Definitions of terms that are central to a theoretical understanding of the Royal Government of Bhutan's policy of Gross National Happiness.

At A71/B96–7 Kant explains that singular judgements are ‘special’ because they stand to the general ones as Einheit to Unendlichkeit. The reference to Einheit brings to mind the category of unity and hence raises a spectre of circularity in Kant’s explanation. I aim to remove this spectre by interpreting the Einheit-Unendlichkeit contrast in light of the logical distinctions among universal, particular and singular judgments shared by Kant and his logician predecessors. This interpretation has a further implication for resolving a controversy (...) over the correlation between the logical moments of quantity (universal, particular, singular) and the categorial ones (unity, plurality, totality). (shrink)

According to an oft-repeated narrative, while Kant maintained racist views through the 1780s, he changed his mind in the 1790s. Pauline Kleingeld introduced this narrative based on passages from Kant’s Metaphysics of Morals and “Toward Perpetual Peace”. On her reading, Kant categorically condemned chattel slavery in those texts, which meant that he became more racially egalitarian. But the passages involving slavery, once contextualized, either do not concern modern, race-based chattel slavery or at best suggest that Kant mentioned it as a (...) cautionary tale for labor practices in Europe. Overall, Kant never explicitly considered chattel slavery as a moral problem to be addressed on its own. Rather, he treated it primarily in terms of its function in human history. If he ended up expressing some qualms about its practices, it was likely because they threatened to deepen intra-European conflicts and undermine the prospect of perpetual peace. The humanity of the enslaved “Negroes” was never part of the reasoning. This was not a casual oversight on Kant’s part. It reflects the complexity of his philosophical system: everything he did or did not say about chattel slavery begins to make sense once we connect his philosophy of history and his depiction of “Negroes” as natural slaves. (shrink)

Kant scholars have paid relatively little attention to his raciology. They assume that his racism, as personal prejudice, can be disentangled from his core philosophy. They also assume that racism contradicts his moral theory. In this book, philosopher Huaping Lu-Adler challenges both assumptions. She shows how Kant's raciology--divided into racialism and racism--is integral to his philosophical system. She also rejects the individualistic approach to Kant and racism. Instead, she uses the notion of racism as ideological formation to demonstrate how (...) Kant, from his social location both as a prominent scholar and as a lifelong educator, participated in the formation of modern racist ideology. As a scholar, Kant developed a ground-breaking scientific theory of race from the standpoint of a philosophical investigator of nature or Naturforscher. As an educator, he transmitted denigrating depictions of the racialized others and imbued those descriptions with normative relevance. In both roles, he left behind, as one of his legacies, a worldview that excluded non-whites from such goods as recognitional respect and candidacy for cultural and moral achievements. Scholars who research and teach Kant's philosophy therefore have an unshakable burden to take part in the ongoing antiracist struggles, through their teaching practices as well as their scholarship. And they must do so with a pragmatic attention to nonideal social realities and a deliberate orientation toward substantial racial justice, equality, and inclusion. Lu-Adler pushes the discourse about Kant and racism well beyond the old debates about whether he was racist or whether his racism contaminates his philosophy. By foregrounding the lasting legacies of Kant's raciology, her work calls for a profound reorientation of Kant scholarship. (shrink)

Kant develops a concept of savagery, partly characterized by laziness, to envision a program for human progress. He also racializes savagery, treating native Americans, in particular, as literal savages. He ascribes to this “race” a peculiar physiological laziness, a supposedly hereditary trait of blunted life power. Accordingly, while he grants them the same “germs” for perfections as he does the civilized Europeans, he allows them no prospect of actually fulfilling any such perfection. For the road to perfection must be paved (...) through industry, a condition that Kant denies to the “savages” by racializing their alleged laziness. This case will shed new light on the debated relation between Kant’s moral universalism and his racism. (shrink)

A testimony is somebody else’s reported experience of what has happened. It is an indispensable source of knowledge. It only gives us historical cognition, however, which stands in a complex relation to rational or philosophical cognition: while the latter presupposes historical cognition as its matter, one needs the architectonic “eye of a philosopher” to select, interpret, and organize historical cognition. Kant develops this rationalist theory of testimony. He also practices it in his own work, especially while theorizing about race as (...) a subject of natural philosophy. In three dedicated essays on this subject, he treats race from the standpoint of a philosophical investigator of nature (Naturforscher), who (as Kant puts it in the first Critique) learns from nature “like an appointed judge who compels witnesses to answer the questions he puts to them.” This view underwrites Kant’s use of travel reports (a type of testimony) in developing and defending his theory of race. (shrink)

