La obra filosófica de Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889-1951) se divide en dos etapas diferenciadas, representadas por sus dos libros más emblemáticos: el Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus (1921) y las Investigaciones filosóficas (1953). En ambos períodos, Wittgenstein desarrolló ideas filosóficas extraordinariamente brillantes, originales e influyentes, que le harían merecer —por dos veces— el título de autor capital en la historia del pensamiento. El lenguaje, asunto fundamental que ocupó a Wittgenstein toda su vida, es también el tema clave del presente libro, centrado en su segunda (...) época. El autor, Manuel Pérez Otero, presenta las principales consideraciones wittgensteinianas sobre esa problemática así como diversas reflexiones que el estudio de la misma le ha permitido elaborar durante las últimas dos décadas. (shrink)

The relationship between students and higher education is seen to have become increasingly transactional. We approach the study of the student–HE relationship in a novel way, by focusing on students’ behaviour post-university, rather than on student narratives. Conceptually, the article builds on multidimensional views of student engagement and the differentiation between psychological transactional contracts – where students who achieve better academic results are more likely to donate – and relational contracts – where students donate more following engagement in social experiences. (...) Making use of longitudinal data on donation behaviour from over 50,000 alumni from an English university over two decades, we find that while students who get better degree outcomes are more likely to donate, the association between participation in social experiences and donations is much stronger. This questions prevalent transactional models of HE and underlines the limitations of purely consumerist views of the relation between students and higher education institutions, even in the marketized UK context. (shrink)

I deal here with one of Boghossian’s arguments against content externalism, related to ourinferential rationality(to use his term). According to his reasoning, the apriority of our logical abilities is inconsistent with certain externalist assumptions. Nevertheless, the problem constitutes an important challenge foranytheory of content, not just for externalism. Furthermore, when we examine what internalists may propose to solve the problem, we see that externalists have at their disposal a more promising repertoire of possible replies than internalists. In that sense, insofar (...) as Boghossian’s scenario is relevant to the debate externalism/internalism, it can be seen (against Boghossian’s original intention) as providing additional evidence for content externalism. (shrink)

This is the first German volume for more than one century, dealing with the two main subjects that have dominated the present reception of the Spanish philosopher and theologian Francisco Suárez (1548-1617): metaphysics and law theory. The contributors discuss both Suárez as an influential thinker of modern European school metaphysics and as a representant of a global law philosophy and ethics. They also debate on the combination of theory and praxis in the light of the question which commitment a universal (...) First Philosophy could have today. The volume is complimented by an introduction to Suárez's works and vita, an overview and guide to recent primary and secondary literature, as well as a name register.--publlisher's desciption. (shrink)

This work provides an original account of Francis Bacon's conception of natural inquiry. P'erez-Ramos sets Bacon in an epistemological tradition that postulates an intimate relation between objects of cognition and objects of construction, and regards the human knower as, fundamentally, a maker. By exploring the background to this tradition, and contrasting the responses of major philosophers of the 17th century with Bacon's own, the book charts Bacon's contribution to the modern philosophy of science.

La dispute LIV acheve l'ensemble monumental des Disputes metaphysiques de Suarez publiees en 1597. L'etudes des etres de raison (intentions logiques, relations logiques) constitue l'aboutissement de la division ontologique effectuee entre l'etant fini et l'etant infini a la dispute XXVIII. Alors que la metaphysique est identifiee a une science de l'etant comme etant reel, comment rendre compte de l'etude des etres de raison, de leur etantite et de leur fonction dans le systeme du savoir, sans remettre en question la legitimite (...) de ce dernier? (shrink)

Science is popularly understood as being an ideal of impartial algorithmic objectivity that provides us with a realistic description of the world down to the last detail. The essays collected in this book—written by some of the leading experts in the field—challenge this popular image right at its heart, taking as their starting point that science trades not only in truth, but in fiction, too. With case studies that range from physics to economics and to biology, _Fictions in Science_ reveals (...) that fictions are as ubiquitous in scientific narratives and practice as they are in any other human endeavor, including literature and art. Of course scientific activity, most prominently in the formal sciences, employs logically precise algorithmic thinking. However, the key to the predictive and technological success of the empirical sciences might well lie elsewhere—perhaps even in scientists’ extraordinary creative imagination instead. As these essays demonstrate, within the bounds of what is empirically possible, a scientist’s capacity for invention and creative thinking matches that of any writer or artist. (shrink)

Reflexión sobre el papel ejercido en las instituciones artísticas quienes intervienen en el fortalecimiento y perpetuación de un modelo de arte que en su propia vacuidad sólo actúa como reflejo de un orden económico que es desorden social.

