La presente obra se trata de un ejercicio de reflexión colectiva para [re]pensar a Bobbio con verdaderos artículos científicos por parte de los estudiosos de su obra más acreditados en Europa y América Latina: Michelangelo Bovero, Arnaldo Córdova, José Fernández Santillán, Ermanno Vitale, entre otros. A la vez que un homenaje al filósofo turinés, se logra con estos textos una revisión crítica de muchas de las ideas clave de su pensamiento a la luz de los retos del siglo XXI: democracia, (...) terrorismo, derechos fundamentales, etc. (shrink)

Arranges the work of Viola Cordova, presenting her understanding and interpretation of the interactions between people and nature.

Theoretical and manipulative abduction conjectures and manipulations : the extra-theoretical dimension of scientific discovery. -- Non-explanatory and instrumental abduction : plausibility, implausibility, ignorance preservation. -- Semiotic brains and artificial minds : how brains make up material cognitive systems. -- Neuromultimodal abduction : pre-wired brains, embidiment, neurospaces. -- Animal abduction : from mindless organisms to srtifactual mediators. -- Abduction, affordances, and cognitive niches : sharing representations and creating chances through cognitive niche construction. -- Abduction in human and logical agents : hasty (...) generalizers, hybrid abducers, fallacies. -- Morphodynamical abduction : causation of hypotheses by attractors dynamics. (shrink)

To Live in the Spirit provides a detailed examination of πνεῦμα in Paul’s teaching about virtues in his seven undisputed letters. Naveros Córdova shows how Paul’s understanding of πνεῦμα as a foundational concept in his ethical teaching is construed within both the Hellenistic Jewish and Greek traditions.

This book examines Philo’s understanding of the acquisition of virtues and the avoidance of vices using the Greek concept of piety as a central virtue in his ethical discourse. Naveros exceptionally shows how Philo construes his understanding of living ethically within both the Hellenistic Jewish and Greek traditions.

This book examines Philo’s understanding of the acquisition of virtues and the avoidance of vices using the Greek concept of piety as a central virtue in his ethical discourse. Naveros exceptionally shows how Philo construes his understanding of living ethically within both the Hellenistic Jewish and Greek traditions.

This essay rereads the Kantian sublime both as an epitome of humanism and as a lesson for posthumanist thought. First, I unfold “On the Dynamically Sublime” as a failed dialectic in which “reason” seeks to sublate the power of “nature.” But Kant’s sublime is irreducible to the “Analytic,” I argue: it exemplifies a quasi-dialectical relation between human and nonhuman that recurs across the third Critique and defines its humanist teleology as a whole. Rereading Kant against that telos, and heeding the (...) natural-historical concerns animating his project, I uncover paths towards a posthumanist or “natural-historical” sublime of “nature” as anarchic phusis. (shrink)

El desarrollo de la argumentación en el proceso de alfabetización académica cobra especial importancia debido a que el conocimiento académico es esencialmente argumentativo. Por esto, el objetivo de esta investigación es, por un lado, relevar, a partir del discurso de los docentes en un programa de Biología e Historia, las representaciones sociales acerca de la enseñanza-aprendizaje de la argumentación y, por otro, generar un modelo explicativo de este fenómeno. La recolección de datos se realizó por medio de entrevistas a docentes (...) de ambas disciplinas y el análisis de ellos, mediante la técnica de análisis de contenido, la que busca formular inferencias reproducibles y válidas que puedan aplicarse a un contexto determinado. The development of argumentation in the process of academic literacy is particularly important because scientific knowledge is essentially argumentative. For this reason, the purpose of this research is to elicit social representations about teaching and learning of argumentation from the discourse of teachers in a program of Biology and History, as well as to generate an explanatory model for this phenomenon. The data collection instrument used was an interview to teachers in both disciplines, and the data was analyzed using content analysis, a technique that seeks to develop replicable and valid inference that can be applied to a given context. (shrink)

The notions of enthusiasm and fanaticism, besides the fact that they were associated with the concrete phenomenon of religious zeal at the time of the Reformation, were also, throughout the 17th and 18th centuries, the object of a literature that built a specific image of the so-called enthusiasts, be they the English Puritans, the Huguenot prophets or the Jansenist convulsionaries. By constructing this image, literature – philosophical, medical or satirical – produced at the same time the specular image of itself, (...) sometimes as pure alterity in relation to the fanatic, sometimes relativizing this opposition. Our journey starts from some of these formulations in England at the beginning of the 17th century, and then pays attention carefully to the elaborations of Swift and Diderot about fanaticism and enthusiasm, from the beginning to the middle of the 18th century, showing that philosophy itself, often understood as the opposite of fanaticism or madness, can also become its other when it gives in to enthusiasm. (shrink)