It is not yet clear which response behavior requires self-regulatory effort in the moral dilemma task. Previous research has proposed that utilitarian responses require cognitive control, but subsequent studies have found inconsistencies with the empirical predictions of that hypothesis. In this paper we treat participants’ sensitivity to utilitarian gradients as a measure of performance. We confronted participants (N = 82) with a set of five dilemmas evoking a gradient of mean utilitarian responses in a 4-point scale and collected data on (...) heart rate variability and on utilitarian responses. We found positive correlations between tonic and phasic HRV and sensitivity to the utilitarian gradient in the high tonic group, but not in the low tonic group. Moreover, the low tonic group misplaced a scenario with a selfish incentive at the high end of the gradient. Results suggest that performance is represented by sensitivity correlated with HRV and accompanied with a reasonable placement of individual scenarios within the gradient. (shrink)

In this essay I revise, based on the notion of the ‘enlightened ruler’ or mingzhu and his critique of the literati of his time, the common belief that Han Fei was an amoralist and an advocate of tyranny. Instead, I will argue that his writings are dedicated to advising those who ought to rule in order to achieve the goal of a peaceful and stable society framed by laws in accordance with the dao.

In this chapter, I discuss some problems of Kant’s logic corpus while recognizing its richness and potential value. I propose and explain a methodic way to approach it. I then test the proposal by showing how we may use various mate- rials from the corpus to construct a Kantian demonstration of the formal rules of thinking (or judging) that lie at the base of Kant’s Metaphysical Deduction. The same proposal can be iterated with respect to other topics. The said demonstration (...) will have cleared the path for such iterations. (shrink)

Leibniz, and many following him, saw the Principle of Sufficient Reason (PSR) as pivotal to a scientific (demonstrated) metaphysics. Against this backdrop, Kant is expected to pay close attention to PSR in his reflections on the possibility of metaphysics, which is his chief concern in the Critique of Pure Reason. It is far from clear, however, what has become of PSR in the Critique. On one reading, Kant has simply turned it into the causal principle of the Second Analogy. On (...) a different reading, PSR is but the supreme principle of reason, which roughly states that, if the conditioned is given, so is the unconditioned. On my reading, PSR appears in the guises of both the causal principle and the supreme principle. This twofold specification, I argue, is key to understanding (i) Kant’s allegations that past metaphysicians failed to prove PSR, (ii) his own Critical account of the possibility of metaphysics in both of its parts (ontology and metaphysics proper), and (iii) his nuanced answer to the contentious question about the relation between physical inquiry and metaphysical reasoning about nature (both being quests for reasons). (shrink)

In the 1780s through the end of 1790s, Kant made various references to slavery (in its different forms) and the transatlantic slave trade in the context of his political philosophy or philosophy of right; he thereby had opportunities to speak in favor of abolitionism, which was gaining momentum in parts of Europe, or at least to articulate a normative critique of the race-based chattel slavery or Atlantic slavery and the associated slave trade qua (legalized) INSTITUTIONS; but he did neither. Why? (...) In raising and seeking an answer to this question, I am not interested in what Kant’s normative silence about the institutions of Atlantic slavery and slave trade may tell us about him as a person (for example, whether he was blinded by his own racist prejudices or whether he was affected by some kind of cognitive dissonance). Rather, I will focus on what it may tell us about certain limitations of his political philosophy, limitations that might have made it THEORETICALLY DIFFICULT for him to figure out exactly what to DO about those institutions as entrenched political realities. (shrink)

Epistemic Utility Theory is often identified with the project of *axiology-first epistemology*—the project of vindicating norms of epistemic rationality purely in terms of epistemic value. One of the central goals of axiology-first epistemology is to provide a justification of the central norm of Bayesian epistemology, Probabilism. The first part of this paper presents a new challenge to axiology first epistemology: I argue that in order to justify Probabilism in purely axiological terms, proponents of axiology first epistemology need to justify a (...) claim about epistemic value—what I label ‘Downwards Propriety’—much stronger than any they have offered justification. The second part of this paper offers an argument that this challenge cannot be met: that there is no hope for providing a purely axiological justification of Downwards Propriety, at least given widely accepted assumptions about epistemic value. (shrink)

The literary genesis of Einbahnstraße by Walter Benjamin represents a very special case of the use of the procedures of surrealism in the philosophical-literary production of the author. The process of evolution of thinking that ended up in the writing of this piece is unveiled throughout the present analysis. This is a sign of both waiver and restart; the opening for a new productive dimension in the career of one of the most important —and misunderstood— philosophers of the 20th century. (...) More than enlightening a small master piece of philosophy from a literary perspective, or analyzing a small master piece of literature from the philosophy, what is being problematized here is the division, cultivated or figured throughout the years, between both disciplines. This work is intended to recover what is insoluble from the philosophical-literary labor of Walter Benjamin, besides tracing a possible reconfiguration for an interdisciplinary field of work to come up and contribute in the understanding of the problem called The Retreat of Metaphor by Jacques Derrida. (shrink)

