En este trabajo se analiza, en el marco de la epistemología social aplicada (es decir, desde una perspectiva analítica y normativa) el debate en torno a la confiabilidad de Wikipedia como fuente de conocimiento, proponiendo que es fiable y que, por tanto, debiéramos confiar en ella para adquirir creencias verdaderas. En primer lugar, se analizan las limitaciones y aciertos de las posturas tradicionales acerca de la fiabilidad de Wikipedia, para luego cuestionar el rol epistemológico que ha adquirido la noción de (...) confianza en dicho debate. En segundo lugar, se introduce la noción de “confianza afectiva” propia de la epistemología del testimonio para contrastarla con la “confianza esperanza”, esto con el fin de caracterizar la normatividad social tanto interna como externa que rige y hace fiable a Wikipedia. Finalmente, se resumen los resultados en una serie de razones de orden epistémico para confiar en Wikipedia como fuente de conocimiento como lo son el poseer virtudes en relación con la difusión de información, mecanismos internos y externos que la sustentan, y su supervivencia al colapso del contexto en internet. De este modo, se sugiere que es adecuado, desde el punto de vista epistemológico, emplear con confianza Wikipedia en nuestra vida cotidiana. (shrink)

En este trabajo pretendemos dar cuenta de cómo los criterios de delimitación entre el conocimiento animal y el conocimiento humano en la epistemología contemporánea no son adecuados para agotar la complejidad epistemológica del fenómeno. Buscamos, así, establecer una tercera vía de interpretación, proponiendo una taxonomía de niveles que satisfaga las necesidades de clasificación del conocimiento animal sin dejar de lado la particularidad propia del conocimiento humano, a saber, la reflexividad. De esta manera, se pretende reinterpretar cómo ha sido concebido el (...) conocimiento animal en la epistemología contemporánea para reconstruir, a partir de las posturas mencionadas, una vía alternativa que dé cuenta, adecuadamente, de las particularidades del conocimiento animal en relación con el conocimiento humano. (shrink)

En este trabajo pretendo señalar en qué consiste el debate entre reduccionismo y antireduccionismo respecto de la justificación testimonial en la epistemología del testimonio. Para esto, se procederá de la siguiente manera: se expondrá las consideraciones epistemológicas de Hume y Reid sobre el testimonio para dar cuenta del reduccionismo y el antireducionismo en filosofía de la modernidad-temprana; por otra parte, se expondrá cómo se ha desarrollado dicho debate en la epistemología contemporánea. De esta manera, se pretende presentar una visión sistemática (...) de las posturas involucradas en el debate entre reduccionismo y antireduccionismo en a la epistemología social. Palabras clave: testimonio; reduccionismo; antireduccionismo; epistemología social. (shrink)

En este trabajo se discute acerca de la posibilidad de llevar a cabo afirmaciones epistémicamente objetivas respecto del arte a partir de la filosofía de la sociedad de John Searle y de la epistemología del desacuerdo. Para ello se considerarán las distinciones ontológicamente objetivo/subjetivo y epistémicamente objetivo/subjetivo en relación con el arte como fenómeno relativo a la intencionalidad, señalándolo como ontológicamente subjetivo y epistémicamente objetivo. Luego se discutirá acerca del desacuerdo en torno a obras polémicas de arte y de la (...) disolución de tales desacuerdos al considerar la oposición entre creencia y aceptación según la propuesta de Jonathan Cohen. Finalmente, mostrando la posibilidad de generar acuerdos en torno al juicio de gustos, se señala el rol de las instituciones relativas al arte en nuestra comprensión del estatuto artístico de las obras polémicas. De esta manera, se pretende señalar que la apreciación de una obra como ‘arte’ es una cuestión objetiva dependiente de las instituciones que operan en nuestra sociedad. (shrink)

En este artículo exploro los vínculos entre la epistemología de las virtudes y la epistemología del testimonio a partir del análisis del rumor como fenómeno epistemológico. Para esto, en (1) se da cuenta del debate sobre la confiabilidad del rumor y de cómo este derivó en un debate sobre el carácter de los agentes en el intercambio de rumores; en (2) se analizan los actos de rumoring y rumor-mongering a partir de la noción de motivación epistémica; finalmente, en (3) se (...) analizan estos actos a partir de la noción de akrasia epistémica para dar cuenta de la virtud de la continencia en relación con el rumor, buscando con ello señalar cómo la epistemología de las virtudes sirve para caracterizar en profundidad el carácter de los agentes en el intercambio de rumores. En consecuencia, se defiende la idea que una comprensión adecuada de las propiedades epistémica del rumor suscita analizar dicho fenómeno con el enfoque dado por la epistemología de las virtudes responsabilista. (shrink)