In recent years, a new dispute has risen to prominence: the dispute between realists and anti-realists about causal powers. Albeit sometimes overlooked, the meta-ontological features of this “question of realism for powers” are quite peculiar. For friends and foes of causal powers have characterized their contrasting views in a variety of different ways; as existence claims, as semantic or truth-making claims, as fundamentality claims, as claims about the nature of certain properties. Not only does this multiplicity of interpretations make it (...) unclear what the genuine bone of contention is, if there is one; some of them appear to be mutually exclusive. Some light can be shed on this apparent yet widespread confusion by distinguishing three degrees of ontological involvement in dispositional truths; viz., three ways, of increasing robustness, to read ontological commitments from dispositional truths. Relatedly, by exploring the literature, and focusing on some selected examples of power realism and anti-realism, we can observe that power realists vastly disagree over the intrinsic nature ad make-up of dispositional properties. Such examples furthermore invite the thought that the question of realism for powers is best understood not as the debate around the existence of properties with a distinctive identity, but rather as a debate about metaphysical hierarchy. Finally, some anti-realists positions are indistinguishable from realist ones, using merely intensional resources: power realism is best appreciated by going hyperintensional. (shrink)

This paper attempts a reconstruction of reason’s contribution to empirical truth in connection with Kant’s definition of truth as the agreement of cognition with its object. I argue that Kant’s treatment of truth in the Transcendental Analytic gets completed in the Appendix to the Transcendental Dialectic with an often neglected but compelling argument (what I shall call the Variety Argument). This argument postulates such a variety in the appearances as to undermine any attempt at formulating empirical truths. Crucially, I argue (...) that this variety does not depict an extreme-case scenario, but our own epistemic situation without reason. Reason completes Kant’s theory of truth by allowing the understanding (i.) to form empirical concepts and (ii.) approximate to empirical truth. (shrink)

Philosophers have debated at length the epistemological status of scientific thought experiments. I contend that the literature on this topic still lacks a common conceptual framework, a lacuna that produces radical disagreement among the participants in this debate. To remedy this problem, I suggest focusing on the distinction between the internal and the external validity of an experiment, which is also crucial for thought experiments. I then develop an account of both kinds of validity in the context of thought experiments. (...) I show that we can naturally conceptualise internal validity in terms of games of make-believe. Then, I argue that external validity is best defined as accurate representation of a target system. Finally, I turn back to the current debate on thought experiments and show that my diarchic account provides a general framework that can be shared by the competing philosophical views, as well as a fruitful guide for their reconciliation. (shrink)

We present an elementary system of axioms for the geometry of Minkowski spacetime. It strikes a balance between a simple and streamlined set of axioms and the attempt to give a direct formalization in first-order logic of the standard account of Minkowski spacetime in [Maudlin 2012] and [Malament, unpublished]. It is intended for future use in the formalization of physical theories in Minkowski spacetime. The choice of primitives is in the spirit of [Tarski 1959]: a predicate of betwenness and a (...) four place predicate to compare the square of the relativistic intervals. Minkowski spacetime is described as a four dimensional ‘vector space’ that can be decomposed everywhere into a spacelike hyperplane - which obeys the Euclidean axioms in [Tarski and Givant, 1999] - and an orthogonal timelike line. The length of other ‘vectors’ are calculated according to Pythagora’s theorem. We conclude with a Representation Theorem relating models of our system that satisfy second order continuity to the mathematical structure called ‘Minkowski spacetime’ in physics textbooks. (shrink)