How does the critical Kant view ontology? There is no shared scholarly answer to this question. Norbert Hinske sees in the Critique of Pure Reason a “farewell to ontology,” albeit one that took Kant long to bid (Hinske 2009). Karl Ameriks has found evidence in Kant’s metaphysics lectures from the critical period that he “was unwilling to break away fully from traditional ontology” (Ameriks 1992: 272). Gualtiero Lorini argues that a decisive break with the tradition of ontology is essential to (...) Kant’s critical reform of metaphysics, as is reflected in his shift from “ontology” to “transcendental philosophy,” two notions that Lorini takes to be related by mere “analogy” (Lorini 2015). I agree with Lorini that a thorough reform of ontology is a pivotal part of Kant’s critical plan for metaphysics and that ontology somehow “survives within the critical philosophy” (Lorini 2015: 76). To make this case, however, I deem it important to identify “ontology” and “transcendental philosophy” in the sense of extensional equivalence. While we can detect this identification in Kant’s writings, only from his metaphysics lectures can we get a full sense of its historical and philosophical significance. In this chapter I focus on how it represents a definitive turn from as well as notable continuity with traditional treatments of ontology, particularly the Wolffian one. (shrink)

I argue that Husserl’s concept of position-taking, Stellungnahme, is adequate to understand the idea of second nature as an issue of philosophical anthropology. I claim that the methodological focus must be the living subject that acts and lives among others, and that the notion of second nature must respond to precisely this fundamental active character of subjectivity. The appropriate concept should satisfy two additional desiderata. First, it should be able to develop alongside the biological, psychological, and social individual development. Second, (...) it should be able to underlie the vast diversity of human beings within and across communities. As possible candidates, I contrast position-taking with two types of habit-like concepts: instinct and habitus, on the one hand, and customary habits, on the other. I argue that position-taking represents the active aspect of the subject while the habit-like concepts are passive. A subject’s position-takings and ensuing comportments are tied together by motivations, which evince a certain consistency, and for this reason are expression of the subject’s identity. I conclude by nuancing the relation between Stellungnahme and passivity. Passivity is deemed necessary to action but subservient to it; position-taking is thought to be prior to passivity. (shrink)

The origin of languages was a hotly debated topic in the eighteenth century. This paper reconstructs a distinctively Kantian account according to which the origination, progression, and diversification of languages is at bottom reason’s self-development under certain a priori constraints and external environments. The reconstruction builds on three sets of materials. The first is Herder’s famous prize essay on the origin of languages. The second includes Kant’s explicit remarks about language – especially his notion of “transcendental grammar,” his argument that (...) language cannot be innate, his contrast of “Oriental” symbolic (intuitive) and “Occidental” discursive languages, and his treatment of the latter as a sine qua non of humanity’s cultural and moral progress. The third includes the concepts that we need to make sense of those remarks, such as Kant’s epigenetic theory of biological formation and his account of categories as originally acquired. (shrink)

Proponents of enactivism should be interested in exploring what notion of action best captures the type of action-perception link that the view proposes, such that it covers all the aspects in which our doings constitute and are constituted by our perceiving. This article proposes and defends the thesis that the notion of sensorimotor dependencies is insufficient to account for the reality of human perception, and that the central enactive notion should be that of perceptual practices. Sensorimotor enactivism is insufficient because (...) it has no traction on socially dependent perceptions, which are essential to the role and significance of perception in our lives. Since the social dimension is a central desideratum in a theory of human perception, enactivism needs a notion that accounts for such an aspect. This article sketches the main features of the Wittgenstein-inspired notion of perceptual practices as the central notion to understand perception. Perception, I claim, is properly understood as woven into a type of social practices that includes food, dance, dress, music, etc. More specifically, perceptual practices are the enactment of culturally structured, normatively rich techniques of commerce of meaningful multi- and inter-modal perceptible material. I argue that perceptual practices explain three central features of socially dependent perception: attentional focus, aspects’ saliency, and modal-specific harmony-like relations. (shrink)

Kant describes logic as “the science that exhaustively presents and strictly proves nothing but the formal rules of all thinking”. (Bviii-ix) But what is the source of our cognition of such rules (“logical cognition” for short)? He makes no concerted effort to address this question. It will nonetheless become clear that the question is a philosophically significant one for him, to which he can see three possible answers: those representations are innate, derived from experience, or originally acquired a priori. Although (...) he gives no explicit argument for the third answer, he seems committed to it—especially given his views on the source of pure concepts of the understanding and on the nature of logic. It takes careful preparatory work to gather all the essential materials for motivating and reconstructing Kant’s “original acquisition” account of logical cognition. I shall proceed in two sections. In section 1, I analyze Kant’s argument that pure concepts of the understanding (or intellectual concepts)—as one kind of pure cognition—must be acquired originally and a priori. My analysis partly concerns his varied attitudes toward Crusius’s and Leibniz’s versions of the nativist account of such concepts. I give special attention to how Kant characterizes the nativist account and his own “original acquisition” account in terms of “preformation” and “epigenesis”. My goal is, firstly, to tease out the sense in which Kant grants that there must be an innate ground (or preformation) for the derivation of pure concepts and, secondly, to introduce—and pave the way for answering—the question about the source of logical cognition. In section 2, in light of Kant’s reference to Locke and Leibniz as the greatest reformers of philosophy (including logic) in their times (Log, AA 9: 32), I examine the Lockean and Leibnizian approaches to logic, respectively. Both approaches are “physiological” by Kant’s standard and are directly opposed to his own strictly critical method. I explain how this methodological move shapes Kant’s view that representations of logical rules must be originally acquired a priori. This acquisition involves a kind of radical epigenesis of pure reason: unlike the acquisition of pure concepts, it presupposes no further innate ground (or preformation). This view will have important consequences for issues such as the ground of the normativity of logical rules and the boundaries of their rightful use. (shrink)

