The essay aims to discuss a global skepticism about epistemic justification called Agrippa's Trilemma. Based on its exposition, the article will deal with the infinitist alternative of justification, traditional foundationalism and the hypothesis of the infallibility of introspection. It concludes that introspection beliefs are not verifiable propositional attitudes, representing an advantage to the infinitist theory. Keywords: Skepticism; Infinitism; Agrippa’s Trilemma; Epistemic Justification.

Skepticism in epistemology refers to the supposedly irrational attitude of suspending judgment about all beliefs, particularly those taken for granted. The skeptical attitude presses philosophy to investigate the conditions under which knowledge and justification rather than accidental truths can be arrived at. In the first chapter, we will investigate how to construct a form of radical skepticism known as Pyrrhonian skepticism; we will see how Agrippa's Trilemma builds three ways of skeptical defense to object to three possible conditions in the (...) structuring of epistemic justification. In the second chapter, we will examine infinitism as a possible answer to the trilemma, as well as the conceptual bases that make possible the existence of this possible solution to the skeptical challenge. In the third, the main objection to infinitism known as the finite mind problem will be analyzed. In the fourth chapter, we will look at an alternative formulation of the trilemma, as well as the challenges this approach poses to the anti-skeptical response. (shrink)

The present paper has as its theme the sociological aspect of the use of slang in a socio educational environment. Its main purpose is to describe and analyze the social distance in a learning environment, according to Bourdieu's concepts of cultural capital and habitus. In order to develop the classwork, some workshops about a slang dictionary have been held. The qualitative data provided by the pedagogical practice are presented, based on the reports of the meetings so that we have been (...) able to analyze the concepts presented by the young people. From this, it has been verified the symbolic character of words and expressions as a vector of social distancing by the incorporated cultural capital. (shrink)

Is logic a normative science for reasoning? Do its principles play any role in the rationality of our beliefs? Being logically consistent is supposed to be a principle for the theoretical reasoning. Furthermore, it seems that logical consistency imposes a constraint on rational belief. However, the preface paradox puts this principle to the test, since the ‘state of preface’ would be a rational state. We will present an analysis according to a Bayesian model of degrees of belief in order to (...) exemplify a (dis)solution of the paradox and, simultaneously, the maintenance of the principle of consistency. (shrink)

Abstract: The contemporary discussion of radical skepticism – the category of skepticism that defends the thesis that knowledge is impossible – is presented in two different arguments: skeptical arguments of epistemic closure (AFE) and epistemic underdetermination (ASE). We intend to describe how the skeptical paradox is constructed. Then, how the two classes of argument are related to the principles of underdetermination and epistemic closure. Finally, we will present the logical argument which shows that AFE implies ASE and not the opposite; (...) we will follow the proof steps presented by Duncan Pritchard (2005), to reinforce some aspects about the structure of the skeptical argument for the thesis that ASE is the standard argument of radical skepticism. (shrink)

Philosophy undergraduate course completion work published in 2015. This work examines Frege's concept of logical law and its relationship to other normative and descriptive approaches in the history of philosophy, as well as epistemological conceptions of the a priori aspects of mathematical knowledge.

Loyalty is considered central to people’s moral life, yet little is known about how people think about what it means to be loyal. We used a prototype approach to understand how loyalty is represented in Colombia and the United States and how these representations mediate attributions of loyalty and moral judgments of loyalty violations. Across 7 studies (N = 1,984), we found cross-cultural similarities in the associative meaning of loyalty (Study 1) but found differences in the centrality of features associated (...) with loyalty (Study 2) and the latent structure of loyalty representations (Study 3). Colombians represent loyalty in terms of more general moral characteristics, while US participants represent loyalty in terms of interpersonal commitment, both in contrast with current approaches to loyalty. By comparing representations of loyalty and honesty, we establish that difference in loyalty conceptualizations reflect a different way of thinking about loyalty rather than morality more generally (Study 4). Further, Colombians attributed greater loyalty to individuals with general moral characteristics compared to participants from the United States sample (Study 5) and were more likely to classify non-loyal values as loyalty-related (Study 6). While the centrality of prototypical features predicts categorizing norm violations as loyalty-related, differences in prototypical structure account for differences in the severity of moral judgment for such violations (Study 7), which suggests that loyalty representations have similar functions even though these representations differ in structural characteristics. (shrink)

