This article explores the relationship between pragmatic encroachment and epistemic permissiveness. If the suggestion that all epistemic notions are interest-relative is viable , then it seems that a certain species of epistemic permissivism must be viable as well. For, if all epistemic notions are interest relative then, sometimes, parties in paradigmatic cases of shared evidence can be maximally rational in forming competing basic doxastic attitudes towards the same proposition. However, I argue that this total pragmatic encroachment is not tenable, and, (...) thus, epistemic permissivism cannot be vindicated in this way. (shrink)

Social groups seem to be entities that are dependent on us. Given their apparent dependence, one might adopt Social Creationism—the thesis that all social groups are social objects created through (some specific types of) thoughts, intentions, agreements, habits, patterns of interaction, and practices. Here I argue that not all social groups come to be in the same way. This is due, in part, to social groups failing to share a uniform nature. I argue that some groups (e.g., racial and gender (...) groups) are social kinds. They either falsify Social Creationism or are created as mere byproducts of property instantiation. In contrast, I argue that other groups (e.g., teams and committees) are social objects. When restricted to groups like these, Social Creationism holds. The conclusions have more than just metaphysical import. The differences between groups and how they come to be help to explain why some groups appear to be natural, why some fail to rely on intentions, and why certain sorts of groups are widespread and persistent. (shrink)

A large body of existing research suggests that people think very differently about categories that are seen as kinds (e.g., women) and categories that are not seen as kinds (e.g., people hanging out in the park right now). Drawing on work in linguistics, we suggest that people represent these two sorts of categories using fundamentally different representational formats. Categories that are not seen as kinds are simply represented as collections of individuals. By contrast, when it comes to kinds, people have (...) two distinct representations: a representation of a collection of individual people and a representation of the kind itself. The distinction between these two representational formats helps to shed light on otherwise puzzling findings about stereotyping and essentialism. Stereotyping appears to involve a representation of a collection of people, while essentialism involves a representation of a kind itself. (shrink)

Identity politics has been critiqued in various ways. One central problem—the Reinforcement Problem—claims that identity politics reinforces groups rooted in oppression thereby undermining its own liberatory aims. Here I consider two versions of the problem—one psychological and one metaphysical. I defang the first by drawing on work in social psychology. I then argue that careful consideration of the metaphysics of social groups and of the practice of identity politics provides resources to dissolve the second version. Identity politics involves the creation (...) or transformation of groups in ways that do not succumb to the metaphysical Reinforcement Problem. (shrink)

Cooperation has been analyzed primarily in the context of theories of collective intentionality. These discussions have primarily focused on interactions between pairs or small groups of agents who know one another personally. Cooperative game theory has also been used to argue for a form of cooperation in large unorganized groups. Here I consider a form of minimal cooperation that can arise among members of potentially large organized groups (e.g., corporate teams, committees, governmental bodies). I argue that members of organized groups (...) can be minimally cooperative in virtue of playing roles in an organizational structure and having a common goal. The minimal form of cooperation I argue for is not grounded in collective intentions involving symmetric mental states, special collective intentional modes, or joint commitments. More generally, I show how considering minimal cooperation in the context of organized groups provides an opportunity to reevaluate the extent to which the social world and social phenomena depend on internalist mental factors (e.g., intentions, beliefs) and externalist non-mental factors (e.g., documents, laws, job descriptions). The view of minimal cooperation among members of organized groups I offer provides support for an externalist rather than internalist theory of at least one social phenomenon. (shrink)

Sound moves us. Nowhere is this more apparent than in our responses to genuine emotional vocalizations, be they heartfelt distress cries or raucous laughter. Here, we present perceptual ratings and a description of a freely available, large database of natural affective vocal sounds from human infants, adults and domestic animals, the Oxford Vocal (OxVoc) Sounds database. This database consists of 173 non-verbal sounds expressing a range of happy, sad, and neutral emotional states. Ratings are presented for the sounds on a (...) range of dimensions from a number of independent participant samples. Perceptions related to valence, including distress, vocalizer mood, and listener mood are presented in Study 1. Perceptions of the arousal of the sound, listener motivation to respond and valence (positive, negative) are presented in Study 2. Perceptions of the emotional content of the stimuli in both Study 1 and 2 were consistent with the predefined categories (e.g., laugh stimuli perceived as positive). While the adult vocalizations received more extreme valence ratings, rated motivation to respond to the sounds was highest for the infant sounds. The major advantages of this database are the inclusion of vocalizations from naturalistic situations, which represent genuine expressions of emotion, and the inclusion of vocalizations from animals and infants, providing comparison stimuli for use in cross-species and developmental studies. The associated website provides a detailed description of the physical properties of each sound stimulus along with cross-category descriptions. (shrink)