In this paper, we embark on the complicated discussion about the nature of vice in Virtue Ethics through a twofold approach: first, by taking seriously the claim that virtues (and certain flavours of vices) are genuinely dispositional features possessed by agents, and secondly, by employing a pluralistic attitude borrowed from Battaly’s pluralism (2008). Through these lenses, we identify three varieties of viciousness: incontinence, indifference, and malevolence. The upshot is that the notion of vice is not as categorically homogeneous as that (...) of virtue: some states of viciousness consist in interference of present virtuous dispositions, or mimicking of absent vicious ones, whereas others can be considered genuine dispositions themselves. Furthermore, this set-up can provide an interesting, albeit highly idealized story as to how, through the interference in one’s environment, one gets acquainted with vice in various degrees. Finally, this approach can be illuminating vis-à-vis Virtue Ethics in general; e.g. we can employ it to discuss more productively Johnston’s (2003) objection to Hursthouse’s (1999) account of moral conduct. Finally, this approach can be illuminating vis-a-vis Virtue Ethics in general; e.g. we can employ it to discuss more productively Johnston’s (2003) objection to Hursthouse’s (1999) account of moral conduct. (shrink)

The fourteen authors in this collection used phenomenology and hermeneutics to conduct deep inquiry into perplexing and wondrous events in their work and personal lives. These seasoned scholar-practitioners gained remarkable insight into areas such as health care and illness, organ donation, intercultural communications, high-performance teams, artistic production, jazz improvisation, and the integration of Tai Chi into education. All authors were transformed by phenomenology's expanded ways of seeing and being.

Lorenzo Valla (1407–1457) ranks among the greatest scholars and thinkers of the Renaissance. He secured lasting fame for his brilliant critical skills, most famously in his exposure of the “Donation of Constantine,” the forged document upon which the papacy based claims to political power. Lesser known in the English-speaking world is Valla's work in the philosophy of language—the basis of his reputation as the greatest philosopher of the humanist movement. Dialectical Disputations, translated here for the first time into any (...) modern language, is his principal contribution to the philosophy of language and logic. With this savage attack on the scholastic tradition of Aristotelian logic, Valla aimed to supersede it with a new logic based on the actual historical usage of classical Latin and on a commonsense approach to semantics and argument. Valla provides a logic that could be used by lawyers, preachers, statesmen, and others who needed to succeed in public debate—one that was stylistically correct and rhetorically elegant, and thus could dispense with the technical language of the scholastics, a “tribe of Peripatetics, perverters of natural meanings.” Valla's reformed dialectic became a milestone in the development of humanist logic and contains startling anticipations of modern theories of semantics and language. Volume 1 contains Book I, in which Valla refutes Aristotle's logical works on the categories, transcendentals, and predicables, with excursions into natural and moral philosophy and theology. (shrink)

This article aims to justify the positive role in the empirical investigation of nature that Kant attributes to the idea of God in the Critique of Pure Reason. In particular, I propose to read the Transcendental Ideal section and the Appendix to the Transcendental Dialectic together to see whether they can reciprocally illuminate each other. I argue that it is only by looking at the transcendental deduction of the ideas of reason and the resulting analogical conception of God that a (...) fully legitimate positive use of the idea of God can be vindicated. (shrink)

Discussions about dispositional and categorical properties have become commonplace in metaphysics. Unfortunately, dispositionality and categoricity are disputed notions: usual characterizations are piecemeal and not widely applicable, thus threatening to make agreements and disagreements on the matter merely verbal—and also making it arduous to map a logical space of positions about dispositional and categorical properties in which all parties can comfortably fit. This paper offers a prescription for this important difficulty, or at least an inkling thereof. This will be achieved by (...) comparing pairs of positions and exploring their background metaphysics to discover where alleged agreements and disagreements concerning dispositionality and categoricity really lie; more specifically, the Pure Powers view and the Powerful Qualities view will be under scrutiny. Over this background, the prescription functions by isolating a successful identity-based characterization of categoricity, while abandoning the correspondent identity-based characterization of dispositionality. On the contrary, according to this prescription a property is dispositional if and only if it is solely in virtue of possessing that property that its bearer is assigned a certain dispositional profile. A crucial consequence of this prescription is that, while supporters of the Pure Powers view often characterize their position as an essentialist one, the dispositionality of properties needn’t always be a matter of essence. (shrink)