Knowledge of mechanisms is critical for causal reasoning. We contrasted two possible organizations of causal knowledge—an interconnected causal network, where events are causally connected without any boundaries delineating discrete mechanisms; or a set of disparate mechanisms—causal islands—such that events in different mechanisms are not thought to be related even when they belong to the same causal chain. To distinguish these possibilities, we tested whether people make transitive judgments about causal chains by inferring, given A causes B and B causes C, (...) that A causes C. Specifically, causal chains schematized as one chunk or mechanism in semantic memory led to transitive causal judgments. On the other hand, chains schematized as multiple chunks led to intransitive judgments despite strong intermediate links. Normative accounts of causal intransitivity could not explain these intransitive judgments. (shrink)

In this article, I explicate Kant’s position on the wide right to abortion. That is, I explore the extent to which, according to Kant’s practical philosophy, abortion is punishable, even if it involves an unjust infringement of the right to life. By focusing on the state’s right to punish, rather than the right to life or the onset of personhood, I use Kant to expose a novel range of issues and questions about the legal status of abortion (and criminal punishment (...) more generally). The article is divided into four sections. In the first, I lay the groundwork for Kant’s theory of rights and briefly canvass some of the literature on Kantian approaches to abortion. In the second, I look at Kant’s discussion of equivocal rights. In the third, I turn to Kant’s discussions of capital punishment and suicide. In the fourth, I examine Kant on honor killings, and I use his position on infanticide in order to extrapolate and explain his ideas about the right to punish in the context of abortion. (shrink)

Este artigo tem como objetivo compreender a institucionalização e o funcionamento do Conselho de Alimentação Escolar enquanto um conselho gestor de política pública no município de Ijuí, localizado no Noroeste do Estado do Rio Grande do Sul, bem como analisar sua atuação e os desafios da gestão. O referencial teórico utilizado foi de conselhos gestores de políticas públicas na perspectiva da gestão social. Trata-se de uma pesquisa exploratória, cuja estratégia de investigação foi o estudo de caso único, com abordagem qualitativa (...) dos dados coletados por meio de pesquisa documental e entrevistas. Os resultados apontam a atuação do CAE em Ijuí/RS como efetiva, apesar dos entraves enfrentados. O principal desafio identificado foi quanto à recomposição de seus membros, processo que está ocorrendo com êxito. Conclui-se que a institucionalização de um CAE ocorre a partir da interação entre os diferentes órgãos que compõem um programa governamental, como no caso do PNAE, e que o seu funcionamento depende da atuação efetiva de todos os atores envolvidos. (shrink)

The story of God -- The story of the church -- The story of ethics -- The story of Christian ethics -- Universal ethics -- Subversive ethics -- Ecclesial ethics -- Good order -- Good life -- Good relationships -- Good beginnings and endings -- Good earth.

In Improvisation, Samuel Wells defines improvisation in the theater as "a practice through which actors seek to develop trust in themselves and one another in order that they may conduct unscripted dramas without fear." Sounds a lot like life, doesn't it? Building trust, overcoming fear, conducting relationships, and making choices--all without a script. Wells establishes theatrical improvisation as a model for Christian ethics, a matter of "faithfully improvising on the Christian tradition." He views the Bible not as a "script" (...) but as a "training school" that shapes the habits and practices of the Christian community. Drawing on scriptural narratives and church history, Wells explains six practices that characterize both improvisation and Christian ethics. His model of improvisation reinforces the goal of Christian ethics--to teach Christians to "embody their faith in the practices of discipleship all the time."--Publisher description. (shrink)