Como una respuesta a la problemática mencionada, Axel Gelfert, profesor e investigador asociado en el Departamento de Filosofı́a de la Universidad de Singapur, publicó en 2014 su A critical introduction to testimony, el cual ha logrado posicionarse como una lectura obligatoria para aquellos interesados en la epistemologı́a del testimonio. En su libro se dedica a recorrer de manera propedéutica cada uno de los tópicos actuales de la epistemologı́a del testimonio, ello sin dejar de lado la profundidad y exhaustividad requerida para (...) una exposición apropiada de la complejidad epistemológica del testimonio como objeto de estudio. (shrink)

Ignorance is often a perfectly good excuse. There are interesting debates about whether non-culpable factual ignorance and mistake subvert obligation, but little disagreement about whether non-culpable factual ignorance and mistake exculpate. What about agents who have all the relevant facts in view but fail to meet their obligations because they do not have the right moral beliefs? If their ignorance of their obligations derives from mistaken moral beliefs or from ignorance of the moral significance of the facts they have in (...) view, should they be excused for failing to meet their moral obligations? It is not obvious that they should. In this paper we argue that the best non-skeptical accounts of moral responsibility acknowledge that factual ignorance and mistake will diminish moral responsibility in a way that moral ignorance and mistake will not. That is because factual ignorance is often non-culpable so long as it meets certain merely procedural epistemic standards but the same is not true of moral ignorance. Our argument is that the assumption that it is gets the standards of culpability for moral ignorance wrong, and that the mistake is encouraged by the thought that culpability in general requires an instance of known wrongdoing: that acting wrongly requires de dicto unresponsiveness to one’s obligations at some stage. We deny this and conclude that, therefore, ignorance and mistaken belief are indeed often perfectly good excuses – but far less often than some philosophers claim. (shrink)

This collection highlights the new trend away from rationalism and toward empiricism in the epistemology of modality. Accordingly, the book represents a wide range of positions on the empirical sources of modal knowledge. Readers will find an introduction that surveys the field and provides a brief overview of the work, which progresses from empirically-sensitive rationalist accounts to fully empiricist accounts of modal knowledge. Early chapters focus on challenges to rationalist theories, essence-based approaches to modal knowledge, and the prospects for naturalizing (...) modal epistemology. The middle chapters present positive accounts that reject rationalism, but which stop short of advocating exclusive appeal to empirical sources of modal knowledge. The final chapters mark a transition toward exclusive reliance on empirical sources of modal knowledge. They explore ways of making similarity-based, analogical, inductive, and abductive arguments for modal claims based on empirical information. Modal epistemology is coming into its own as a field, and this book has the potential to anchor a new research agenda. (shrink)

The reward system of science is the priority rule. The first scientist making a new discovery is rewarded with prestige, while second runners get little or nothing. Michael Strevens, following Philip Kitcher, defends this reward system, arguing that it incentivizes an efficient division of cognitive labor. I argue that this assessment depends on strong implicit assumptions about the replicability of findings. I question these assumptions on the basis of metascientific evidence and argue that the priority rule systematically discourages replication. My (...) analysis leads us to qualify Kitcher and Strevens’s contention that a priority-based reward system is normatively desirable for science. (shrink)

While most people believe the best possible life they could lead would be an immortal one, so‐called “immortality curmudgeons” disagree. Following Bernard Williams, they argue that, at best, we have no prudential reason to live an immortal life, and at worst, an immortal life would necessarily be bad for creatures like us. In this article, we examine Bernard Williams' seminal argument against the desirability of immortality and the subsequent literature it spawned. We first reconstruct and motivate Williams' somewhat cryptic argument (...) in three parts. After that, we elucidate and motivate the three best (and most influential) counterarguments to Williams' seminal argument. Finally, we review, and critically examine, two further distinct arguments in favor of the anti‐immortality position. (shrink)