Throughout history, oppressors have used multiple forms of violence to impose their own logic on the human universe they oppress. One such form is epistemic violence, which is based on the monopoly control of truth and the hijacking of universality. Those who apply this violence seek to convince everyone of the absolute character of their supposed truths, of the quasi-natural universality of their ways of thinking, of living, of organizing socially. Truth and universality are ineludible objects in dispute between conservative (...) and emancipating forces. The scenario of this complaint today reaches global dimensions. Life itself is at stake. It is obvious that, without an undermining of oppressive truths and predatory particularisms dressed-up as universalities, social emancipation is not feasible. It is also not possible to conserve life. Unlimited growth, the permanent trend towards wealth accumulation, the pursuit at all costs of profit, make capital increasingly incompatible with life. False truths, such as the inevitable centrality of the market and the natural character of capitalism, must be dismantled. Following the logical-deductive method, this work aims to speak critically of the truth, but not denying its existence. This work speaks critically of truth, but does not negate its existence. Attempts are made to uncover the social conditions of the possibility of truth. It seeks to describe how truth can and should exist, if it aspires to be free and decolonized within a social paradigm such as Our America. (shrink)

Conventional accounts of epistemic opacity, particularly those that stem from the definitive work of Paul Humphreys, typically point to limitations on the part of epistemic agents to account for the distinct ways in which systems, such as computational methods and devices, are opaque. They point, for example, to the lack of technical skill on the part of an agent, the failure to meet standards of best practice, or even the nature of an agent as reasons why epistemically relevant elements of (...) a process may be inaccessible. In this paper I argue that there are certain instances of epistemic opacity— particularly in computational methods such a computer simulations and machine learning processes—that do not arise from, are not responsive to, and are therefore not explained by the epistemic limitations of an agent. I call these instances agent-neutral and agent-independent instances of epistemic opacity respectively. As a result, I also argue that conventional accounts of epistemic opacity offer a limited understanding of the full spectrum of kinds and sources of epistemic opacity, particularly of the kind found in computational methods. In particular, as I will show below, the limitations of these accounts are reflected in the way they fail to provide satisfactory explanations when faced with certain instances of opacity. (shrink)

Rogers takes up each of the manual's topics in turn, providing explanation and commentary, and investigates the role of reasoning in the Ge-luk-pa system of ...

This essay, written by a biologist, a microbial ecologist, a biological anthropologist, and an anthropologist‐historian, examines tensions and translations in microbiome research on animals in the laboratory and field. The authors trace how research questions and findings in the laboratory are extrapolated into the field and vice versa, and the shifting evidentiary standards that these research settings require. Showing how complexities of microbiomes challenge traditional standards of causation, the authors contend that these challenges require new approaches to inferences used in (...) ecology, anthropology, and history. As social scientists incorporate investigations of microbial life into their human studies, microbiome researchers venture into field settings to develop mechanistic understandings about the functions of complex microbial communities. These efforts generate new possibilities for cross‐fertilizations and inference frameworks to interpret microbiome findings. Microbiome research should integrate multiple scales, levels of variability, and other disciplinary approaches to tackle questions spanning conditions from the laboratory to the field. (shrink)

We argue that environmental aesthetics, and specifically the concept of aesthetic integrity, should play a central role in a public environmental philosophy designed to communicate about environmental problems in an effective manner. After developing the concept of the “aesthetic integrity” of the environment, we appeal to empirical research to show that it contributes significantly to people’s sense of place, which is, in turn, central to their well-being and motivational state. As a result, appealing to aesthetic integrity in policy contexts is (...) both strategically and morally advisable. To provide a concrete illustration of the ways in which such appeals can play a role in policy making, we examine a specific case study in which attention to aesthetic integrity contributed to blocking a proposed development. The case yields at least four lessons: (1) aesthetic integrity can be a practically effective framing device; (2) local deliberative settings are particularly conducive for addressing it; (3) it can serve as an umbrella under which multiple other issues can be brought to the fore; and (4) judgments about aesthetic integrity need not be entirely objective in order for them to play a productive role in the policy sphere. (shrink)