We present an elementary system of axioms for the geometry of Minkowski spacetime. It strikes a balance between a simple and streamlined set of axioms and the attempt to give a direct formalization in first-order logic of the standard account of Minkowski spacetime in Maudlin and Malament. It is intended for future use in the formalization of physical theories in Minkowski spacetime. The choice of primitives is in the spirit of Tarski : a predicate of betwenness and a four place (...) predicate to compare the square of the relativistic intervals. Minkowski spacetime is described as a four dimensional ‘vector space’ that can be decomposed everywhere into a spacelike hyperplane—which obeys the Euclidean axioms in Tarski and Givant, 175–214 1999)—and an orthogonal timelike line. The length of other ‘vectors’ are calculated according to Pythagoras’ theorem. We conclude with a Representation Theorem relating models \ of our system \ that satisfy second order continuity to the mathematical structure \, called ‘Minkowski spacetime’ in physics textbooks. (shrink)

The Recursive Bayesian Net formalism was originally developed for modelling nested causal relationships. In this paper we argue that the formalism can also be applied to modelling the hierarchical structure of mechanisms. The resulting network contains quantitative information about probabilities, as well as qualitative information about mechanistic structure and causal relations. Since information about probabilities, mechanisms and causal relations is vital for prediction, explanation and control respectively, an RBN can be applied to all these tasks. We show in particular how (...) a simple two-level RBN can be used to model a mechanism in cancer science. The higher level of our model contains variables at the clinical level, while the lower level maps the structure of the cell's mechanism for apoptosis. (shrink)

En este trabajo se señalan dos aportaciones antropológicas elaboradas por Leonardo Polo en escritos dirigidos a iluminar la acción humana, social, económica y empresarial, en particular su trabajo Ricos y pobres. Igualdad y desigualdad. Allí se ve una importante crítica a la visión antropológica que hay tras la concepción del homo oeconomicus con la que se apoyó el nacimiento y desarrollo de la economía como ciencia y que se caracteriza por la pobreza ontológica de un ser que es un maximizador (...) pleno de recursos. Ésta, homo oeconomicus, es una noción que desde distintas disciplinas se está criticando reiteradamente, por la limitación de este modelo al entender la acción humana, que resultan insuficientes sin un marco antropológico radical. (shrink)

El artículo busca revelar como resultado el papel de la comunicación de la innovación social en el comportamiento del usuario, si este modifica su intención de consumir un producto o servicio, cuando conoce que la empresa que oferta el bien o servicio tiene una práctica de innovación social implementada. Para responder al objetivo se formularon dos hipótesis que fueron testeadas mediante la aplicación de una encuesta basada en una muestra de conveniencia, que recolectó 300 respuestas en toda América Latina. Los (...) resultados obtenidos permiten suponer que el consumidor en Latinoamérica, en general, no solo quiere tener más información disponible y accesible (tanto en términos de accesibilidad de medios como de lenguaje), sino que quiere involucrarse, ser escuchado y poder intervenir en la comunidad; ya sea por iniciativa propia o alentado por las marcas y empresas en general. (shrink)

En el ser humano existe una capacidad innegable para cuestionar, organizar y decidir el sentido de su vida. La cuestión de hacia dónde nos dirigimos, estando en esta vida, es de lo más relevante que tendremos. En el día a día, se construye la existencia de manera que sea lo más placentera posible, cada quien, optando por satisfacer sus necesidades; esta misma reflexión lleva a muchos a un amor desenfrenado por ella y, a otros, a cuestionar su existencia o si (...) la vida realmente tiene el valor que la mayoría de las personas le otorgan, algunos consideran que sí, y permanecen en ella; otros que no, y acaban optando por el terminar con sus vidas. (shrink)

This book aims to develop the tradition of philosophical hermeneutics, the theoretical account of interpretive (as opposed to explanatory) understanding--the account of meanings and contexts rather than causes and predictions--usually restricted to the domain of literary and textual analysis, in new directions by exploiting its potential as an instrument of critique. It refutes commonly held claims that hermeneutic analyses are necessarily relativistic, Eurocentric, or critically impotent and demonstrates how hermeneutic procedures can inform analyses of urgent current and cross-cultural issues such (...) as the biology of race, female genital excision, and the so-called "culture of poverty" thesis. Lorenzo Simpson demonstrates that a robust methodology of philosophical hermeneutics is well positioned to intervene in critical political and social issues in global ethics and justice in concert with critical theory's emancipatory aims. (shrink)