The philosophy of perception has been mostly focused on vision, to the detriment of other modalities like audition or olfaction. In this paper I focus on olfaction and olfactory experience, and raise the following questions: is olfaction a perceptual-representational modality? If so, what does it represent? My goal in the paper is, firstly, to provide an affirmative answer to the first question, and secondly, to argue that olfaction represents odors in the form of olfactory objects, to which olfactory qualities are (...) attributed. In order to do this I develop an empirically adequate notion of olfactory object that is sensitive to the peculiarities of olfaction, and defend it against various objections. (shrink)

In this paper, we address the moral justification problem concerning the use of age as a criterion for the allocation of scarce life-saving medical resources. We present and discuss four justifications that stand out in philosophical literature: efficiency, sufficiency, egalitarian, and prioritarian. We aim to demonstrate that all these justifications are unsatisfactory since they entail counterintuitive implications in cases involving fetuses and newborns. We then suggest another justification for the relevance of age based on the Time-Relative Interest Account of the (...) harm of death. Finally, we evaluate an objection that could limit the scope of the defended justification, leading us to draw a distinction between justification of harm and strict justification of harm. (shrink)

It’s constitutive of classical theism that there is a necessarily existent personal god who is also the creator of the universe, where the latter claim includes at least the following three theses: (i) God is wholly distinct from the natural world; (ii) God is the originating or sustaining cause of the natural world; and (iii) God created the natural world ex nihilo, i.e., without the use of pre-existing materials. Call this tripartite component of classical theism the classical view of creation. (...) In this paper, I offer a new argument against classical theism. In particular, I argue that creation ex nihilo is prima facie impossible, and that since the doctrine of creation ex nihilo is constitutive of classical theism, classical theism is false. (shrink)

Se plantea el problema de la existencia de una campo científico -el geográfico - para el cual existen candidaturas e disciplinas determinadas como la Geografía Física, La Humana, la R egional y la Universal, etc. Se plantea la diferencia entre ciencias naturales y humanas, así como entre ciencias texonómicas y ciencias mereológicas, como marcos de análisis para las ciencias geográficas.

A key premise of the kalam cosmological argument is that the universe began to exist. However, while a number of philosophers have offered powerful criticisms of William Lane Craig’s defense of the premise, J.P. Moreland has also offered a number of unique arguments in support of it, and to date, little attention has been paid to these in the literature. In this paper, I attempt to go some way toward redressing this matter. In particular, I shall argue that Moreland’s philosophical (...) arguments against the possibility of traversing a beginningless past are unsuccessful. (shrink)

Argumentation is the gear of a cognitive process of reconstruction when it manifests itself in the discursive proximal space. The cognitive-semiotic perspective of multimodal argumentation suggests that, depending on the knowledge, the codes and signs employed (modes) and the context, certain multimodal structures can lead some audiences towards an accurate mental representation of argumentation, without the need forany formal standardized and verbal structure. We are able to argue with other(s) effectively without the need for a verbal translation of the contents (...) in a space that includes the semiotic interpretation of the message. (shrink)

The logos question, one of the most important among the subjects that traverse the Plato's Sophist, has in fact some different aspects: the criticism of father Parmenides' logos, that is unable to speak about the not-being, but also about the being; the relations between logos and its cognates, phantasia, doxa and dianoia; the logos’ complex structure, that is a compound with onoma and rema; the difference between naming and saying, two distinct but inseparable actions; the logical and ontological conditions that (...) make possible to say the truth, or to lie or simply to joke; the necessity of a most flexible logos that allows us to speak about the not-being, and about the being, but at the same time is a logos dangerously similar to the sophist’ one; finally, the identity between the power to produce “spoken images” and the very power to speak. The aim of the present article is giving a systematical view of the matter that grasps all these faces. (shrink)

This chapter provides an overview and critical discussion of cosmological arguments for theism, with special focus on the Kalam argument and arguments from contingency.

The primary aim of this chapter is to evaluate whether considerations about a priori domains and abstract objects favor atheism over theism.