Enesidemo ha sido considerado, tradicionalmente, como figura mediadora entre el escepticismo pirroniano y el escepticismo académico. En el Códice 212 de su Bibliotheca, Focio proporciona alguna infonnación fundamental para reconocer a Enesidemo como figura clave del escepticismo entre Timón de Filunte y Sexto Empírico. Así, es corriente hablar de la pertenencia de Enesidemo a la academia platónica, y de su separación, cuando Filón de Larisa y su sucesor Clitx5maco empiezan a renunciar a los principios académicos y adoptan principios estoicos2, A (...) partir de aquí es corriente concluir que trabajaba por restaurar cierta originalidad de la especulación filosófica, basada en Pirrón, frente a todo el trabajo de reflexión y de análisis que él mismo había realizado en la academia en contra de los dogmáticos estoicos. La hipótesis de este artículo rompe esta ortodoxa interpretachin. Enesidemo es el primero en recuperar sistemáticamente los presupuestos del pensamiento pirroniano, generando un movimiento desconocido como tal hasta ese momento, el pirronismo shrink)

Parece que Platón enseñó en la Academia otras doctrinas diferentes de las expuestas por él en los diálogos. Además, parece también que voluntariamente se abstuvo de consignarlas por escrito al creer que la palabra, la enseñanza oral, era un medio más eficaz que la escritura para transmitir aquello que "tenía importancia". Dicho así, puede resultar una paradoja que el mejor prosista griego, sea un detractor, al menos en parte, de la prosa escrita. A partir de aquí, las interpretaciones novedosas que (...) han provocado las doctrinas no-escritas de Platón han generado debates a veces imposibles de resolver. Añadir unas breves notas a estas discusiones es la intención de este artículo. (shrink)

El presente artículo tiene como objetivo examinar el significado de la neuropublicidad así como introducir los debates éticos que la acompañan. La búsqueda de la eficacia publicitaria y el conocimiento de las “verdaderas” necesidades de los clientes centran la investigación de esta disciplina que fusiona la publicidad con los nuevos conocimientos sobre el cerebro vinculados con el avance de las neurociencias. El presente artículo analiza esta nueva disciplina y sus características, a la vez que analiza algunas de las problemática morales (...) que plantea. (shrink)

Human evolution has been punctuated by climate anomalies, structuring environments, deadly infections, and altering landscapes. How well humans adapted to these new circumstances had direct effects on fitness and survival. Here, how the gut microbiome could have contributed to human evolutionary success through contributions to host nutritional buffering and infectious disease resistance is reviewed. How changes in human genetics, diet, disease exposure, and social environments almost certainly altered microbial community composition is also explored. Emerging research points to the microbiome as (...) a key player in host responses to environmental change. Therefore, the reciprocal interactions between humans and their microbes are likely to have shaped human patterns of local adaptation throughout our shared evolutionary history. Recent alterations in human lifestyle, however, are altering human microbiomes in unprecedented ways. The consequences of interrupted host–microbe relationships for human adaptive potential in the future are unknown. (shrink)

In this paper, we analyze the origin of the links between global bioethics (which we differentiate from biomedical bioethics) and human rights. We understand that we are in a global civilizational crisis, whose roots extend to 1492 today, in which the modern-capitalist model used the discourse of human rights to justify its predatory technocracy. There are three theoretical assumptions that support our analysis: 1) The current conditions in which the technique shows its destructive power over nature (Anthropocene) indicate that none (...) of the ethical antecedents are applicable to such circumstances. In this new context, the kantian categorical imperative has been reconverted into a moral and political duty to not instrumentalize either human beings or nature. We call this new ethical consideration bioethics. 2) The current geopolitical composition of the world must be thought in terms of the global North and the global South, as two regions that are forged in the midst of important processes of globalization of the world-system, and whose main consequence lies in the absence of equity in the distribution of wealth and well-being between the two. 3) The current environmental crisis or climate change, the product of an economic model based on extractive technology, has become one of the most serious threats against human rights. (shrink)

El artículo presenta un examen de la relación entre la teología cristiana católica en México en el siglo XVII, específicamente en las ideas de autores pertenecientes a la Compañía de Jesús, y el estilo barroco de las obras que se crearon en dicho periodo, sobre todo en pintura, poesía y arquitectura. Se estudian especialmente las ideas expresadas por Tomás de Alfaro, S.J. (ca. 1667) y Luis de Villanueva, S.J. (1605-1659).

