Un atlas zoopolítico es lo que pretende tener aquí lugar. Un atlas en el sentido en que cada pequeño tratado de los cincuenta y dos que configuran el libro se presenta en la forma de un retrato donde el pensamiento, entre sus pensadores, se aplica en el esfuerzo de hacerse cargo de la presencia animal sin renunciar a la diferencia humana, y en que, entre todos ellos, se delinea en todas sus valoraciones posibles esta nueva presencia del animal entre nosotros. (...) Retrato con animal. Prefacio. Pablo Perera Velamazán es escritor, además de filósofo e historiador del arte. Esta triple condición –y alguna otra (profesor, traductor)- le han permitido entrar en el círculo de los que escriben siempre de los que no saben y le ha impedido, también formar parte de ninguna empresa concreta, salvo la del precipicio del pensamiento en la singularidad que se resiste a los nombres. Allí suelen estar acompañado de niños y animales, de ángeles como muñecos, pero allí también se pueden encontrar a cualquiera. Buen compañero de viaje de invierno. (shrink)

This text proposes an interpretation of the work of Franklin Leopoldo e Silva based on the reading of some of his numerous published articles and books, without neglecting the classes and guidance received from the stage of Scientific Initiation to Postdoctoral studies. Precisely, by highlighting the importance of three thinkers widely studied by Professor Franklin – Berkeley, Bergson and William James –, we suggest that at the heart of this philosophical experience there would be a constant: empiricism. Whether in the (...) classical or radical version, the line we draw in this multiplicity reveals an openness to concrete empiricism. (shrink)

Animals navigate through three-dimensional environments, but we argue that the way they encode three-dimensional spatial information is shaped by how they use the vertical component of space. We agree with Jeffery et al. that the representation of three-dimensional space in vertebrates is probably bicoded (with separation of the plane of locomotion and its orthogonal axis), but we believe that their suggestion that the vertical axis is stored (that is, not containing distance or direction metrics usable for novel computations) is unlikely, (...) and as yet unsupported. We describe potential experimental protocols that could clarify these differences in opinion empirically. (shrink)

Les évangéliques sont devenus une source inépuisable d’énigmes, de paniques et de poncifs, et un grand défi pour les forces progressistes. Leur croissance montre que la sécularisation ne fonctionne pas comme un mur capable d’annuler les échanges entre le monde de la religion et celui de la politique. Mais elle montre aussi des efficaces connexions entre le théologique et les croyances et les sensibilités populaires, matérialisées par la « théologie de la prospérité » et la guerre spirituelle.

Cet article vise à montrer comment l’École polytechnique et l’École d’application de l’artillerie et du génie de Metz ont influencé l’Académie d’ingénieurs militaires de Madrid en tant que modèles inspirant des plans d’études et manuels mathématiques tout au long du xixe siècle. Concernant les manuels, les premières traductions espagnoles des œuvres de Monge et de Lacroix ont marqué une tendance qui a entraîné d’autres traductions, appropriations et œuvres originales sur la base d’une sélection rigoureuse de différentes sources françaises. Quant aux (...) plans d’études, l’intérêt d’élever le niveau mathématique des ingénieurs militaires apparaît clairement en 1816 et se développe entre 1839 et 1870, lorsque l’estime des ingénieurs militaires espagnols envers les écoles françaises susmentionnées en tant que modèles à suivre est documentée. (shrink)

Cet article vise à montrer comment l’École polytechnique et l’École d’application de l’artillerie et du génie de Metz ont influencé l’Académie d’ingénieurs militaires de Madrid en tant que modèles inspirant des plans d’études et manuels mathématiques tout au long du xixe siècle. Concernant les manuels, les premières traductions espagnoles des œuvres de Monge et de Lacroix ont marqué une tendance qui a entraîné d’autres traductions, appropriations et œuvres originales sur la base d’une sélection rigoureuse de différentes sources françaises. Quant aux (...) plans d’études, l’intérêt d’élever le niveau mathématique des ingénieurs militaires apparaît clairement en 1816 et se développe entre 1839 et 1870, lorsque l’estime des ingénieurs militaires espagnols envers les écoles françaises susmentionnées en tant que modèles à suivre est documentée. (shrink)