Em 2015 o jurista norte-americano Frederick Schauer publicou a obra The Force of Law, cujo teor não omite, desde o princípio de seu texto, que seu anseio ao escrevê-lo era opor-se à concepção proposta pelo estudioso inglês Herbert L. A. Hart no livro The Concept of Law, lançado em 2012, de que a natureza do Direito não abrange o componente coercitivo. Em The Force of Law é exposto que a coerção é o único componente do Direito usado até mesmo pelas (...) democracias mais desenvolvidas a fim de que se garanta o cumprimento de seus próprios atos normativos. Entretanto, de acordo com o raciocínio perpetrado na obra, é um fato empírico que os indivíduos muito raramente obedecem à lei meramente por deferência à sua autoridade. O presente artigo se propõe a apresentar considerações sobre o livro, tomando como referência não apenas seu texto, mas publicações científicas relacionadas. (shrink)

Neste trabalho, investigo a possibilidade de compatibilidade entre o pessimismo filosófico e a compreensão da morte como um mal para quem morre. Por pessimismo filosófico, compreendo a doutrina filosófica que mantém como tese fundamental que a não-existência é preferível à existência, de modo que o pessimismo é tomado como a filosofia de que a vida não vale a pena ser vivida. Por mal da morte, me refiro à compreensão da morte como um dano para o indivíduo que morre, cujo pressuposto (...) em diferentes abordagens contemporâneas é o de que a morte só é um mal no caso de continuar existindo ser preferível a deixar de existir. Desse modo, o problema discutido é a aparente incompatibilidade entre a tese de que a não-existência é preferível à existência e a tese de que continuar existindo é preferível a deixar de existir. Busco demonstrar que essa (in)compatibilidade depende do modo como fundamentamos o pessimismo filosófico. Para tanto, examino dois argumentos para o pessimismo filosófico e suas implicações para o mal da morte: o argumento a priori de Arthur Schopenhauer e o argumento da assimetria de David Benatar. Concluo que o primeiro desses argumentos nos leva para a conclusão de que a morte não é um mal, mas que o segundo argumento compatibiliza o pessimismo filosófico e a compreensão da morte como um mal para quem morre. (shrink)

O presente trabalho tem por finalidade analisar, a partir do livro V da obra Ethica Nicomachea, se a justiça poderia ser tomada como um meio que irá auxiliar os cidadãos a desenvolver plenamente as suas virtudes. Buscar-se-á fundamentar que é através da justiça que os bons cidadãos seriam formados, bem como o bom caráter seria cultivado. Analisar-se-á, também, ainda que minimamente, o que Aristóteles entende de fato por justiça, de que o justo seria dar a cada um o que lhe (...) é devido, o que merece, haja vista que essa afirmação traz consigo um peso muito grande, pois nos faz indagar sobre o que seria o devido de cada indivíduo, bem como quais seriam as bases relevantes do mérito. Isto é, se o justo é dar a cada um o que lhe é devido, cabe a nós nos perguntarmos de que forma e critério seria usado na distribuição. De certa forma, ao raciocinarmos sobre justiça e direitos, consequentemente temos de raciocinar sobre a finalidade, o objetivo, o telos das atividades que circundam a vida social na Pólis. Buscar-se-á discutir sobre os temas apresentados, porém não se tem por finalidade propor medidas para pôr um fim na discussão. (shrink)

This work was my theses to get the MA in Philosophy. Their focus is the ethics implied in digital culture and networked society. Themes are Ethics, culture, technology, political control, autonomous systems.

Stephenson (2022) has argued that Kant’s thesis that all transcendental truths are transcendentally a priori knowable leads to omniscience of all transcendental truths. His arguments depend on luminosity principles and closure principles for transcendental knowability. We will argue that one pair of a luminosity and a closure principle should not be used, because the closure principle is too strong, while the other pair of a luminosity and a closure principle should not be used, because the luminosity principle is too strong. (...) Stephenson’s argument also depends on a factivity principle for transcendental knowability, which we will argue to be false. (shrink)

The radical evil. Notes on the revolt of masses. In his Religion within the Limits of Reason Alone, Kant speaks about a radical evil present in the human being, a tendency to place before the desire with regard to the rational duty, which is impossible to tear up by the roots from the human nature. In The revolt of the masses, Ortega also speaks about an evil that is anyway present in the so called mass-man, in each one of us, (...) and that is not to eradicate. The aim of this paper is to read the book of Ortega y Gasset in dialogue with Kant. (shrink)

The temporality of human action is very peculiar: different from the cosmic time and even paradoxical, inasmuch as it is really a circular time. The aim of this essay is to study this circularity in the sphere of human activity through the relations between the notions of potency and habit in the Aristotelian Ethics, among others structural conditions of the action. These structural conditions are explored by Aristotle as those which make possible to judge the actions.