O presente artigo apresenta-se como esboço de um estudo mais aprofundado do confronto teorético entre a filosofia de Kierkegaard e a do último Schelling. Depois de uma breve introdução de carácter histórico sobre as circunstâncias que levaram Kierkegaard a Berlin, onde haveria de permanecer entre Outubro de 1841 e Março de 1842, em ordem a poder assistir pessoalmente aos desenvolvimentos da "filosofia positiva" de Schelling (na qual esperava poder encontrar uma alternativa à lógica hegeliana) expressos nas lições sobre "Filosofia da (...) Revelação", o artigo concentra-se em particular sobre o tema da relação entre consciência e Revelação no primeiro capítulo das Migalhas Filosóficas de Kierkegaard e na lição IX da Filosofia da Revelação de Schelling. Mostra-se, assim, que apesar de nas duas obras ser possível encontrar uma relação particular entre a consciência humana e Deus ("condição" para acolher a Revelação), uma análise atenta dos textos mostra que na realidade as premissas teóricas dos dois autores são praticamente opostas. /// The article aims to present an outline of a theoretical comparison between the philosophy of Kierkegaard and the one of the latest Schelling. After a brief historical introduction about the circumstances that brought Kierkegaard to travel to Berlin (October 1841-March 1842) in order to personally follow the development of Schelling's "positive philosophy" (in which he hoped to find an alternative to the Hegelian logic), as particularly expressed in the lectures on the "Philosophy of Revelation", the article focuses on the relationship between Consciousness and Revelation in Kierkegaard's first chapter of Philosophical Fragments and Schelling's lecture IX in Philosophy of Revelation. However, if in both works it is possible to see how revelation constitutes a particular relationship between human consciousness and God (the so called "condition" to receive Revelation), the truth is that a close analysis of the texts shows how the theoretical premises of Kierkegaard and Schelling are almost opposite. (shrink)

El artículo propone trabajar junto al film Las mil y una (Navas, 2020, Argentina) y la noción de penumbra, para poner a reflexionar la noción de archivo y su temporalidad, los afectos y la sexualidad disidente. Para ello retoma la propuesta de Ann Cvetkovich de volver sobre el trauma queer para analizar la diversidad de respuestas colectivas que se pueden generar, condensadas en un posible archivo de sentimientos. Siguiendo a Natalia Taccetta, repaso allí las implicancias de un archivo que atienda (...) a las circulaciones sexo-afectivas y su relación íntima con la temporalidad, con la noción de crononormatividad de Elizabeth Freeman. El cine permite, apunta Taccetta, volver al pasado no solo cognoscible sino perceptible: Las mil y una integra el archivo de nuestras reflexiones sobre la identidad, las temporalidades en que con-vivimos y las economías afectivas que estas (des)habilitan. Poniendo en jaque la contemporaneidad, su título reenvía tanto al clásico relato de Scheherezade como a la expresión coloquial de una cadena de acontecimientos desafortunados, mientras recupera el nombre del barrio correntino que inspira y sitúa el film. Los personajes invitan a un parcours de orientaciones queer, en cuanto no heteronormadas pero tampoco clasificables en otras identidades. En un escenario sexoafectivo lejos de las apps y sus taxonomías, el film abre paso a las tensiones no resueltas entre la búsqueda y el escondite, la promesa y la amenaza que conviven en la penumbra. (shrink)

L’immanence de l’analyse a été une base méthodologique importante pour une éthique de l’interprétation, en retenant le texte comme la plateforme critique où les actes de communication doivent converger selon le principe régulateur de la consistance sémantique de l’entente ou du différend. Le périmètre textuel devrait fonctionner comme le plan d’homogénéisation des tensions herméneutiques potentiellement hétérogènes. Toutefois, l’hétérogénéité ne peut qu’émerger de nouveau dans la textualité; par exemple, pendant l’expérience perceptive de l’oeuvre d’art, les signifiants peuvent devenir des interprétants du (...) texte en démarrant d’autres articulations sémiotiques, détachées des grammaires qui ont permis l’accès prioritaire à la signification. La délimitation de l’objet artistique est déjà une question interprétative, l’oeuvre habitant déjà un espace d’implémentation publique où elle est en relation avec d’autres identités culturelles. Par ailleurs, on connait bien la question classique de l’intertextualité, tout comme la présence d’une intentionnalité liée au cadre pratique de la production historique de l’oeuvre. Aujourd’hui, les développements des études sur l’oeuvre d’art peuvent dépasser la simple accumulation des problématiques et la parataxe d’applications disciplinaires, afin de repérer une syntaxe d’approches coordonnées. Cette visée a besoin avant tout d’interconnecter les distinctions entre perception, interprétation, analyse et usage de l’oeuvre d’art avec les différentes déterminations spatiales de cette dernière : l’énoncé, l’énonciation, l’intertexte, l’espace d’implémentation. (shrink)