Este trabajo estudia el pensamiento teológico y filosófico de Francisco Suárez sobre la libertad. El problema de la Concordia entre gracia y libertad, suprime el concepto de naturaleza como quicio del pensamiento filosófico cristiano. La libertad se sitúa como causa metafísica formal en Suárez, no como fundamento a la manera moderna de un Yo afincado en sus solas fuerzas, sino como principio heurístico y creador de un ser lleno de posibilidades cuya afirmación: “soy libre”, sintetiza la filosofía suareciana, y hace (...) inteligibles las realidades dadas por la experiencia concreta para obtener una comprensión superior.Palabras llave: Francisco Suárez; teología neoescolástica; filosofía neoescolástica.This work studies Francisco Suárez’s theological and philosophical thought about freedom. The problem of agreement between grace and freedom suppresses the concept of nature as physis and its ethiology, as a referential shelf for Christian philosophical thought. In Suárez, freedom is placed as a formal metaphysical cause, not as a foundation in the modern manner of an “I” based on its sole forces, but as heuristic principle that creates a being full of possibilities, whose statement: “I am free”, synthesizes Suárez’s philosophy and makes intelligible the realities given by concrete experience in order to obtain a superior understanding.Palabras llave: Francisco Suárez; theology; liberty. (shrink)

Este trabajo inicia su meditación teniendo como punto de partida la enseñanza de la Biblia sobre la naturaleza misma del hombre, su influjo sobre el enigma de la libertad y de la cual el pensamiento de Kierkegaard se hace eco: sólo un Dios omnipotente puede crear un ser libre. Prosigue el estudio con las reflexiones meta- físicas de san Agustín, san Anselmo, santo Tomás y Duns Scoto, interrogándose cuál son las raíces de esa libertad y cómo se relacionan con la (...) voluntad y la inteligencia, que permiten dirigirse y elegir: la libre elección del bien y del mal (libertas minor) y la libertad dentro del bien (libertas maior). (shrink)

In this article I discuss the emergence of Female Sexual Dysfunction within American psychiatry and beyond in the postwar period, setting out what I believe to be important and suggestive questions neglected in existing scholarship. Tracing the nomenclature within successive editions of the American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual, I consider the reification of the term ‘FSD’, and the activism and scholarship that the rise of the category has occasioned. I suggest that analysis of FSD benefits from scrutiny of (...) a wider range of sources. I explore the multiplicity of FSD that emerges when one examines this wider range, but I also underscore a reinscribing of anxieties about psychogenic aetiologies. I then argue that what makes the FSD case additionally interesting, over and above other conditions with a contested status, is the historically complex relationship between psychiatry and feminism that is at work in contemporary debates. I suggest that existing literature on FSD has not yet posed some of the most important and salient questions at stake in writing about women’s sexual problems in this period, and can only do this when the relationship between ‘second-wave’ feminism, ‘post-feminism’, psychiatry and psychoanalysis becomes part of the terrain to be analysed, rather than the medium through which analysis is conducted. (shrink)

Jesuits and Matriarchs: Domestic Worship in Early Modern China. By Nadine Amsler. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2018. Pp. ix + 258. $95 ; $30.

Two studies of women in philosophy, Michéle Le Doeuff's biography of Simone de Beauvoir Hipparchia's Choice (1991) and Fritz Mauthner's historical novel Hypatia (1892), question what kind of power and authority are available to philosophers. Mauthner's philosophy of language expands on Le Doeuff to outline how philosophy acts parallel to other sociohistorical discourses, relying on public consensus and on the negotiation of stereotypes to create a viable speaking subject for the female philosopher.

This essay shows how South African Pentecostal teachings about sexuality, particularly HIV prevention and divorce, constrain women’s real and imagined choices. Institutional Review Board–approved fieldwork revealed the prevalence of wives remaining faithful to unfaithful husbands despite high risks of physical abuse and HIV infection. Maintaining the “ideal” of abstinence and faithfulness, male pastors actively oppose condom use and emphasize that “God hates divorce”. In this essay I engage and resist such hermeneutics. Using scripture as source and norm, I construct an (...) A-B-C-D prevention strategy to enhance women’s freedom: Abstain, Be faithful, use Condoms, or Divorce. (shrink)