I defend the thesis that Kantian analytic judgments are about objects (as opposed to concepts) against two challenges raised by recent scholars. First, can it accommodate cases like “A two-sided polygon is two-sided”, where no object really falls under the subject-concept as Kant sees it? Second, is it compatible with Kant’s view that analytic judgments make no claims about objects in the world and that we can know them to be true without going beyond the given concepts? I address these (...) challenges in two steps. First, given Kant’s distinction between an object in general = x from an object of sensible intuition, I argue that analytic judgments are about objects in the former sense, no matter whether the purported objects can be given in our intuition. Second, using Kant’s method of representing certain logical relations of concepts with such figures as circles, I construct a model to show that analytic truths are truths about objects in general = x and yet can be determined solely by the intensional relation between the given concepts plus certain Kantian-logical laws. Analytic truths are thus shown as formal in the Kantian sense that they do not presuppose the purported objects as givable in our intuition. This account of the formality of analytic truths captures Kant’s diagnosis of the Leibnizian illusion that we can make material claims about the world by analytically true judgments. (shrink)

There is an exegetical quandary when it comes to interpreting Locke's relation to logic.On the one hand, over the last few decades a substantive amount of literature has been dedicated to explaining Locke's crucial role in the development of a new logic in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. John Yolton names this new logic the "logic of ideas," while James Buickerood calls it "facultative logic."1 Either way, Locke's Essay is supposedly its "most outspoken specimen" or "culmination."2 Call this reading the (...) 'New Logic interpretation.'On the other hand, from the typical standpoint of a philosopher accustomed to the modern conception of logic, whatever Locke—indeed, whatever most of the... (shrink)

It is a received view that Kant’s formal logic (or what he calls “pure general logic”) is thoroughly intensional. On this view, even the notion of logical extension must be understood solely in terms of the concepts that are subordinate to a given concept. I grant that the subordination relation among concepts is an important theme in Kant’s logical doctrine of concepts. But I argue that it is both possible and important to ascribe to Kant an objectual notion of logical (...) extension according to which the extension of a concept is the multitude of objects falling under it. I begin by defending this ascription in response to three reasons that are commonly invoked against it. First, I explain that this ascription is compatible with Kant’s philosophical reflections on the nature and boundary of a formal logic. Second, I show that the objectual notion of extension I ascribe to Kant can be traced back to many of the early modern works of logic with which he was more or less familiar. Third, I argue that such a notion of extension makes perfect sense of a pivotal principle in Kant’s logic, namely the principle that the quantity of a concept’s extension is inversely proportional to that of its intension. In the process, I tease out two important features of the Kantian objectual notion of logical extension in terms of which it markedly differs from the modern one. First, on the modern notion the extension of a concept is the sum of the objects actually falling under it; on the Kantian notion, by contrast, the extension of a concept consists of the multitude of possible objects—not in the metaphysical sense of possibility, though—to which a concept applies in virtue of being a general representation. While the quantity of the former extension is finite, that of the latter is infinite—as is reflected in Kant’s use of a plane-geometrical figure (e.g., circle, square), which is continuum as opposed to discretum, to represent the extension in question. Second, on the modern notion of extension, a concept that signifies exactly one object has a one-member extension; on the Kantian notion, however, such a concept has no extension at all—for a concept is taken to have extension only if it signifies a multitude of things. This feature of logical extension is manifested in Kant’s claim that a singular concept (or a concept in its singular use) can, for lack of extension, be figuratively represented only by a point—as opposed to an extended figure like circle, which is reserved for a general concept (or a concept in its general use). Precisely on account of these two features, the Kantian objectual extension proves vital to Kant’s theory of logical quantification (in universal, particular and singular judgments, respectively) and to his view regarding the formal truth of analytic judgments. (shrink)

Many think that expressivists have a special problem with negation. I disagree. For if there is a problem with negation, I argue, it is a problem shared by those who accept some plausible claims about the nature of intentionality. Whether there is any special problem for expressivists turns, I will argue, on whether facts about what truth-conditions beliefs have can explain facts about basic inferential relations among those beliefs. And I will suggest that the answer to this last question is, (...) on most plausible attempts at solving the problem of intentionality, ‘no’. (shrink)