The standard representation of the Central Dogma (CD) of Molecular Biology conspicuously ignores metabolism. However, both the metabolites and the biochemical fluxes behind any biological phenomenon are encrypted in the DNA sequence. Metabolism constrains and even changes the information flow when the DNA‐encoded instructions conflict with the homeostasis of the biochemical network. Inspection of adaptive virulence programs and emergence of xenobiotic‐biodegradation pathways in environmental bacteria suggest that their main evolutionary drive is the expansion of their metabolic networks towards new chemical (...) landscapes rather than perpetuation and spreading of their DNA sequences. Faulty enzymatic reactions on suboptimal substrates often produce reactive oxygen species (ROS), a process that fosters DNA diversification and ultimately couples catabolism of the new chemicals to growth. All this calls for a revision of the CD in which metabolism (rather than DNA) has the leading role. (shrink)

Cultural evolutionary theory has been alternatively compared to a theory of forces, such as Newtonian mechanics, or the kinetic theory of gases. In this article, I clarify the scope and significance of these metatheoretical characterisations. First, I discuss the kinetic analogy, which has been recently put forward by Tim Lewens. According to it, cultural evolutionary theory is grounded on a bottom-up methodology, which highlights the additive effects of social learning biases on the emergence of large-scale cultural phenomena. Lewens supports this (...) claim by arguing that it is a consequence of cultural evolutionists’ widespread commitment to population thinking. While I concur with Lewens that cultural evolutionists often actually conceive cultural change in aggregative terms, I think that the kinetic framework does not properly account for the explanatory import of population-level descriptions in cultural evolutionary theory. Starting from a criticism of Lewens’ interpretation of population thinking, I argue that the explanatory role of such descriptions is best understood within a dynamical framework—that is, a framework according to which cultural evolutionary theory is a theory of forces. After having spelled out the main features of this alternative interpretation, I elucidate in which respects it helps to outline a more accurate characterisation of the overarching structure of cultural evolutionary theory. (shrink)

A popular stance amongst philosophers is one according to which, in Lewis’ words, “identity is utterly simple and unproblematic”. Building from Lewis’ famous passage on the matter, we reconstruct, and then criticize, an argument to the conclusion that identities cannot be grounded. With the help of relatively uncontroversial assumption concerning identity facts, we show that not all identities are equi-fundamental, and, on the contrary, some appear to be provided potential grounding bases using two-level identity criteria. Further potential grounding bases for (...) identities are presented. Identity might be utterly simple and unproblematic, but this is not sufficient to conclude that identities are ungrounded, or fundamental. (shrink)

In this paper, I offer a systematic account of Kant’s view on ‘phenomenal substance’. Several studies have recently analyzed Kant’s notion of substance. However, I submit that more needs to be said about how this notion is reconceptualized within the critical framework to vindicate a genuine and legitimate sense of substance in the phenomenal realm. More specifically, I show that Kant’s transcendental idealism does not commit him to a rejection of substantiality in phenomena. Rather, Kant isolates a general notion of (...) substance (as ultimate subject) and argues that (i) the relationality of phenomena is compatible with this notion; and that (ii) matter and all its parts are the ultimate subjects of everything existing in space (as what is independently movable in space). I suggest that vindicating a genuine and legitimate notion of phenomenal substance has far-ranging consequences for the interpretation of Kant’s empirical realism. (shrink)

The evolution of the concept of subjectivity in the works of Jacques Lacan.

This article analyses a sceptical challenge resulting from metaphysical approaches to the problem of the necessity of empirical laws of nature in Kant’s critical philosophy (what I shall call ‘essentialist’ readings). I argue that this challenge may jeopardize the purpose of empirical enquiry (and therefore the plausibility of essentialist readings), but that Kant has internal resources to address it in the Dialectic of the Critique of Pure Reason. I show that reading this problem through the lens of the Dialectic allows (...) us to reconcile the metaphysical question of necessitation of laws with a robust sense of empirical cognition. (shrink)

