States heavily restrict immigration, and many people violate these restrictions. For example, unauthorized immigrants cross borders without official permission, and other actors, such as people smugglers, assist them in doing so. How should we evaluate resistance to immigration law from a moral perspective? In this article, I survey recent work on the ethics of resisting immigration law. In particular, I examine three categories of resistance to immigration law as the following: unauthorized immigration, people smuggling, and citizens' resistance to laws that (...) prohibit them from assisting or interacting with unauthorized immigrants. (shrink)

Philippe Huneman has recently questioned the widespread application of mechanistic models of scientific explanation based on the existence of structural explanations, i.e. explanations that account for the phenomenon to be explained in virtue of the mathematical properties of the system where the phenomenon obtains, rather than in terms of the mechanisms that causally produce the phenomenon. Structural explanations are very diverse, including cases like explanations in terms of bowtie structures, in terms of the topological properties of the system, or in (...) terms of equilibrium. The role of mathematics in bowtie structured systems and in topologically constrained systems has recently been examined in different papers. However, the specific role that mathematical properties play in equilibrium explanations requires further examination, as different authors defend different interpretations, some of them closer to the new-mechanistic approach than to the structural model advocated by Huneman. In this paper, we cover this gap by investigating the explanatory role that mathematics play in Blaser and Kirschner’s nested equilibrium model of the stability of persistent long-term human-microbe associations. We argue that their model is explanatory because: i) it provides a mathematical structure in the form of a set of differential equations that together satisfy an ESS; ii) that the nested nature of the ESSs makes the explanation of host-microbe persistent associations robust to any perturbation; iii) that this is so because the properties of the ESS directly mirror the properties of the biological system in a non-causal way. The combination of these three theses make equilibrium explanations look more similar to structural explanations than to causal-mechanistic explanation. (shrink)

Categories play a major role in contemporary metaphysics. They have not only been invoked in a number of philosophical theories but are themselves objects of epistemological and metaphysical scrutiny. In this article, we will discuss the following questions: How do we know when something belongs to a certain category? Is there a fundamental category of the world? Can we give a satisfactory account of the number of categories and the completeness of systems of categories? Are categories the genuine subjects of (...) ontology? (shrink)

Is structure a fundamental and indispensable part of the world? Is the question of ontology a question about structure? Structure is a central notion in contemporary metaphysics [Sider 2011. Writing the Book of the World. Oxford: Clarendon Press]. Realism about structure claims that the question of ontology is about the fundamental and indispensable structure of the world. In this paper, I present a criticism of the metaphysics of realism about structure based on a version of Russell’s famous regress argument against (...) nominalism [Russell 1911. “On the Relation of Universals and Particular.” In Logic & Knowledge. Reprint, London: George Allen & Unwin]. First, I argue that the three general tests for the fundamentality of structure proposed by realism about structure rely on a particular empirical test for structure, namely, the so-called ‘similarity test for structure.’ Second, I argue that the similarity test is not well-founded because it leads to a vicious regress. Third, I argue that the regress affects the whole metaphysics of realism about structure, and that no structural notion can be said to be fundamental in connection with any of the other tests. Lastly, I argue that the question of ontology as a question about structure is not substantive. (shrink)

The paper reads Kant’s notion of radical evil as anticipating and clarifying problematic aspects of what Arendt called ‘the banality of evil’. By reconstructing Arendt’s varied analyses of this notion throughout her later writings, I show that the main theoretical challenge posed by it concerns the adjudication of responsibility for evil deeds that seem to lack recognisable evil intentions. In order to clarify this issue, I turn to a canonical text in which the relationship between evil and responsibility plays a (...) central role: Kant’s Religion within the Boundaries of Mere Reason. Relying on an interpretation of this writing by Arendt’s mentor Karl Jaspers published in 1935, in evident connection to National Socialism, I challenge Arendt’s own interpretation of Kant’s notion of radical evil, which, I argue, represents an antecedent, rather than a contrast, to ‘the banality of evil’. For Kant, radical evil consists in the destruction of the person’s sense of responsibility, thus producing a self-exculpatory mentality such as the one that characterised Eichmann during his trial. (shrink)

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)

Consider two similarity facts: a is similar to b with respect to G, and c is similar to d with respect to G. According to the Platonist approach to similarity, the analysis of such facts forces us to admit that similarity facts are to be analyzed into facts about universal similarities of the form: a is similar to b with respect to G, and c is similar to d with respect to G, where similarity is a universal. In this paper, (...) I defend Neutralism, a view according to which there are properties and similarities, but these are not universals, particulars, or of other categories. After presenting the Platonist analysis of similarity proposed by Russell and Grossmann, I examine the question of whether or not the Platonist analysis of similarity leads us inevitably to a conception of similarity as a universal. Then I offer a novel, alternative analysis of similarity free of commitment to universals. (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 purpose of this article is to offer a reconstruction of the moral theory defended by Callicles in Plato’s Gorgias, aided by other contemporary texts that contribute to explain and refine such a theory. The first step of this reconstruction is to show that Callicles offers a perspectivist theory of moral judgements, according to which moral judgements can be issued from two radically distinct perspectives, the contractual and the natural one. The second step is to show that Callicles makes use (...) of a peculiar conception of nature that allows him to claim that certain natural rights and privileges stemming from the natural perspective of valuation must override those rights stemming from the contractual perspective. The resulting theory, as well as being worthy of philosophical interest, does not appear to be vulnerable to most of the objections advanced by the dominant interpretations, nor does it entail the implausible sort of hedonism that Plato attributes to Callicles in this dialogue. (shrink)