Résumé : Les domaines de la philosophie et de la théorie politique ont connu un certain nombre de changements au cours des quarante dernières années. L'un attire notre attention tout particulièrement ; le basculement d'un point de vue national, cristallisé par le contrat social rawlsien, vers un point de vue non-national. En effet, plusieurs penseurs abordent un ensemble de phénomènes considérés comme nouveaux, tels que les traités de libre commerce et l'économie globale, les entreprises et les institutions supra et transnationales, (...) l'immigration et les contrôles frontaliers etc. Ces changements sont intéressants puisqu'ils obéissent, principalement, à une évolution majeure du terrain politique et social que l'on appelle mondialisation. Les théoriciens travaillant dans le domaine de la justice globale semblent s'adresser à deux questions différentes mais reliées. La première concerne la justice globale : dans quelle mesure et pourquoi l'ordre mondial est-il juste ou injuste ? Qu'est-ce qu'un ordre global juste ? La deuxième est dans un sens corollaire à la première, et concerne la responsabilité : qui devrait être blâmé ou digne d'éloge pour l'ordre mondial ? Est-ce que les citoyens sont responsables de l'ordre mondial ? Qui devrait redresser ses éventuelles conséquences injustes ? Face à l'économie mondialisée et aux institutions politiques et économiques internationales et trans-nationales, cette interrogation devient légitime et nécessaire : suis-je responsable à l'égard des travailleurs des sweat shop lorsque j'achète des habits à Auchan ou bien à l'égard des caféiculteurs très mal payés lorsque je prends un capuccino dans un café Starbucks ? Est-ce que les citoyens sont responsables des traités de libre commerce que leurs gouvernements signent ? Ces questions sur la responsabilité des individus dans le contexte de la mondialisation seront l'enjeu de ce travail de recherche. Nous interrogerons plus exactement la responsabilité d'un agent lorsqu'il fait partie d'un chaîne causale complexe, lorsqu'il participe d'une injustice structurelle. Ainsi, il ne s'agit pas seulement d'une chaîne causale, mais de connexions qui sont l'issue d'un changement des modes de productions, de consommation et de la concurrence dans un marché mondialisé. Plus important encore, il ne s'agit pas simplement de la responsabilité individuelle mais plutôt de la responsabilité individuelle en tant que citoyen, et donc d'une responsabilité politique. Elle peut certes être individuelle, mais nous devons tenir compte du fait qu'elle doit être pensée en tant que responsabilité politique, et pas uniquement morale, puisque l'individu et ses actions sont déterminés par des communautés politiques dans lesquelles il participe, ou dans lesquelles il est représenté. Ainsi, la mondialisation nous invite à repenser la responsabilité individuelle pour pouvoir rendre compte des intuitions morales et politiques qui guident une bonne partie du champ de la justice globale. Pour cela, nous verrons dans un premier temps la manière dont les théories de la justice globale essaient de répondre à ce défit. Grâce à cela nous dégagerons l'hypothèse qui nous guidera, l'idée que dans la mondialisation, un agent peut être responsable, avec d'autres, des raisons pour lesquelles il n'est pas considéré comme responsable. C'est-à-dire qu'il sera méta-responsable. Dans un second temps, nous essaierons de déterminer un model de responsabilité individuelle, et de comprendre comment la responsabilité est attribuée. Ensuite, nous essaierons de formuler une manière de concevoir la responsabilité politique. Grâce à ces deux éléments, la responsabilité individuelle et la responsabilité politique, nous pourrons parvenir à formuler une conception de la méta-responsabilité comme forme de penser l'agentivité traversée par la mondialisation. (shrink)

This article is a commentary of the section 5.552 of the Tractatus, about the “experience” that is necessary to understand logic, from the point of view of the so called continental philosophy. In this commentary are tackled some questions: what is exactly this “experience”?; what does mean that logic is a speculative image of the world?; how are the relations between logic and metaphysics (the two components of philosophy, according to Wittgenstein)? All these questions lead us to the conception of (...) philosophy present in the Tractatus and to the role, so important, the two following problems play in this book: the reflection on the philosophical method and the transcendental character of being. Just for this it is necessary to take it seriously the opposition between speaking of something and speaking about something, employed in the final section and so clear in German as habitually mistranslated. (shrink)