Journal Name: Semiotica Issue: Ahead of print.

[Samuel Scheffler] Some egalitarian liberals have proposed a division of moral labour between social institutions and individual agents, but the division-of-labour metaphor has been understood in different ways. This paper aims to disentangle some of these different understandings, with an eye to clarifying the appeal of the egalitarian-liberal project and the challenges that it faces. The idea of a division of moral labour is best understood as the expression of a strategy for accommodating diverse values. It is not an (...) apology for economic self-interest or a device for justifying personal acquisitiveness. /// [Véronique Munoz-Dardé] Are there distinctively political values? Certain egalitarians seem to think that equality is one such value. Scheffler's contribution to the symposium seeks to articulate a division of moral labour between norms of personal morality and the principles of justice that regulate social institutions, and using this suggests that the egalitarian critique of Rawls can be deflected. In this paper, instead, I question the status of equality as an intrinsic value. I argue that an egalitarianism which focuses on the status of equality as valuable in itself embraces a theory of value with the worst elements of utilitarianism while leaving behind any of the intuitive appeal that utilitarianism has. In its place I press that we need a political conception of egalitarianism which stresses the role we engage beyond those found in the norms of personal morality. (shrink)

I am writing on moral knowledge in Locke's Essay Concerning Human Understanding. There are two basic parts. In the first part, I articulate and attack a predominant interpretation of the Essay . This interpretation attributes to Locke the view that he did not write in the Essay anything that would be inconsistent with his early views in the Questions Concerning the Laws of Nature that there exists a single, ultimate, moral standard, i.e., the Law of Nature. For example, John Colman, (...) in his book John Locke's Moral Philosophy , argues that even though Locke explains in the Essay that we arbitrarily create our moral notions, they are still objective since they are bound together with the Law of Nature. Colman explains that the features of human nature relevant to the derivation of the Law of Nature are universally shared needs and concerns . I argue that this presupposes a view of Locke which assumes that there are essences of species independent of our beliefs about them. However, I attempt to show from the text of the Essay that this view cannot be supported. ;In the second part, I argue that the text of the Essay supports two alternative theses. The first is that given the kind of metaphysical world-view presupposed by the corpuscular method of science employed within the Essay, coupled with Locke's commitment to the possibility of moral knowledge, he was left with only one option with reference to ethics, viz., to make moral goodness or evil a mind-dependent relation between a rule and an action, instead of a property of an action or person which exists independently of our moral beliefs. This view is logically inconsistent with the existence of the Law of Nature. The second is that Locke has a semantical view of moral claims which is consistent with his relational view of moral goodness, viz., the primary function of moral judgments is to recommend behavior for ourselves and others. I described. However, Locke explains in the Essay that the opposite takes place with respect to our moral notions: events and persons must conform to the moral notion. ;On the account that I offer, Locke's views on moral epistemology are much closer to David Hume's than many have supposed, and correspondingly, anticipate the more skeptical views of moral epistemology in the twentieth century. (shrink)