In Nicomachean Ethics II 4 Aristotle famously raises a puzzle concerning moral habituation, and he seems to dissolve it by recourse to the analogy between moral virtue and skills. A new interpretation of the chapter is offered on the basis of an important evaluative dissimilarity then noted by Aristotle, one almost universally disregarded by interpreters of the chapter. I elucidate the nature of the dissimilarity in question and argue for its paramount importance for understanding Aristotle’s conception of moral agency. I (...) also show that it is the particularly intricate and puzzling character of the chapter that has prevented scholars from noticing such a dissimilarity and from integrating it to the interpretation of the chapter. (shrink)

Are properties universal or particular? According to Universalism, properties are universals because there is a certain fundamental tie that makes properties capable of being shareable by more than one thing. On the opposing side, Particularism is the view that properties are particulars due to the existence of a fundamental tie that makes properties incapable of being shared. My aim in this paper is to critically examine the connections between the notions of the fundamental tie and universality and particularity. I argue, (...) first, that universality and particularity can characterize a property if and only if there is a universalist or a particularist fundamental tie, and, second, that it is unclear that these should be the fundamental ties that connect ordinary and scientific properties to their respective bearers. Then I develop an alternative approach to properties and the fundamental tie, which is neutralist because it dispenses with universality and particularity as features of properties, and naturalist because it naturalizes the possession of properties by replacing metaphysical fundamental ties with a scientific one, in particular, a physical process. I show how this approach improves our understanding of properties and instantiation. (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)

La condición distribuida en el espacio y en el tiempo del deseo de saber no implica universalidad, sino más bien pluralidad, e incluso pluriversalidad. La universalidad implica tender a “lo Uno”, que desde Platón ha sido concebido como una entidad trascendente. La pluralidad que se propugna en esta contribución, inspirada en Leibniz y en James, se a!rma adversus unum, no versus unum. En consecuencia, se propugna una!losofía pluriversal, que indaga y a!rma la pluralidad en cada uno de los ámbitos que (...) investiga. También se señala el sustrato monoteísta de la universalidad en la lógica escolástica. Frente al monismo lógico-deductivo, que a!rma la existencia de un único modo de racionalidad, esta contribución a!rma la racionalidad pluralista, por contraposición a la racionalidad monista. Finalmente, se sugiere que la propia idea de universidad podría ser reemplazada ventajosamente por instituciones basadas en la multidisciplinariedad y en la pluralidad de perspectivas de análisis: las pluriversidades. "e condition distributed in space and in time of the philosophy does not imply universality, but rather plurality, and even pluriversality. Universality implies a tendency to “the One”, which since Plato has been conceived as a transcendent entity. "e plurality advocated in this contribution, inspired by Leibniz and James, states adversus unum, not versus unum. Consequently, it advocates a pluriversal philosophy, which explores and a#rms the plurality in each of the areas investigated. "e monotheistic substrate of universality in the scholastic logic is also remarked. Facing the logical-deductive monism, which a#rms the existence of a single mode of rationality, this paper claims for a pluralistic rationality, in contrast to the monist rationality. Finally, it is suggested that the very idea of the university could be advantageously replaced by institutions based on multidisciplinary and plurality of perspectives of analysis: pluriversities. (shrink)

El arte como lenguaje es una concepcióncompartida hoy por la Estética, tanto en susteorías filosóficas como científicas. El presente artículo se restringe a las consideraciones filosóficas,y en especial, a las de la teoríahermenéutica de Gadamer. El arte como lenguaje,o como fenómeno hermenéutico, es unatesis contra la idea del arte corno fenómenoestético puro y enfatiza por lo tanto el elementode comprensión y de mediación de sentido,contra el desmedido énfasis en el gusto, lavivencia y la expresividad, propio de la conciencia estética.