El concepto de desarrollo humano del Programa de las Naciones Unidas para el Desarrollo (PNUD) surge en 1990 como una crítica a la consideración de la economía como el fin último de los esfuerzos del desarrollo. En la visión del PNUD, la economía es considerada un fin relativo, es decir, un fin y un medio para el desarrollo humano. Al considerar, por su parte, el fin del desarrollo humano, este es identificado con el ensanchamiento de las opciones y libertades de (...) que gozan los individuos. En este sentido, este concepto de desarrollo humano hace alusión a una práctica política más que a un entendimiento ético-ontológico del ser humano, evitando referirse a desarrollo humano entendido como un desarrollo del ser humano. Este artículo explora los antecedentes del concepto del desarrollo humano del PNUD y los fines que consideran estos enfoques previos. Se observa que la consideración subjetivista del PNUD proviene de la teoría de Amartya Sen, quien queda sujeto a la crítica objetivista de Martha Nussbaum al no considera un fin objetivo para los asuntos humanos, crítica que puede de igual manera aplicarse al concepto de desarrollo humano del PNUD. (shrink)

I argue that modal epistemology should pay more attention to questions about the structure and function of modal thought. We can treat these questions from synchronic and diachronic angles. From a synchronic perspective, I consider whether a general argument for the epistemic support of modal though can be made on the basis of modal thoughs’s indispensability for what Enoch and Schechter (2008) call rationally required epistemic projects. After formulating the argument, I defend it from various objections. I also examine the (...) possibility of considering the indispensability of modal thought in terms of its components. Finally, I argue that we also need to approach these issues from a diachronic perspective, and I sketch how to approach this task. (shrink)

The necessity of a continuous creation by God, the need of a creation that is prolonged in the time, is an important issue in the Metaphysics of Descartes; for the being of the human conscience is not so persistent and so strong as the being of a really substance. The Cartesian cogito raises the problem of the weakness of this needy being: the distance between what is in each case thought, which is not temporal, and the thinking itself, which is (...) in the time. Descartes has very interesting observations about this theme. (shrink)

Baruch Spinoza famously said, “Whatsoever is, is in God, and without God, nothing can be, or be conceived”. This form of Pantheism is quite like eastern Pantheism, where in Hinduism they assert that “everything is Brahma”, or in Taoism, where Lao Tzu says, “Heaven and I were created together, and all things and I are one”. Although the western and eastern world shared their respective ideas of Pantheism, Native Americans also contributed to such discussion. However, comparative philosophy between western and (...) Native American philosophy has been far neglected, and the same neglect has been shown regarding Native American contribution to Pantheism. Many Indigenous religions believe that there is a Great Spirit that is manifested as a life force or energy that communicates and speaks through nature. In other words, some Native American tribes believe that nature, or in extension the universe, is part of a Great Spirit that communicates to individuals in a naturalistic way. Such a Great Spirit created the world and is in everything that the Great Spirit created. Moreover, there are other Indigenous beliefs that not only hold a Pantheistic view but hold a Panentheistic perspective where God is a being that is present in creation but transcends from it. Therefore, although Indigenous beliefs about Pantheism or Panentheism have been much neglected, there is much to say about it. With such input from Native American religious culture, this paper seeks to show and compare Spinoza’s Pantheism and that of Native Americans. In addition, I wish to investigate in what ways Native American philosophy contributes to the discussion of cosmology, nature, and Pantheism. In particular, how do some Native American tribes understand God in a Pantheistic sense where nature and cosmology are one. (shrink)

In this paper I propose a way of characterizing human agency in terms of the concept of a two‐way power. I outline this conception of agency, defend it against some objections, and briefly indicate how it relates to free agency and to moral praise‐ and blameworthiness.

Besides the general agreement about the human capability of reflection, there is a large area of disagreement and debate about the nature and value of “reflective scrutiny” and the role of “second-order states” in everyday life. This problem has been discussed in a vast and heterogeneous literature about topics such as epistemic injustice, epistemic norms, agency, understanding, meta-cognition etc. However, there is not yet any extensive and interdisciplinary work, specifically focused on the topic of the epistemic value of reflection. This (...) volume is one of the first attempts aimed at providing an innovative contribution, an exchange between philosophy, epistemology and psychology about the place and value of reflection in everyday life. -/- Our goal in the next sections is not to offer an exhaustive overview of recent work on epistemic reflection, nor to mimic all of the contributions made by the chapters in this volume. We will try to highlight some topics that have motivated a new resumption of this field and, with that, drawing on chapters from this volume where relevant. -/- Two elements defined the scope and content of this volume, on the one hand, the crucial contribution of Ernest Sosa, whose works provide original and thought-provoking contributions to contemporary epistemology in setting a new direction for old dilemmas about the nature and value of knowledge, giving a central place to reflection. On the other hand, the recent developments of cultural psychology, in the version of the “Aalborg approach”, reconsider the object and scope of psychological sciences, stressing that “[h]uman conduct is purposeful”. (shrink)