In this paper I would like to reconstruct Patočka’s effort to give a faithful account of the phenomena, without betraying these phenomena with an objectivistic theory of perception. Only by remaining close to the things themselves will we be able to understand them as an appeal, as a call, while understanding ourselves as a response to this call. On the basis of this “ontological rehabilitation of the sensible”, which reveals Patočka’s affinity with Merleau-Ponty as much as his departure from Husserl, (...) I will criticize the idealism of Husserlian phenomenology and reconsider the a priori of correlation in a different fashion. World and subject will then find a different articulation, grounded in the ontological couple of movement and feeling. The analysis will consist of three parts: in the first part I will introduce the problematic of the opposition between phenomenological and physical space; the second part will deal with the notion of movement; the third part will concentrate on Patočka’s new account of subjectivity, the a-subjective cogito, arising precisely from the fundamental coupling of κίνησις and πάθος. Embodiment, qua original phenomenon, will be constantly present in the background of this analysis. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to propose a novel reading of the critical legitimacy of the regulative use of reason in the Transcendental Dialectic of Kant's Critique of Pure Reason. After introducing some key terminology of the Dialectic, I analyse the shortcomings of two influential accounts of the regulative use of reason and identify their common problem in their commitment to the descriptivity of the ideas of reason. I then offer my rule‐based account of the regulative use of reason (...) by clarifying how Kant transforms reason's metaphysical inclinations into prescriptive rules of bottom‐up empirical research. Finally, I explain why such interpretation of reason is metaphysically innocent and thereby a promising approach to understand its role in Kant's scientific project. (shrink)

Scientific models typically contain idealizations, or assumptions that are known not to be true. Philosophers have long questioned the nature of idealizations: Are they heuristic tools that will be abandoned? Or rather fictional representations of reality? And how can we reconcile them with realism about knowledge of nature? Immanuel Kant developed an account of scientific investigation that can inspire a new approach to the contemporary debate. Kant argued that scientific investigation is possible only if guided by ideal assumptions—what he calls (...) “regulative ideas”. These ideas are not true of objects of nature, and yet they are not heuristic tools or fictional represen- tations. They are necessary rules governing the construction and assessment of scientific explanations. In this paper, I suggest that some idealizations can be interpreted as having necessary regulative value and as being compatible with scientific realism. I first analyze the puzzle of the nature of idealization and present the main approaches to this topic in the literature. Second, I reconsider the puzzle vis-a-vis a restricted, Kantian definition of idealization and a novel characterization of the relation between idealization and truth. Finally, I discuss in detail an example of idealization (the Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium) along the suggested Kantian lines. (shrink)

The Price equation is currently considered one of the fundamental equations —or even the fundamental equation— of evolution. In this article, we explore the role of this equation within cultural evolutionary theory. More specifically, we use it to account for the explanatory power and the theoretical structure of a certain generalised version of dual-inheritance theory. First, we argue that, in spite of not having a definite empirical content, the Price equation offers a suitable formalisation of the processes of cultural evolution, (...) and provides a powerful heuristic device for discovering the actual causes of cultural change and accumulation. Second, we argue that, as a consequence of this, a certain version of the Price equation is the fundamental law of cultural evolutionary theory. In order to support this claim, we sketch the ideal structure of dual-inheritance theory and we stress the unificatory role that the Price equation plays in it. (shrink)

Can an identity be the proper subject of an explanation? A popular stance, albeit not one often argued for, gives a negative answer to this question. Building from a contentious passage from Jaegwon Kim in this direction, we reconstruct an argument to the conclusion that identities, to the extent in which they are necessary, cannot be explained. The notion of contrastive explanation, characterized as difference-seeking, will be crucial for this argument; however, we will eventually find the argument to be unsatisfactory. (...) On the contrary, the discussion provides enough resource to sketch a very simple framework for a non-causal contrastive explanation of identities. Many instances will be provided, with different varieties of explanans, ultimately suggesting that certain entailment or biconditional principles involving identities (first and foremost, so-called two-level identity criteria) may indeed be taken to have an inherent explanatory value. (shrink)

Some authors claim that minimal models have limited epistemic value (Fumagalli, 2016; Grüne-Yanoff, 2009a). Others defend the epistemic benefits of modelling by invoking the role of robustness analysis for hypothesis confirmation (see, e.g., Levins, 1966; Kuorikoski et al., 2010) but such arguments find much resistance (see, e.g., Odenbaugh & Alexandrova, 2011). In this paper, we offer a Bayesian rationalization and defence of the view that robustness analysis can play a confirmatory role, and thereby shed light on the potential of minimal (...) models for hypothesis confirmation. We illustrate our argument by reference to a case study from macroeconomics. At the same time, we also show that there are cases in which robustness analysis is detrimental to confirmation. We characterize these cases and link them to recent investigations on evidential variety (Landes, 2020b, 2021; Osimani and Landes, forthcoming). We conclude that robustness analysis over minimal models can confirm, but its confirmatory value depends on concrete circumstances. (shrink)