Descartes is widely portrayed as the arch proponent of “the epistemological transparency of thought” (or simply, “Transparency”). The most promising version of this view—Transparency-through-Introspection—says that introspecting (i.e., inwardly attending to) a thought guarantees certain knowledge of that thought. But Descartes rejects this view and provides numerous counterexamples to it. I argue that, instead, Descartes’s theory of self-knowledge is just an application of his general theory of knowledge. According to his general theory, certain knowledge is acquired only through clear and distinct (...) intellection. Thus, in his view, certain knowledge of one’s thoughts is acquired only through clear and distinct intellection of one’s thoughts. Introspection is a form of intellection and it can be clear and distinct. Ordinarily, however, introspection isn’t clear and distinct but is instead confused with dubitable perceptions of bodies. To make introspection clear and distinct, we need to “sharply separate” it from all perceptions of bodies by doubting all perceptions of bodies. Without such radical doubt, introspection remains confused and we lack certain knowledge not just of the specific features of our thoughts, but even of the minimal claim that a thought exists. Far from being the high priest of Transparency, Descartes is radically opposed to it. (shrink)

In this superb introduction, Samuel Freeman introduces and assesses the main topics of Rawls' philosophy. Starting with a brief biography and charting the influences on Rawls' early thinking, he goes on to discuss the heart of Rawls's philosophy: his principles of justice and their practical application to society. Subsequent chapters discuss Rawls's theories of liberty, political and economic justice, democratic institutions, goodness as rationality, moral psychology, political liberalism, and international justice and a concluding chapter considers Rawls' legacy. Clearly setting (...) out the ideas in Rawls' masterwork, _A Theory of Justice_, Samuel Freeman also considers Rawls' other key works, including _Political Liberalism_ and _The Law of Peoples_. An invaluable introduction to this deeply influential philosopher, _Rawls_ is essential reading for anyone coming to his work for the first time. (shrink)

The processes underwriting the acquisition of culture remain unclear. How are shared habits, norms, and expectations learned and maintained with precision and reliability across large-scale sociocultural ensembles? Is there a unifying account of the mechanisms involved in the acquisition of culture? Notions such as “shared expectations,” the “selective patterning of attention and behaviour,” “cultural evolution,” “cultural inheritance,” and “implicit learning” are the main candidates to underpin a unifying account of cognition and the acquisition of culture; however, their interactions require greater (...) specification and clarification. In this article, we integrate these candidates using the variational (free-energy) approach to human cognition and culture in theoretical neuroscience. We describe the construction by humans of social niches that afford epistemic resources called cultural affordances. We argue that human agents learn the shared habits, norms, and expectations of their culture through immersive participation in patterned cultural practices that selectively pattern attention and behaviour. We call this process “thinking through other minds” (TTOM) – in effect, the process of inferring other agents’ expectations about the world and how to behave in social context. We argue that for humans, information from and about other people's expectations constitutes the primary domain of statistical regularities that humans leverage to predict and organize behaviour. The integrative model we offer has implications that can advance theories of cognition, enculturation, adaptation, and psychopathology. Crucially, this formal (variational) treatment seeks to resolve key debates in current cognitive science, such as the distinction between internalist and externalist accounts of theory of mind abilities and the more fundamental distinction between dynamical and representational accounts of enactivism. (shrink)

This paper distinguishes between two arguments based on measurement robustness and defends the epistemic value of robustness for the assessment of measurement reliability. I argue that the appeal to measurement robustness in the assessment of measurement is based on a different inferential pattern and is not exposed to the same objections as the no-coincidence argument which is commonly associated with the use of robustness to corroborate individual results. This investigation sheds light on the precise meaning of reliability that emerges from (...) measurement assessment practice. In addition, by arguing that the measurement assessment robustness argument has similar characteristics across the physical, social and behavioural sciences, I defend the idea that there is continuity in the notion of measurement reliability across sciences. (shrink)

Intertheoretic reduction in physics aspires to be both to be explanatory and perfectly general: it endeavors to explain why an older, simpler theory continues to be as successful as it is in terms of a newer, more sophisticated theory, and it aims to relate or otherwise account for as many features of the two theories as possible. Despite often being introduced as straightforward cases of intertheoretic reduction, candidate accounts of the reduction of general relativity to Newtonian gravitation have either been (...) insufficiently general or rigorous, or have not clearly been able to explain the empirical success of Newtonian gravitation. Building on work by Ehlers and others, I propose a different account of the reduction relation that is perfectly general and meets the explanatory demand one would make of it. In doing so, I highlight the role that a topology on the collection of all spacetimes plays in defining the relation, and how the selection of the topology corresponds with broader or narrower classes of observables that one demands be well-approximated in the limit. (shrink)

Contains material previously published in the author's Socrates to Sartre : a history of philosophy; Philosophical problems.