The main goal of this paper is to contribute to the clarification of the dialectics between compatibilists and incompatibilists on free action. I describe a new incompatibilist position that has been neglected in the literature. I also provide a proper rationale for such a position. First, I present a justification for incompatibilism that is composed of an old idea and a new one. The old idea is the FRAP principle: freedom requires alternative possibilities. Compatibilists and incompatibilists alike usually share a (...) Key Assumption about how the open alternative possibilities allowed by indeterminism are supposed to support the libertarian case: the existence of alternative possibilities should make a metaphysically relevant difference concerning the control and/or the authorship of the agent over the action. The other component in the justification for incompatibilism is the rejection of the Key Assumption. Why to preserve FRAP when the Key Assumption is dropped? The answer has three parts: we have a strong pre-theoretical intuition in favour of FRAP; a crucial anti-libertarian argument, known as the Luck Argument, can be interpreted as showing that FRAP and the Key Assumption cannot both be true; the Luck Argument doesn't work when directed against FRAP itself. (shrink)

In John Etchemendy's book, The Concept of Logical Consequence, several arguments are put forth against the standard model‐theoretic account of logical consequence and logical truth. I argue in this article that crucial parts of Etchemendy's attack depend on a failure to distinguish two senses of logic and two correlative senses of being something a logical question. According to one of these senses, the logic of a language, L, is the set of logical truths of L. In the other sense, logic (...) is a theoretical discipline whose aim is to characterize logical properties and it can be identified with the set of sentences on what, and why, the extension of the set of logical truths of a particular language is. Some particular claims by Etchemendy about the status assigned to the axiom of infinity in the model‐theoretic account are criticized and shown to be erroneous because of that conflation. (shrink)

'Unit of selection' is a polysemic expression, meaning interactor, replicator/reproducer or manifestor of adaptation/type-1 agent in today's biological research. This Element presents each of these concepts and demonstrates the necessity of their isolation.

v. 1. De natura legis -- v. 2. De legis obligatione -- v. 3. De lege naturali -- v. 4. De iure gentium -- v. 5. De civili potestate -- v. 6. De politica obligatione -- v. 7-8. De lege positiva canonica.

We describe the role of morphosyntactic categories and syntactic dependencies in the process of semantically interpreting composite expressions. Special attention will be paid to the combinatorial properties conveyed by morphosyntactic categories such as nominals and verbs, as well as by syntactic dependencies like subject, direct object, or nominal modification. The semantic characterisation of these grammatical structures is based on cognitive abilities and abstract conceptualisations. This will provide us with theoretical arguments to review and extend some basic assumptions of Cognitive Grammar (...) and related work. (shrink)

In his outstanding book Knowledge and its Limits, Williamson claims that we have inductive evidence for some negative theses concerning the prospects of defining knowledge, like this: knowing cannot be defined in accordance with a determinate traditional conjunctive scheme; defends a theory of mental states, mental concepts and the relations between the two, from which we would obtain additional, not merely inductive, evidence for this negative thesis; and presents an alternative definition of knowledge. Here I consider these issues and extract (...) two relevant conclusions: Williamson's theory of states and concepts only supports the negative thesis because this theory would explain too much, since it imposes implausible necessary limitations on possible uses of concepts and linguistic expressions. So, there is no appropriate non-inductive evidence for the negative thesis. Williamson's own definition of knowledge is at risk. (shrink)

Les pel.lícules del laberint és un assaig a l'entorn de la memòria personal, així com sobre els fonaments que han ajudat a bastir-la. En primer lloc, la filosofia, o millor dit, el que queda de la filosofia quan hom deixa de fer notes a peu de pàgina i ha d'enfrontar-se a la tasca de viure, i en segon, el cinema, en concret una selecció de deu pel·lícules triades amb un criteri subjectiu i autobiogràfic que comprèn films com Apocalypse Now, La (...) Dolce Vita o Taxi Driver, que són, alhora, el testimoni i la conseqüència de l'acompliment del nostre destí segons Nietzsche: l'adveniment del nihilisme. (shrink)

Según el particularismo semántico modal la función referencial de los términos singulares —también cuando aparecen en enunciados modales— es irreducible mediante funciones descriptivas y lógicas. Kripke es quien ha defendido vigorosamente esa tesis; elucidamos en ese sentido su rechazo a cierta interpretación metafórica de los mundos posibles como lugares lejanos vistos con telescopios.

Contemporary debates concerning warrant transmission take for granted this thesis: when warrant transmission fails the argument fails. I challenge this thesis. An argument with conclusion C, addressed to subject S, can be cogent in the sense that recognition that the premises entail (or make highly likely) C can rationally foster in S the belief in C, without the warrant for C necessarily being gained (or reinforced) by such recognition. A key idea is to accept that some arguments should be understood (...) in a way that involves the abandonment of two characteristic idealizations imposed on rational thinkers by Bayesian modelling. (shrink)

Diverse epistemologists have proposed this Discriminability Postulate : If S knows that p, then S can discriminate between the case that p and other relevant alternatives. I propose that DP derives from other, more basic postulate, that sees knowledge as providing some Warrant Against the Risk of Error : If S knows that p, then this knowledge confers on S’s belief that p a warrant against the risk of error. The kind of error mentioned in WARE is the error consisting (...) in mistaking the case that p for some of its relevant alternatives. But the possibility of mistaking in that sense entails that the subject has appropriate representational access to the two items that have to be distinguished. The fact that DP derives from WARE provides grounds to think that if DP is true, then the discriminative capacities than it involves are not jeopardized when the subject cannot have representational access to one of the corresponding items. A corollary of this idea is a weakening of DP and a subsequent reduction of its potential to raise sceptical doubts against claims of knowledge. (shrink)