We say that a sentence A is a permissive consequence of a set X of premises whenever, if all the premises of X hold up to some standard, then A holds to some weaker standard. In this paper, we focus on a three-valued version of this notion, which we call strict-to-tolerant consequence, and discuss its fruitfulness toward a unified treatment of the paradoxes of vagueness and self-referential truth. For vagueness, st-consequence supports the principle of tolerance; for truth, it supports the (...) requisite of transparency. Permissive consequence is non-transitive, however, but this feature is argued to be an essential component to the understanding of paradoxical reasoning in cases involving vagueness or self-reference. (shrink)

To what degree can language be acquired from linguistic input alone? This question has vexed scholars for millennia and is still a major focus of debate in the cognitive science of language. The complexity of human language has hampered progress because studies of language–especially those involving computational modeling–have only been able to deal with small fragments of our linguistic skills. We suggest that the most recent generation of Large Language Models (LLMs) might finally provide the computational tools to determine empirically (...) how much of the human language ability can be acquired from linguistic experience. LLMs are sophisticated deep learning architectures trained on vast amounts of natural language data, enabling them to perform an impressive range of linguistic tasks. We argue that, despite their clear semantic and pragmatic limitations, LLMs have already demonstrated that human-like grammatical language can be acquired without the need for a built-in grammar. Thus, while there is still much to learn about how humans acquire and use language, LLMs provide full-fledged computational models for cognitive scientists to empirically evaluate just how far statistical learning might take us in explaining the full complexity of human language. (shrink)

Michel Janssen and Harvey Brown have driven a prominent recent debate concerning the direction of an alleged arrow of explanation between Minkowski spacetime and Lorentz invariance of dynamical laws in special relativity. In this article, I critically assess this controversy with the aim of clarifying the explanatory foundations of the theory. First, I show that two assumptions shared by the parties—that the dispute is independent of issues concerning spacetime ontology, and that there is an urgent need for a constructive interpretation (...) of special relativity—are problematic and negatively affect the debate. Second, I argue that the whole discussion relies on a misleading conception of the link between Minkowski spacetime structure and Lorentz invari-ance, a misconception that in turn sheds more shadows than light on our understand-ing of the explanatory nature and power of Einstein’s theory. I state that the arrow connecting Lorentz invariance and Minkowski spacetime is not explanatory and uni-directional, but analytic and bidirectional, and that this analytic arrow grounds the chronogeometric explanations of physical phenomena that special relativity offers. (shrink)

In this paper we investigate a semantics for first-order logic originally proposed by R. van Rooij to account for the idea that vague predicates are tolerant, that is, for the principle that if x is P, then y should be P whenever y is similar enough to x. The semantics, which makes use of indifference relations to model similarity, rests on the interaction of three notions of truth: the classical notion, and two dual notions simultaneously defined in terms of it, (...) which we call tolerant truth and strict truth. We characterize the space of consequence relations definable in terms of those and discuss the kind of solution this gives to the sorites paradox. We discuss some applications of the framework to the pragmatics and psycholinguistics of vague predicates, in particular regarding judgments about borderline cases. (shrink)

This special issue of Journal of Consciousness Studies brings together work from a range of philosophers, neuroscientists, psychologists, cognitive scientists, behavioural scientists, and computer scientists who are all united in their approach to answering questions about consciousness. The contributions to this journal are inspired by work presented at the inaugural Designed Mind Symposium, held at the University of Edinburgh Informatics Forum on 7-8 November 2017.

Rising economic inequality has aggravated long-standing labor market disparities, with one exception: government employment. This article considers the puzzle of black-white wage parity in the American public sector. African Americans are more likely to work in the public than in the private sector, and their wages are higher there. The article builds on prior work emphasizing institutional factors conditioning this outcome to argue that employee mobilization can motor it. As public sector unions gained political influence postwar, their large constituencies of (...) black, blue-collar workers, drawing on both militant and nonviolent tactics of the urbanizing civil rights movement, advocated for improved working conditions. Archival sources confirm this pattern at the federal level. The employment and activism of African Americans in low-skilled federal jobs pivoted union attention to blue-collar issues and directly contributed to the enactment of a transparent, universal wage schedule for the blue-collar federal workforce. The result was greater pay parity for African Americans, as well as for other disadvantaged groups. (shrink)