The thought experiment is a seemingly indispensable tool in the armchair philosopher’s toolbox. One wonders, for example, how philosophers could come to think that justified true belief isn’t knowledge, that reference isn’t determined by an expression’s associated description, or that moral responsibility doesn’t require the ability to do otherwise, without the use of thought experiments. But even if thought experiments play an integral role in philosophical methodology, their legitimacy is at least initially puzzling: one would think that significant knowledge of (...) the world requires extensive empirical investigation. But since thought experiments are done from the armchair, how can they tell us about the world? -/- A standard account of the nature and utility of thought experiments provides an answer to this question, and in a way that fits naturally with a standard picture of the nature of the facts philosophers investigate: Philosophers are about the business of investigating the essences of things and kinds. But a thing’s essential and accidental properties are modal properties. Thus, one can discern a thing’s essence by discovering its modal profile. But if so, then thought experiments are naturally suited as tools for the armchair philosopher. For thought experiments shed light on modal facts. Therefore, since philosophers investigate essences, facts about essence are modal facts, and the thought experiment is one of the few tools they have for discerning such facts, thought experiments play a legitimate and indispensable role in philosophical methodology. In my dissertation, I argue that the standard account of the nature and utility of thought experiments is inadequate, and sketch a more promising account. -/- First, I argue that our knowledge of possibility is restricted to the relatively humdrum. And if so, then since the standard account ties the utility of thought experiments to our knowledge of possibility, too many thought experiments will be ruled out as useless, which raises serious concerns about the significance, and perhaps even the legitimacy, of armchair philosophy. Thus, there is pressure for armchair philosophers to reject the standard account. -/- Second, I sketch an alternative picture of the nature of facts philosophers investigate – one that’s more fine-grained than the standard modal-profile picture. Relatedly, I sketch a correspondingly fine-grained semantics for claims about such facts. This alternative picture underwrites the legitimacy of a hitherto underappreciated sort of thought experiment, which I call the non-modal thought experiment. Such thought experiments shed light on facts about the world that are more fine-grained than what can be discerned by merely examining their modal profiles. I argue that non-modal thought experiments often succeed at just the points where the more familiar modal thought experiments fail, and thus that the two are naturally suited to complement one another in the philosopher’s practice. -/- Finally, I exploit the points mentioned above to sketch an account of the variety and utility of thought experiments that’s much more nuanced than that of the standard account. I then illustrate some of its virtues by indicating its ability to account for a wide range of epistemically forceful thought experiments – both humdrum and exotic –, and by demonstrating how it can be used to make progress in debates that have reached a stalemate due to conflicting modal intuitions. -/- . (shrink)

Aristotle's General Definition of the Syllogism may be taken as consisting of two parts: the Inferential Conditions and the Final Clause. Although this distinction is well known, traditional interpretations neglect the Final Clause and its influence on syllogistic. Instead, the aforementioned tradition focuses on the Inferential Conditions only. We intend to show that this neglect has severe consequences not just on syllogistic but on the whole exegesis of Aristotle's Prior Analytics I. Due to these consequences, our objective is to analyse (...) the General Definition's Final Clause and its consequences on syllogistic. We propose a reading of the Final Clause as an additional criterion for distinguishing some arguments as properly syllogistic ones and as a main theme which connects all parts of the Prior Analytics I into one coherent piece of work. (shrink)