El hombre humaniza al mundo, le inyecta, lo impregna de su propia sustancia ideal y cabe imaginar, que un día de entre los días, allá en los fondos del tiempo, llegue a estar ese terrible mundo exterior tan saturado de hombre, que puedan nuestros descendientes caminar por él como mentalmente caminamos hoy por nuestra intimidad (�) cabe imaginar que el mundo, sin dejar de serlo, llegue a convertirse en algo así como un alma materializada, y como en �La Tempestad �de (...) Shakespeare, las ráfagas del viento soplen empujadas por Ariel, el duende de las Ideas. (shrink)

En este artículo se explora el fenómeno religioso en las comunidades virtuales, en las redes sociales y en la computación en nube, el impacto de los medios sociales en el diálogo interreligioso, sus logros y retos, así como la relevancia del diálogo intercultural para crear una sociedad multicultural. En estos días las tecnologías deben ser vistas como formas de vida, ya que su papel es cada vez más relevante en nuestra existencia cotidiana. Discutimos si el diálogo interreligioso puede beneficiarse de (...) un uso positivo e inteligente de internet. ¿Hay beneficios o perjuicios potenciales del uso de internet en el diálogo interreligioso? ¿Está internet desmitificando la religión? ¿Ha pasado de moda el concepto de silencio mistérico propio de las instituciones religiosas? También estudiamos cómo las comunicaciones tecnológicas pueden promover la comprensión, especialmente en las redes sociales y las comunidades virtuales. A pesar de los tópicos de que las comunidades virtuales son frecuentemente superficiales y están apartadas de la vida cotidiana, nos planteamos si pueden añadir valor a una experiencia de vida. ¿Debemos prestar atención a la importancia que las personas atribuyen al diálogo virtual? ¿Puede ser internet un elemento relevante en la experiencia religiosa? (shrink)

In his ethical treatises Aristotle offers a rich account of those conditions that render people’s behaviour involuntary, and defines voluntariness on the basis of the absence of these conditions. This dissertation has two aims. One is to offer an account of the significance of the notions of involuntariness and voluntariness for Aristotle’s ethical project that satisfactorily explains why he deems it necessary to discuss these notions in his Ethics. My own account of the significance of these notions for Aristotle’s Ethics (...) emerges from my arguments against the two most influential views concerning this significance: I argue that Aristotle’s concern with voluntariness in his Ethics is not shaped by a concern with accountability, i.e. with those conditions under which fully mature and healthy rational agents are held accountable or answerable for their actions; nor is it shaped by a concern with the conditioning of pain-responsive agents for the sake of socially useful ends that are not, intrinsically, their own. Rather, his concern is with reason-responsive agents and the conditions for attributing ethically significant behaviour to them. This is what I call ‘ethical ascription’. The second aim of this dissertation is to provide a comprehensive account of those conditions that defeat the ascription of ethically significant pieces of behaviour to reason-responsive agents, and to show the distinctiveness of Aristotle’s views on the nature of these conditions. The conclusions I arrive at in this respect are shaped by the notion of ethical ascription that I develop as a way of reaching the first aim. (shrink)

In a letter of September 1679 to Huygens, Leibniz proposed a calculus situs directly applicable to geometric relations without use of magnitudes. His researehes on this kind of Geometric Calculus were developed along all his life but, unfortunately, only a few Leibniz’ s writings on these matters had been published by Gerhardt and Couturat. They were closely connected to his own researches on Logic Calculus. From a chronological point of view, the unpublished manuscript Circa Geometrica Generalia may be considered as (...) the third most important Leibniz’ contribution on Calculus Situs. CGG summarizes several results obtained by Leibniz from 1679 to 1682 and contains some interesting ideas concerning set theory, geometric axioms, General Topology and Logic Foundations of Geometry.En una carta a Huygens escrita en septiembre de 1679, Leibniz propuso un calculus situs que fuese aplicable al estudio directo de las relaciones geometricas, sin utilizar magnitudes. Sus investigaciones en torno a los Cálculos Geometricos continuaron a lo largo de toda su vida, pero, lamentablemente, Gerhardt y Couturat sólo publicaron una pequeña parte de sus manuscritos sobre estos temas. Estasinvestigaciones estuvieron estrechamente conectadas con los trabajos de Leibniz sobre Cálculos Lógicos. El manuscrito inédito Circa Geometrica Generalia puede ser considerado, desde un punto de vista cronológico, como la tercera más importante contribución de Leibniz al Calculus Situs. En CGG Leibniz resume varios logros obtenidos desde 1679 hasta 1682 y expone ideas interesantes en relación con la Teoría de Conjuntos, los axiomas de la geometria, la Topologia General y los fundamentos logicos de la Geometría. (shrink)

Siendo Muguerza un gran conocedor de Kant, sus críticas a la moral kantiana han ido creciendo con el tiempo. Muguerza ha disentido del principio kantiano de universalización, ha primado el principio de autonomía y ha criticado el reino de los fines para, finalmente, ha elaborado una concepción propia del individualismo moral, basada en la alternativa del disenso. En este artículo se comentan algunas de las críticas de Muguerza a Kant, sobre todo las que atacan el carácter universalista e imperativo de (...) la moral kantiana. Asimismo se comentan otras objeciones al universalismo kantiano, provenientes de las éticas feministas y de la neuroética. Se concluye que el individualismo ético de Muguerza sigue siendo válido, aunque ha de ser reformulado en algunos aspectos. Al final se propone una interpretación axiológica de la moral kantiana, según la cual los principios que afirman Kant y Muguerza son valores que se contraponen entre sí, dando lugar a diferentes concepciones del individualismo ético según se prioricen unos u otros valores. (shrink)