John Venn has the “uneasy suspicion” that the stagnation in mathematical logic between J. H. Lambert and George Boole was due to Kant’s “disastrous effect on logical method,” namely the “strictest preservation [of logic] from mathematical encroachment.” Kant’s actual position is more nuanced, however. In this chapter, I tease out the nuances by examining his use of Leonhard Euler’s circles and comparing it with Euler’s own use. I do so in light of the developments in logical calculus from G. W. (...) Leibniz to Lambert and Gottfried Ploucquet. While Kant is evidently open to using mathematical tools in logic, his main concern is to clarify what mathematical tools can be used to achieve. For without such clarification, all efforts at introducing mathematical tools into logic would be blind if not complete waste of time. In the end, Kant would stress, the means provided by formal logic at best help us to express and order what we already know in some sense. No matter how much mathematical notations may enhance the precision of this function of formal logic, it does not change the fact that no truths can, strictly speaking, be revealed or established by means of those notations. (shrink)

Teacher quality, its effect on students’ outcomes, and the association of these with economic growth, is the core of recent discussions in Latin America given the region’s weak results in international learning assessments. This paper investigates whether there is an effect of philosophy on the outcomes of critical reading for students in B.Ed. programs in Colombia. Relying on exact matching combined with propensity score matching with regression adjustment, we use national data from Colombia to show that students in B.Ed. in (...) philosophy outperformed students in other B.Ed. in critical reading test (0.401–0.124 SD), and, importantly, with higher effects observed for students with lower prior academic achievement (0.44 SD). This suggests that philosophy can help to narrow educational outcomes of students whose socioeconomic conditions are disadvantageous, contributing to social justice in education. (shrink)

Kant claims that Aristotles logic as complete, explain the historical and philosophical considerations that commit him to proving the completeness claim and sketch the proof based on materials from his logic corpus. The proof will turn out to be an integral part of Kant’s larger reform of formal logic in response to a foundational crisis facing it.

Kant ascribes two radically different kinds of language—symbolic or pictorial (qua intuitive) and discursive languages—to the “Oriental” and “Occidental” peoples respectively. By his analysis, having a merely symbolic language suggests that the “Orientals” lack understanding—and hence the ability to form concepts and think in abstracto—as well as genius and spirit. Meanwhile, he establishes discursive language as a sine qua non of the continued progress of humanity, primarily because only by means of words—as opposed to symbols—can one think (not just intuit), (...) signify one’s thoughts exactly, and make them universally communicable. Without such a language, one would not be able to make one’s feelings moral or develop a true moral character. In short, humanity would not be able to obtain its cultural or moral ends without discursive language. -/- These points add up to an exclusionary view of progress according to which the Occidental whites alone are equipped with the requisite discursive skills and other talents (including genius and spirit) to accomplish advanced culture and pursue humanity’s moral destiny. The “Orient,” with its “childish language,” is consigned to the childhood of humanity. In holding this view, Kant has departed from some of his predecessors—such as Leibniz, whose vision of the future of humanity includes an East-West harmony facilitated by a “universal symbolism,” and Rousseau, who exalts a livelier connection with the world mediated by a pictorial language. -/- The contrast with Leibniz and Rousseau also suggests that we cannot chalk up Kant’s exclusionary view of progress to mere personal prejudices. His philosophy is what gives meaning to his statements about the nature of the “Oriental” language. That is, the exclusionary view of progress emerges only when we take into account his anti-Leibnizian conceptualization of symbolic language as merely intuitive, his view that humanity is teleologically oriented toward the unique sort of moralization that he envisioned in the Groundwork, and his view that reason must lead the way in humanity’s progress toward this supposed moral end, wherefore only discursive language can facilitate such progress. (shrink)

On a view implicitly endorsed by many, a concept is epistemically better than another if and because it does a better job at ‘carving at the joints', or if the property corresponding to it is ‘more natural' than the one corresponding to another. This chapter offers an argument against this seemingly plausible thought, starting from three key observations about the way we use and evaluate concepts from en epistemic perspective: that we look for concepts that play a role in explanations (...) of things that cry out for explanation; that we evaluate not only ‘empirical' concepts, but also mathematical and perhaps moral concepts from an epistemic perspective; and that there is much more complexity to the concept/property relation than the natural thought seems to presuppose. These observations, it is argued, rule out giving a theory of conceptual evaluation that is a corollary of a metaphysical ranking of the relevant properties. -/- conceptual ethics, explanation, naturalness, epistemic value, concept/property, semantic internalism. (shrink)

Se comenta el artículo de Marisa Moyano y Hugo Aguilar sobre "El ensayo de interpretación continental: lecturas performativas y pensamiento identitario en ‘Ariel’ ". Ni reflejo pasivo de una realidad previa, ni palabra demiúrgica inventora de una realidad imaginada, los discursos identitarios son momentos reflexivos en una red inter-narrativa e inter-subjetiva de palabras, gestos y actos que afirman y constituyen a un grupo humano como sujeto político y cultural.