One way in which we might approach the challenge posed by the Sorites Paradox is considering that Sorites-susceptible predicates have several candidate extensions, or several ways in which these expressions can be made precise. For example, a candidate extension for the predicate ‘is a baby’ is the set of humans of less than two years, but also the set of those less than two years and one second, and of those less than two years and two seconds. In this chapter (...) we present and discuss two theories for vague predicates based on this idea: supervaluationism and subvaluationism. The chapter is structured in three parts. The first presents the super- and subvaluationist theories: their similarities and differences in the semantics, the resulting logics with their most characteristic features. The second reviews the super- and subvaluationist solutions to the Sorites Paradox and provides discussion on several controversies surrounding these theories. The third part introduces proof procedures for s’valuationist logics. (shrink)

Topics in Cognitive Science, Volume 14, Issue 3, Page 634-645, July 2022.

When we speak about different interpretations of quantum mechanics it is suggested that there is one single quantum theory that can be interpreted in different ways. However, after an explicit characterization of what it is to interpret quantum mechanics, the right diagnosis is that we have a case of predictively equivalent rival theories. I extract some lessons regarding the resulting underdetermination of theory choice. Issues about theoretical identity, theoretical and methodological pluralism, and the prospects for a realist stance towards quantum (...) theory can be properly addressed once we recognize that interpretations of quantum mechanics are rival theories. (shrink)

This paper presents and defends a way to add a transparent truth predicate to classical logic, such that and A are everywhere intersubstitutable, where all T-biconditionals hold, and where truth can be made compositional. A key feature of our framework, called STTT (for Strict-Tolerant Transparent Truth), is that it supports a non-transitive relation of consequence. At the same time, it can be seen that the only failures of transitivity STTT allows for arise in paradoxical cases.

According to a popular narrative, in 1932 von Neumann introduced a theorem that intended to be a proof of the impossibility of hidden variables in quantum mechanics. However, the narrative goes, Bell later spotted a flaw that allegedly shows its irrelevance. Bell’s widely accepted criticism has been challenged by Bub and Dieks: they claim that the proof shows that viable hidden variables theories cannot be theories in Hilbert space. Bub’s and Dieks’ reassessment has been in turn challenged by Mermin and (...) Schack. Hereby I critically assess their reply, with the aim of bringing further clarification concerning the meaning, scope and relevance of von Neumann’s theorem. I show that despite Mermin and Schack’s response, Bub’s and Dieks’ reassessment is quite correct, and that this reading gets strongly reinforced when we carefully consider the connection between von Neumann’s proof and Gleason’s theorem. (shrink)

This paper is concerned with the claim that supervaluationist consequence is not classical for a language including an operator for definiteness. Although there is some sense in which this claim is uncontroversial, there is a sense in which the claim must be qualified. In particular I defend Keefe's position according to which supervaluationism is classical except when the inference from phi to Dphi is involved. The paper provides a precise content to this claim showing that we might provide complete (and (...) sound) systems of deduction for supervaluationist consequence in which proofs are completely classical with the exception of a single last step (involving the above mentioned inference). (shrink)

In 1991 Larry Laudan and Jarret Leplin proposed a solution for the problem of empirical equivalence and the empirical underdetermination that is often thought to result from it. In this paper we argue that, even though Laudan and Leplin’s reasoning is essentially correct, their solution should be accurately assessed in order to appreciate its nature and scope. Indeed, Laudan and Leplin’s analysis does not succeed in completely removing the problem or, as they put it, in refuting the thesis of underdetermination (...) as a consequence of empirical equivalence. Instead, what they show is merely that science possesses tools that may eventually lead out of an underdetermination impasse. We apply their argument to a real case of two empirically equivalent theories: Lorentz’s ether theory and Einstein’s special relativity. This example illustrates the validity of Laudan and Leplin’s reasoning, but also shows the importance of the reassessment we argue for. (shrink)