This paper examines the interplay of semantics and pragmatics within the domain of film. Films are made up of individual shots strung together in sequences over time. Though each shot is disconnected from the next, combinations of shots still convey coherent stories that take place in continuous space and time. How is this possible? The semantic view of film holds that film coherence is achieved in part through a kind of film language, a set of conventions which govern the relationships (...) between shots. In this paper, we develop and defend a new version of the semantic view. We articulate it for a pair of conventions that govern spatial relations between viewpoints. One such rule is already well-known; sometimes called the "180° Rule," we term it the X-Constraint; to this we add a previously unrecorded rule, the T-Constraint. As we show, both have the effect, in different ways, of limiting the way that viewpoint can shift through space from shot to shot over the course of a film sequence. Such constraints, we contend, are analogous to relations of discourse coherence that are widely recognized in the linguistic domain. If film is to have a language, it is a language made up of rules like these. (shrink)

Samuel Freeman was a student of the influential philosopher John Rawls, he has edited numerous books dedicated to Rawls' work and is arguably Rawls' foremost interpreter. This volume collects new and previously published articles by Freeman on Rawls. Among other things, Freeman places Rawls within historical context in the social contract tradition, and thoughtfully addresses criticisms of this position. Not only is Freeman a leading authority on Rawls, but he is an excellent thinker in his own right, and these (...) articles will be useful to a wide range of scholars interested in Rawls and the expanse of his influence. (shrink)

Among the most pervasive and fundamental assumptions in cognitive science is that the human mind (or mind-brain) is a mechanism of some sort: a physical device com- posed of functionally specifiable subsystems. On this view, functional decomposition – the analysis of the overall system into functionally specifiable parts – becomes a central project for a science of the mind, and the resulting theories of cognitive archi- tecture essential to our understanding of human psychology.

We sometimes fail unwittingly to do things that we ought to do. And we are, from time to time, culpable for these unwitting omissions. We provide an outline of a theory of responsibility for unwitting omissions. We emphasize two distinctive ideas: (i) many unwitting omissions can be understood as failures of appropriate vigilance, and; (ii) the sort of self-control implicated in these failures of appropriate vigilance is valuable. We argue that the norms that govern vigilance and the value of self-control (...) explain culpability for unwitting omissions. (shrink)

In this paper, we focus on whether and to what extent we judge that people are responsible for the consequences of their forgetfulness. We ran a series of behavioral studies to measure judgments of responsibility for the consequences of forgetfulness. Our results show that we are disposed to hold others responsible for some of their forgetfulness. The level of stress that the forgetful agent is under modulates judgments of responsibility, though the level of care that the agent exhibits toward performing (...) the forgotten action does not. We argue that this result has important implications for a long-running debate about the nature of responsible agency. (shrink)

Each volume of this series of companions to major philosophers contains specially commissioned essays by an international team of scholars and will serve as a reference work for students and nonspecialists. John Rawls is the most significant and influential philosopher and moral philosopher of the twentieth century. His work has profoundly shaped contemporary discussions of social, political and economic justice in philosophy, law, political science, economics and other social disciplines. In this exciting collection of new essays, many of the world's (...) leading political and moral theorists discuss the full range of Rawls's contribution to the concepts of political and economic justice, democracy, liberalism, constitutionalism, and international justice. There are also assessments of Rawls's controversial relationships with feminism, utilitarianism and communitarianism. New readers will find this the most accessible guide to Rawls currently available. Advanced students and specialists will find a conspectus of recent developments in the interpretation of Rawls. (shrink)