric framework. This requires qualitative notions of similarity, simple concepts, prototypes and conceptual categorisation. For this purpose, I will introduce three mathematical models for conceptual spaces. The first one is topological and has been proposed by Mormann. The other two are new and are based on atomistic orders and similarity relations. I will discuss how each of them deals (...) with the Design Principles proposed by Douven and Gärdenfors and with further Adequacy Conditions. Despite being apparently different, I will show that these three models are mathematically equivalent. Finally, I will address three objections to the present approach. The first one says that the qualitative notion of a prototype is a bad analogue of the metric one. The second one suggests that, in contrast to the Voronoi construction, the function qualitatively representing the conceptual categorisation process is arbitrary. The last one appeals to Goodman’s companionship and imperfect community problems to show that there is a flaw in defining simple concepts from similarity relations. (shrink)

Many people think that citizenship should not be for sale. On their view, it is morally wrong for states to sell citizenship to foreigners. In this article, I challenge this view. I argue that it is in principle permissible for states to sell citizenship. I contend that, if states can permissibly deny foreigners access to citizenship in some cases, then states can permissibly give foreigners the option of buying citizenship in these cases. Furthermore, I defend the permissibility of selling citizenship (...) against the objections that selling citizenship values citizenship in the wrong way, corrupts civic norms, and unfairly discriminates against poor foreigners. I conclude by noting that, although selling citizenship is not intrinsically wrong, it could still be wrong for states to sell citizenship in practice. If existent immigration restrictions are unjust, then it may be impermissible for states to sell citizenship in the real world. (shrink)

What do we owe each other when we act together? According to normativists about collective action, necessarily something and potentially quite a bit. They contend that collective action inherently involves a special normative status amongst participants, which may, for example, involve mutual obligations to receive the concurrence of the others before leaving. We build on recent empirical work whose results lend plausibility to a normativist account by further investigating the specific package of mutual obligations associated with collective action according to (...) our everyday understanding. However, our results cast doubt on a proposed obligation to seek the permission of co-actors before exiting a collective action, and suggest instead that this obligation is a function of explicit promising. We then discuss how our results pave the path for a new normativism, a theory that neither under- nor overshoots the target given by our common conception of the interpersonal obligations present in collective action.*. (shrink)

In this paper I aim to demonstrate that Rudolf Carnap's analysis of the application of information theory within physics, an intellectual-historical precedent of current philosophical criticisms toward this tendency, is justified. First, Carnap and Bar-Hillel (1952) underlined the unjustified ‘semantification’ of Shannon entropy Furthermore, Carnap criticized the ‘physicalization’ of Shannon entropy, but that criticism was not accepted by the physics community of the 1950s (Köhler 2001). Finally, in the posthumously published "Two Essays on Entropy" Carnap (1977) developed a critical assessment (...) of entropy concepts that showed some deep conceptual and interpretative deficiencies in Jaynes (1957a) and Brillouin’s (1956) informational approaches to thermophysics. (shrink)

Horkheimerian’s critique of the Enlightenment, shows the process whereby the demystification of the world is triggered by way of an “an act of sovereignty” of reason. There the man lost for reason his possibility of self-criticism, causing it to be in instrumental reason. Since its inception, the Enlightenment, as myth, mutilated reason, over the pursuit of truth –theoretical truth and moral truth–, there was a renounce to sense. The dream of Enlightenment rationality was reduced to the 'instrumentalization'. This dialectic not (...) only reveals the irreversible crisis of reason, but leaves in place, in the discussion of critical theory, the idea of the 'social pathology of reason', from which a “normative horizon” can be proposed, hinting at the scene of the ethical discussion the lack of rationality of societies. (shrink)

Using the lens of conceptual history, we analyze the evolution of the term digital commons since it first came to be publicly used. In particular, we track down how the meaning of the term digital commons was influenced after its emergence by a new modulation of the term commons developed from neo-Marxist coordinates. Exploring the way in which this neo-Marxist way of thinking the commons emerged after the economic crisis of 2008 thanks to the discursive interventions of a couple of (...) authors more or less linked to the Midnight Notes Collective, we subsequently analyze the degree of penetration of this new conception of the commons in the realm of the digital commons. As we conclude, the disparate reception of this conception on the way different authors think and theorize the digital commons confirms the essentially contested nature of this particular concept. (shrink)