It is a widespread belief that the Kochen-Specker theorem imposes a contextuality constraint on the ontology of beables in quantum hidden variables theories. On the other hand, after Bell’s influential critique, the importance of von Neumann’s wrongly called ‘impossibility proof’ has been severely questioned. However, Max Jammer, Jeffrey Bub and Dennis Dieks have proposed insightful reassessments of von Neumann’s theorem: what it really shows is that hidden variables theories cannot represent their beables by means of Hermitian operators in Hilbert space. (...) Hereby I show that i) the very same constraint can be derived from Gleason’s theorem, and that ii) if we consider the import of von Neumann’s and Gleason’s theorems, the relevance of the Kochen-Specker theorem for hidden variables theories gets substantially weakened: it does not force them to be contextual in any interesting sense of the term. (shrink)

Definition of the problem The present article focuses on the current international ethical debate on “responsible implementation” of expanded carrier screening to public healthcare systems. Expanded carrier screening is a novel genetic test which aims to provide information to couples about whether both partners carry a genetic variation for the same recessively inherited condition. It was introduced to the market by commercial laboratories in the U.S. in 2010; since about 2015, however, international debates have emerged on how and why to (...) offer the screening as a public health service. Arguments It is shown that, initially, enhancement of couples’ reproductive autonomy, not prevention of recessive disorders, has been established as the ethically well-founded aim and guiding principle of responsible implementation. Recently, however, in 2019, three well-known Dutch bioethicists argued that this aim has been embraced without much reflection and should therefore be replaced with the guiding principle of “responsible parenthood”. According to the latter, autonomous reproductive decision-making of couples or women is morally acceptable solely when carrier screening is done only during pregnancy. Before pregnancy, by contrast, couples are held to have a moral duty to take preventive measures if their future children are at risk of being affected by one of the “worst” recessive conditions. In the present paper, both of these conflicting ethical framings of expanded carrier screening are critically examined. Conclusions While the aim of reproductive autonomy also has problematic aspects, the notion of “responsible parenthood” is much more objectionable since it challenges voluntary participation in carrier screening, argues for directive genetic counseling, limits reproductive self-determination of women and couples, and introduces dubious concepts to the debate. (shrink)

In this paper I argue that the case of Einstein׳s special relativity vs. Hendrik Lorentz׳s ether theory can be decided in terms of empirical evidence, in spite of the predictive equivalence between the theories. In the historical and philosophical literature this case has been typically addressed focusing on non-empirical features. I claim that non-empirical features are not enough to provide a fully objective and uniquely determined choice in instances of empirical equivalence. However, I argue that if we consider arguments proposed (...) by Richard Boyd, and by Larry Laudan and Jarret Leplin, a choice based on non-entailed empirical evidence favoring Einstein׳s theory can be made. (shrink)

Substructural approaches to paradoxes have attracted much attention from the philosophical community in the last decade. In this paper we focus on two substructural logics, named ST and TS, along with two structural cousins, LP and K3. It is well known that LP and K3 are duals in the sense that an inference is valid in one logic just in case the contrapositive is valid in the other logic. As a consequence of this duality, theories based on either logic are (...) tightly connected since many of the arguments for and objections against one theory reappear in the other theory in dual form. The target of the paper is making explicit in exactly what way, if any, ST and TS are dual to one another. The connection will allow us to gain a more fine-grained understanding of these logics and of the theories based on them. In particular, we will obtain new insights on two questions concerning ST which are being intensively discussed in the current literature: whether ST preserves classical logic and whether it is LP in sheep’s clothing. Explaining in what way ST and TS are duals requires comparing these logics at a metainferential level. We provide to this end a uniform proof theory to decide on valid metainferences for each of the four logics. This proof procedure allows us to show in a very simple way how different properties of inferences (unsatisfiability, supersatisfiability and antivalidity) that behave in very different ways for each logic can be captured in terms of the validity of a metainference. (shrink)

Human dignity: social movements invoke it, several national constitutions enshrine it, and it features prominently in international human rights documents. But what is it, why is it important, and what is its relationship to human rights and social justice? Pablo Gilabert offers a systematic defence of the view that human dignity is the moral heart of justice. In Human Dignity and Human Rights (OUP 2019), he advanced an account of human dignity for the context of human rights discourse, which (...) covers the most urgent, basic claims of dignity. This book extends the dignitarian approach to more ambitious claims of maximal dignity of the kind encoded in democratic socialist conceptions of social justice. In particular, this book focuses on the just organization of working practices. It recasts in a dignitarian format the critique of capitalist society as involving exploitation, alienation, and domination of workers, and revamps a neglected but inspiring socialist principle. In its dignitarian interpretation, the Abilities/Needs Principle (‘From each according to their ability, to each according to their needs!’) yields reasonable and feasible requirements on social cooperation geared to empowering each human being to lead a flourishing life. While Human Dignity and Human Rights offered the first systematic philosophical account of human dignity in human rights discourse, Human Dignity and Social Justice presents the first systematic application of the dignitarian framework to the core ideals of democratic socialism. (shrink)