This paper examines Du Châtelet’s and Kant’s responses to the famous vis viva controversy – Du Châtelet in her Institutions Physiques (1742) and Kant in his debut, the Thoughts on the True Estimation of Living Forces (1746–49). The Institutions was not only a highly influential contribution to the vis viva controversy, but also a pioneering attempt to integrate Leibnizian metaphysics and Newtonian physics. The young Kant’s evident knowledge of this work has led some to speculate about his indebtedness to her (...) philosophy. My study corrects such speculations as well as misunderstandings of the Living Forces. This corrective result has implications for how to investigate Kant’s relation to the ever-evolving landscape of Leibniz exegeses. (shrink)

The deduction of categories in the 1781 edition of the Critique of the Pure Reason (A Deduction) has “two sides”—the “objective deduction” and the “subjective deduction”. Kant seems ambivalent about the latter deduction. I treat it as a significant episode of Kant’s thinking about categories that extended from the early 1770s to around 1790. It contains his most detailed answer to the question about the origin of categories that he formulated in the 1772 letter to Marcus Herz. The answer is (...) that categories are generated a priori through a kind of intellectual “epigenesis”. This account leaves unexplained why precisely such and such categories should be generated. While this observation caused Kant to worry about the hypothetical status of the subjective deduction in 1781, he would come to acquiesce in the recognition that the ground of the possibility of categories is itself inscrutable. I call this his “methodological skepticism”. (shrink)

This paper critically explores the ethical dimensions of Behavioral Public Policy (BPP), a domain grounded in the understanding that human rationality is bounded and that this limitation often leads to behaviors deemed irrational. By applying the behavioral lens, which posits that people operate under bounded rationality, BPP aims to craft interventions that safeguard individuals against their biases. However, this approach raises significant ethical concerns, both in the scientific underpinnings of BPP and its application through policy interventions. Accordingly, this paper examines (...) two distinct ethical dimensions of BPP, both as a scientific discipline and through its intervention methodologies. The analysis of the first dimension argues that, viewing bounded rationality as only instrumental in decision-making processes, risks oversimplifying ethical complexities. Such simplification may ignore the moral and value-based rationalities underlying decisions, potentially misattributing instances of immorality and akrasia (the failure to act according to one's judgment) to mere deficiencies in rational thinking. Secondly, the paper examines the impact of BPP on moral behavior and character development, addressing ethical concerns like the evidentiary basis of BPP research, the bounded rationality of choice architects themselves, and the morality of behavior changes induced by policy. Overall, this article provides a much-needed examination of the moral considerations associated with behavioral strategies in public policy and its epistemological foundations, contributing to a more comprehensive understanding of their ethical implications . (shrink)

It is commonly accepted that Han Fei studied under Xunzi sometime during the late third century BCE. However, there is surprisingly little dedicated to the in-depth study of the relationship between Xunzi’s ideas and one of his best-known followers. In this essay I argue that Han Fei’s notion of xing, commonly translated as human nature, was not only influenced by Xunzi but also that it is an important feature of his political philosophy.

This chapter brings some much-needed conceptual clarity to the debate about Locke’s scientific methodology. Instead of having to choose between the method of hypothesis and that of natural history (as most interpreters have thought), he would resist prescribing a single method for natural sciences in general. Following Francis Bacon and Robert Boyle, Locke separates medicine and natural philosophy (physics), so that they call for completely different methods. While a natural philosopher relies on “speculative” (causal-theoretical) hypotheses together with natural-history making to (...) explicate phenomena, a medical practitioner must prioritize collecting data about what remedies tend to cure what diseases over hypothesizing about the causes of the latter. (shrink)

A modified visual search task demonstrates that humans are very good at resuming a search after it has been momentarily interrupted. This is shown by exceptionally rapid response time to a display that reappears after a brief interruption, even when an entirely different visual display is seen during the interruption and two different visual searches are performed simultaneously. This rapid resumption depends on the stability of the visual scene and is not due to display or response anticipations. These results are (...) consistent with the existence of an iterative hypothesis-testing mechanism that compares information stored in short-term memory (the perceptual hypothesis) with information about the display (the sensory pattern). In this view, rapid resumption occurs because a hypothesis based on a previous glance of the scene can be tested very rapidly in a subsequent glance, given that the initial hypothesis-generation step has already been performed. (shrink)

What would happen if one morning you wake up clumsy, as if your sense of touch were unreliable, arbitrarily on and off? And what would this clumsiness look like if we could transfer it to the moral sense? The article expounds an interesting analogy between the sense of touch, loosely construed, and the moral sense: just as a sort of consistency is necessary for the sense of touch to do its job, so it is for the moral sense to play (...) its part. Touch enables us to navigate the everyday world of coffee pots and staircases; our moral sensibility comes into play when we act or when we judge our actions and those of others, and plays a directive role in what we feel, how we feel it, and how we react to it. Taking the analogy further, I will suggest that inconsistency causes, in both cases, a certain clumsiness, and that clumsiness is linked to arbitrariness – like the person that helps others in dire need, but only does so on some rainy days. (shrink)