In 1969 Harry Frankfurt published his hugely influential paper 'Alternate Possibilities and Moral Responsibility' in which he claimed to present a counterexample to the so-called 'Principle of Alternate Possibilities' ('a person is morally responsible for what he has done only if he could have done otherwise'). The success of Frankfurt-style cases as counterexamples to the Principle has been much debated since. I present an objection to these cases that, in questioning their conceptual cogency, undercuts many of those debates. Such cases (...) all require a counterfactual mechanism that could cause an agent to perform an action that he cannot avoid performing. I argue that, given our concept of what it is for someone to act, this requirement is inconsistent. Frankfurt-style alleged counterexamples are cases where an agent is morally responsible for an action he performs even though, the claim goes, he could not have avoided performing that action. However, it has recently been argued, e.g. by John Fischer, that a counterexample to the Principle could be a 'Fischer-style case', i.e. a case where the agent can either perform the action or do nothing else. I argue that, although Fischer-style cases do not share the conceptual flaw common to all Frankfurt-style cases, they also fail as counterexamples to the Principle. The paper finishes with a brief discussion of the significance of the Principle of Alternate Possibilities. (shrink)

Desde os tempos mais remotos, busca-se por equilíbrio entre o delito e a punição. Este artigo estabelece uma relação entre o conceito de Justiça em Aristóteles e a proporcionalidade em matéria penal. Para melhor compreensão do tema, inicia-se o estudo pelos principais pontos da obra Ética a Nicômaco, especialmente o Livro V, que trata da Justiça. A partir de então, aborda-se o princípio da proporcionalidade e a forma pela qual os conceitos de Aristóteles influenciaram a concepção desse princípio. Ato contínuo, (...) investiga-se a realidade atual do sistema carcerário, sendo avaliadas as estatísticas produzidas pelos órgãos competentes. Por conseguinte, enfatiza-se o Estado de Coisas Inconstitucional para verificar a questão penitenciária à luz da decisão da Suprema Corte brasileira na ADPF n. 347/DF. Ao final, pondera-se acerca da forma pela qual se pune no Brasil para investigar se suas premissas respeitam ou não as balizas do conceito de Justiça aristotélico e o princípio da proporcionalidade. Para o desenvolvimento desta pesquisa, utilizou-se o método qualitativo, por meio da leitura de obras que obedecem ao eixo temático exposto nos objetivos e que permitem o fichamento do repertório selecionado. Além de ter sido analisada juriprudência, foram coletados dados do censo penitenciário. Finalmente, articulou-se o material consultado com as estatísticas do sistema prisional. Concluiu-se nesta pesquisa que o Poder Executivo é omisso e ineficiente para garantir os direitos dos encarcerados, não obstante todo o avanço normativo sobre o tema. Como se não bastasse, na prática forense brasileira a proporcionalidade não é mais que mera previsão abstrata. (shrink)

Una interpretación aristotélica del concepto de desarrollo humano propone como fin último del desarrollo la eudaimonía o felicidad, esto es, la plena realización de la capacidad eudemónica en el alma humana. Para esto se requiere del desarrollo de sus partes racional e irracional, lo que demanda como medios una ética y una dianoética del desarrollo, referidos a los modos de ser de las respectivas partes del alma. La interacción entre ambas partes genera siempre un ciclo virtuoso, existiendo la posibilidad de (...) influencias externas a través de la educación, la costumbre, la economía, la legislación y la política. -/- An Aristotelian approach of the concept of human development proposes eudaimonía or happiness as the ultimate goal of development, that is, the full realization of the eudemonic capacity in the human soul. For this, the development of its rational and irrational parts is required, which in turn requires an ethics and dianoethics of development as means, referring to the characters of the respective parts of the soul. The interaction between both parts always generates a virtuous cycle, with the possibility of external influences through education, custom, economics, legislation and politics. (shrink)

Niche construction theory highlights the active role of organisms in modifying their environment. A subset of these modifications is the developmental niche, which concerns ecological, epistemic, social and symbolic legacies inherited by organisms as resources that scaffold their developmental processes. Since in this theory development is a situated process that takes place in a culturally structured environment, we may reasonably ask if implicit cultural biases may, in some cases, be responsible for maladaptive developmental niches. In this paper we wish to (...) argue for an affirmative answer. In order to do so, we first propose to conceptualize implicit bias as embodied perceptual habits, and then proceed to show that these habits are at least partially responsible for maladaptive developmental niches of children with Down syndrome and autism. With this framework we thus hope to bring together two fields of research that haven’t been explicitly connected: implicit bias and niche construction theory. Linking these two theories may bring benefits both to implicit bias researchers, who can extend this concept to characterize other sets of processes as biased, as well as to niche construction theorists, who will have a useful theoretical tool to diagnose maladaptive features of niches brought about by sociocultural biases. (shrink)