Several decades of behavioral research have established that variations in socioeconomic status are related to differences in cognitive performance. Neuroimaging and psychophysiological techniques have recently emerged as a method of choice to better understand the neurobiological processes underlying this phenomenon. Here we present a systematic review of a particular sub-domain of this field. Specifically, we used the PICOS approach to review studies investigating potential relationships between SES and scalp event-related brain potentials. This review found evidence that SES is related to (...) amplitude variations in a diverse range of ERPs: P1, N1, N2, Error-Related Negativities, N400, auditory evoked potentials, negative difference waves, P3 and slow waves. These ERPs include early, mid-latency and late potentials that reflect a broad range of cognitive processes. In this review, all SES effects on ERPs appeared to reflect an impairment or a less efficient form of task-related neural activity for low-SES compared to high-SES individuals. Overall, these results confirm that a wide variety of distinct neural processes with different functional meanings are sensitive to SES differences. The findings of this review also suggest that the relationship between SES and some ERP components may depend on the developmental stage of study participants. Results are further discussed in terms of the current limitations of this field and future avenues of research. (shrink)

In this paper I analyze three artificial examples of empirical equivalence: van Fraassen’s alternative formulations of Newton’s theory, the Poincaré-Reichenbach argument for the conventionality of geometry; and predictively equivalent ‘systems of the world’. These examples have received attention in the philosophy of science literature because they are supposed to illustrate the connection between predictive equivalence and underdetermination of theory choice. I conclude that this view is wrong. These examples of empirical equivalence are harmless with respect to the problem of underdetermination.

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the virtue of temperance as a moral competence in professional performance. The analysis relies on three different streams of literature: virtue ethics, positive psychology and competency-based management. The paper analyzes how temperance is defined in each of these perspectives. The paper proposes an integrative definition of temperance as “moral competence” and summarizes behaviors in business environments in which temperance plays a role.

En este artículo discuto la relevancia que tiene el autorrespeto en la teoría de la justicia de Rawls. Para alcanzar dicho objetivo, en primer lugar examino las nociones de valor moral y mérito y su vinculación con el autorrespeto como forma de autovaloración. En segundo lugar, especifico las bases que sustentan el autorrespeto al interior de su teoría. Finalmente, discuto la función que tiene el autorrespeto en la justificación de los principios de la justicia como equidad.

En este artículo discuto la importancia que tiene para la teoría de la justicia de Rawls el desarrollo del sentido de la justicia como condición para la estabilidad social. Para cumplir con dicho objetivo analizo la interpretación que Rawls ofrece de nuestra psicología moral con la finalidad de evaluar su rol en la aceptación de los principios de justicia, así como las razones para fundar dicha estabilidad en determinados sentimientos morales. El análisis anterior me permitirá concluir que la búsqueda de (...) bases naturales para fundar los sentimientos morales constituye para Rawls una vía alternativa tanto al deductivismo moral, así como a cualquier forma de fundamentación metafísica de los principios que guían nuestras prácticas sociales. (shrink)

This paper analyzes Davidson´s classical version of the principle of charity,in order to suggest a reformulation from which it is possible to extractsome consequences regarding the nature of understanding. Thus, it is putforward an abandonment of the intencionalist hermeneutics as well as theCartesi..

Les gouvernements de gauche néolibéraux ont mélangé promesses d’émancipation et réalité de la financiarisation, ce qui a révolté les gens et poussé l’opinion publique à droite. L’article met en scène un jeune philosophe italien très médiatisé passé du marxisme à la revendication de l’autorité. Le confusionnisme actuel se satisfait des performances des comiques issus des minorités qui parviennent à ridiculiser les hommes de droite que la rhétorique de gauche n’atteint plus.