In this article, we will present a number of technical results concerning Classical Logic, ST and related systems. Our main contribution consists in offering a novel identity criterion for logics in general and, therefore, for Classical Logic. In particular, we will firstly generalize the ST phenomenon, thereby obtaining a recursively defined hierarchy of strict-tolerant systems. Secondly, we will prove that the logics in this hierarchy are progressively more classical, although not entirely classical. We will claim that a logic is to (...) be identified with an infinite sequence of consequence relations holding between increasingly complex relata: formulae, inferences, metainferences, and so on. As a result, the present proposal allows not only to differentiate Classical Logic from ST, but also from other systems sharing with it their valid metainferences. Finally, we show how these results have interesting consequences for some topics in the philosophical logic literature, among them for the debate around Logical Pluralism. The reason being that the discussion concerning this topic is usually carried out employing a rivalry criterion for logics that will need to be modified in light of the present investigation, according to which two logics can be non-identical even if they share the same valid inferences. (shrink)

El texto pretende aportar una reflexión en torno a dos categorías teórico-prácticas –regionalidad, populismo–, que pueden contribuir a la proyección abierta, nunca acabada, de un nuevo orden post-neoliberal, en tanto modos de resistencia y crítica de los modos de subjetivación y de mercantilización que identificamos como propios del neoliberalismo en tanto racionalidad, pero también posibilitadoras de un pensar situado, propositivo, comprometido políticamente con el lugar desde donde se entiende y se proyecta un nuevo orden de convivencia.

Since the concept of “nudge” was introduced in 2008 by Thaler and Sunstein, proposing that small interventions based on changes in choice architectures can alter people’s behavior and make it easier for them to achieve their desired goals, the application in public policy of behavioral economics has gained significant attention. This has led to the emergence of different types of policies based on behavioral insights, which have been used in a variety of areas, including health or finance, with the goal (...) of promoting well-being and addressing social and economic issues. After providing a basic theoretical background as a frame of reference to understand gender violence, this study explores the use of tools from the field of behavioral economics as it is applied in public policy. Regulatory (paternalistic) and non-regulatory (libertarian) interventions based on behavioral insights will be considered: nudges, boosts, shoves, budges, or sludge audits, are examined as potential interventions to use in matters related to this type of violence. After evaluating these behavioral policy instruments and their potential effectiveness, the limitations of the behavioral perspective are recognized, and the need for a multifaceted approach to combating gender violence is acknowledged. The article concludes by arguing that public policies addressing gender violence should not only utilize behavioral tools but should also incorporate strategies related to education, legislation, and social norms. (shrink)

Epistemic rationality is typically taken to be immodest at least in this sense: a rational epistemic state should always take itself to be doing at least as well, epistemically and by its own light, than any alternative epistemic state. If epistemic states are probability functions and their alternatives are other probability functions defined over the same collection of proposition, we can capture the relevant sense of immodesty by claiming that epistemic utility functions are (strictly) proper. In this paper I examine (...) what happens if we allow for the alternatives to an epistemic state to include probability functions with different domains. I first prove an impossibility result: on minimal assumptions, I show that there is no way of vindicating strong immodesty principles to the effect that any probability function should take itself to be doing at least as well than any alternative probability function, regardless of its domain. I then consider alternative, weaker generalizations of the traditional immodesty principle and prove some characterization results for some classes of epistemic utility functions satisfying each of the relevant principles. (shrink)

In this paper we discuss the extent to which the very existence of substructural logics puts the Tarskian conception of logical systems in jeopardy. In order to do this, we highlight the importance of the presence of different levels of entailment in a given logic, looking not only at inferences between collections of formulae but also at inferences between collections of inferences—and more. We discuss appropriate refinements or modifications of the usual Tarskian identity criterion for logical systems, and propose an (...) alternative of our own. After that, we consider a number of objections to our account and evaluate a substantially different approach to the same problem. (shrink)

Desde que en 2008 se introdujera el concepto de nudge en el libro Nudge, que argumentaba que las pequeñas intervenciones basadas en cambios en la arquitectura de elección pueden alterar el comportamiento de las personas y facilitarles el logro de sus objetivos deseados, el uso de la economía del comportamiento en políticas públicas ha crecido significativamente, lo que ha llevado a la aparición de diferentes intervenciones basadas en conocimientos conductuales. Estas intervenciones se han aplicado en distintas áreas de políticas públicas (...) y administrativas, incluyendo salud, finanzas, o medio ambiente, con el objetivo de promover el bienestar y abordar problemas sociales y económicos. El uso de estas aplicaciones en cuestiones relacionadas con la violencia de género ha sido con frecuencia ignorado. De este modo, el objetivo de este estudio es analizar el uso de herramientas de la economía del comportamiento en políticas públicas, como nudges, boosts o auditoría de sludges y su aplicación a asuntos relacionados con este tipo de violencia. Al mismo tiempo que se señalan los posibles beneficios de su uso, también se reconocen las limitaciones del enfoque conductual, apuntando a la necesidad de una aproximación multifacética para combatir dicha violencia. Así, las políticas públicas que traten con violencia de género debe. (shrink)

What is a philosophy class like? What roles do teachers and students play? Questions like these have been answered time and again by philosophers using images and metaphors. As philosophers continue to develop pedagogical approaches in a more conscious way, it is worth evaluating traditional metaphors used to understand and structure philosophy classes. In this article, we examine two common metaphors—the sage on the stage, and philosophy as combat—and show why they fail pedagogically. Then we propose five metaphors—teaching philosophy as (...) world-traveling, wondering, conducting an orchestra, storytelling, and coaching—that can better respond to the needs of increasingly diverse student bodies. Further, these metaphors find their ground in long-standing beliefs about what philosophy is, how it is done, and what it can do for those willing to engage in it. While no single one of them is comprehensive, we think that these models can help us enliven our own thinking about our teaching and the roles we and our students play in our classrooms. (shrink)

Intellectual progress involves forming a more accurate picture of the world. But it also figuring out which concepts to use for theorizing about the world. Bayesian epistemology has had much to say about the former aspect of our cognitive lives, but little if at all about the latter. I outline a framework for formulating questions about conceptual change in a broadly Bayesian framework. By enriching the resources of Epistemic Utility Theory with a more expansive conception of epistemic value, I offer (...) a picture of our cognitive economy on which adopting new conceptual tools can sometimes be epistemically rational. (shrink)

When discussing Logical Pluralism several critics argue that such an open-minded position is untenable. The key to this conclusion is that, given a number of widely accepted assumptions, the pluralist view collapses into Logical Monism. In this paper we show that the arguments usually employed to arrive at this conclusion do not work. The main reason for this is the existence of certain substructural logics which have the same set of valid inferences as Classical Logic—although they are, in a clear (...) sense, non-identical to it. We argue that this phenomenon can be generalized, given the existence of logics which coincide with Classical Logic regarding a number of metainferential levels—although they are, again, clearly different systems. We claim this highlights the need to arrive at a more refined version of the Collapse Argument, which we discuss at the end of the paper. (shrink)

En el presente texto se defenderá la idea según la cual, la filosofía y el filosofar están intrínsecamente ligados. Se partirá de un caso paradigmático, el caso de la filosofía analítica. A partir de su definición,se pretenderá mostrar que las características más sobresalientes de dicha corriente están fundamentalmente ligadas al acto de filosofar.Por medio de dicho ejemplo, se desea mostrar que enseñar la filosofía consiste en enseñar a filosofar, y que por lo tanto una no puede ser separada de la (...) otra. Aprender a filosofar es entonces, aprender a ver un problema detrás de cada página de un texto filosófico, una argumentación detrás de cada problema y finalmente, una verdad detrás de cada argumentación. El precio a pagar por dicha separación es bastante alto, se podría hablar de épocas de decadencia intelectual. (shrink)

This paper presents an impact evaluation of the policies for teacher education programs within the framework of the National Development Plan 2014-2018. The programs were compelled to obtain high-quality accreditation, increase the credits in school practices, and the English level, among other requirements. Relying on multivariable regression, it shows that, for the year 2021, there is no association between high-quality accreditation in most modules of the Saber Pro tests, or it is negative in the global score and quantitative reasoning. In (...) a second step, using Differences–in–Differences, it evidences how the changes made by the programs had positive effects on the performance of students compared to other professional programs. The results show significant improvement in most modules of the Saber Pro test, except for the English module. The effects were homogeneous by characteristics of the students and institutions, but heterogeneous by area of knowledge, indicating that the effect is mainly due to the curricular changes of the programs. (shrink)

In some recent articles, Cobreros, Egré, Ripley, & van Rooij have defended the idea that abandoning transitivity may lead to a solution to the trouble caused by semantic paradoxes. For that purpose, they develop the Strict-Tolerant approach, which leads them to entertain a nontransitive theory of truth, where the structural rule of Cut is not generally valid. However, that Cut fails in general in the target theory of truth does not mean that there are not certain safe instances of Cut (...) involving semantic notions. In this article we intend to meet the challenge of answering how to regain all the safe instances of Cut, in the language of the theory, making essential use of a unary recovery operator. To fulfill this goal, we will work within the so-called Goodship Project, which suggests that in order to have nontrivial naïve theories it is sufficient to formulate the corresponding self-referential sentences with suitable biconditionals. Nevertheless, a secondary aim of this article is to propose a novel way to carry this project out, showing that the biconditionals in question can be totally classical. In the context of this article, these biconditionals will be essentially used in expressing the self-referential sentences and, thus, as a collateral result of our work we will prove that none of the recoveries expected of the target theory can be nontrivially achieved if self-reference is expressed through identities. (shrink)