Una poderosa intuición atravesaba el discurso con el que Jawaharlal Nehru, en la medianoche del 15 de agosto de 1947, se dirigía a la asamblea y, a través de la radio, a millones de indios esperanzados y jubilosos: “Hace muchos años fijamos una cita con el destino; ahora llega el momento de cumplir nuestra promesa. Cuando suene la hora de la medianoche, mientras el mundo duerme, la India despertará a la vida y a la libertad”. La estabilidad del futuro de (...) la India y su democracia solo se alcanzarían rescatando de su olvidada historia y su denostada tradición las raíces democráticas silenciadas durante tanto tiempo por la devastación intelectual producida por el colonialismo y su infame ejercicio, que encerró al país en un anquilosado arquetipo atemporal, en el que la religiosidad, la mística y la espiritualidad se establecieron como señas de identidad y orgullo de un pueblo que acabaría por identificar lo genuinamente indio con aquello que se desmarcaba de lo “presumiblemente” occidental, hasta acabar convirtiéndolo en un elemento de lucha y afirmación contra la metrópoli, desterrando de la dignidad india su pasado más racional y argumentativo. (shrink)

El presente artículo muestra cómo la crítica humeana a los fundamentos del racionalismo moral y a sus consecuencias en el terreno de las ideas educativas propició un cambio significativo en la comprensión de los objetivos de la educación moral que pasaron de buscar el perfeccionamiento de la agencia, a perseguir la perfección y el refinamiento de las capacidades del individuo como espectador y evaluador moral imparcial. Esta trasformación de la finalidad y del currículo de la educación moral será la solución (...) que Hume ofrezca a los problemas de parcialidad derivados de la historicidad y la caducidad del general point of view como criterio último para el juicio moral. La exposición constante del educando a todas las formas históricas de la belleza, junto con la poesía, la literatura, el estudio de la historia y la filosofía, constituirán para Hume la base de esta revolución pedagógica. (shrink)

This work aims to study a specific part of the ethical and political thought of Scottish philosopher David Hume: his descriptions of the origin of justice and government. Both are analyzed in an attempt to clarify the treatment of inequality that it is offered by them. We describe how the particular process of criminalization of natural inequality begins to occur with the moralization of laws of justice after the first convention and how it is consolidated after the genesis of government. (...) During this particular descriptive process our main goal will be to identify the profile and role of the various players, and the emergence of moral paternalism and dominance in the interaction thereof. Finally, try to offer a credible solution to one of the perennial conflicts in the secondary literature on Hume’s ethic philosophy ─the paradox of motivation─, reinterpreting the meaning of the strategy adopted by the figure of the sensible knave. (shrink)

This article argues that the origin of the political principles and categories that Hume sets as essential to the preservation of political power and its effective exercise can be traced into the division of political agent that occurs as a result of the institution of justice and government in the origin of society. Their different roles and different degrees of freedom will determine, since then, and through political action and its irreversibility, the categories and the fundamental problems that Hume´s political (...) philosophy should answer. From that framework, the panoply of political power preservation principles that Hume exposes in the Essays will be analyzed as a reflection of that original event and its particular evolution. (shrink)

This article shows how Hume, based on a definition of freedom as a historical process and an understanding of the faction as inevitable phenomenon in human political path, concludes that the harmful effects of the different factions do not crystallize, as in the case of justice and the origin of government, in a spontaneous balance, but require strategies in the executive and legislative to be controlled and reoriented in order to obtain from such control a fundamental socio-political advantage: the development (...) and expansion of the experience of political freedom. (shrink)

La formación docente es indispensable para responder a los requerimientos de la compleja sociedad actual. De su conocimiento, iniciativa, praxis y creatividad depende el éxito o el fracaso del sujeto que aprende. Al modificar el rol del docente se transforma la actitud de los estudiantes. ¿Cómo entender la formación filosófica transdisciplinar? Este texto responde a este y otros cuestionamientos: ¿cuáles son los planteamientos pedagógicos afines a la era digital? ¿en qué medida las TIC se encuentran al servicio de una filosofía (...) educativa transdisciplinar?, ¿cómo se explica ese enfoque en la formación del docente?, ¿cuál es la función de la formación en la innovación educativa?, ¿cómo formar para la ciudadanía mundial?, ¿cuáles son las contribuciones de las nuevas ciencias para la formación educativa? El crecimiento exponencial de la ciencia y de la tecnología nos obliga a pensar en procesos formativos innovadores. En tal sentido, resulta imprescindible el estudio de estas problemáticas. (shrink)

From our perspective, we believe that it is necessary to abandon the idea that all those who suffer from SI or SA are mentally ill, which causes them to be stigmatized and subjected to psychiatric treatment, when what they need is a different vision of life as well as adaptive strategies to employ a new philosophy. Public policies should consider implementing programs that reinforce cognitive flexibility in addition to character strengths.

Resumen Con el presente artículo se pretende analizar la colonialidad del poder como eje central de las relaciones de dominación que marcaron la primera década del siglo XXI en Colombia, más específicamente estudiando los casos del clientelismo político en zonas periféricas como el Casanare, y el caso Carimagua. Para desarrollar esta investigación, se realizó un análisis documental tomando como referente autores de la filosofía política latinoamericana como Anibal Quijano y Santiago Castro- Gómez quienes a su vez se apoyan en (...) Michel Foucault para definir el concepto de relaciones de poder, y la propuesta de Fernán González en torno a la necesidad de un análisis multiescalar del poder y la violencia, con el fin de proponer una alternativa al análisis tradicional de las relaciones de poder en Colombia. -/- . (shrink)

Neuroartes, Un laboratorio de Ideas, Santiago, Ch: Metales Pesados 2015. Texto del belga Luc Delannoy que indaga y apuesta por la percepción como el horizonte epistémico por excelencia, destronando a la razón como la vía certera en la adquisición del conocimiento que ha permeado gran parte de las epistemológicas occidentales. Para el autor, el arte se eleva como un transformador neurocognitivo y epistémico que invita a ampliar los estados de la conciencia, teniendo alcances en la mejor de la salud (...) física-mental que incida en las transformaciones sociales. (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)

Theories of emotional justification investigate the conditions under which emotions are epistemically justified or unjustified. I make three contributions to this research program. First, I show that we can generalize some familiar epistemological concepts and distinctions to emotional experiences. Second, I use these concepts and distinctions to display the limits of the ‘simple view’ of emotional justification. On this approach, the justification of emotions stems only from the contents of the mental states they are based on, also known as their (...) cognitive bases. The simple view faces the ‘gap problem’: If cognitive bases and emotions (re)present their objects and properties in different ways, then cognitive bases are not sufficient to justify emotions. Third, I offer a novel solution to the gap problem based on emotional dispositions. This solution (1) draws a line between the justification of basic and non-basic emotions, (2) preserves a broadly cognitivist view of emotions, (3) avoids a form of value skepticism that threatens inferentialist views of emotional justification, and (4) sheds new light on the structure of our epistemic access to evaluative properties. (shrink)

This paper introduces a body of research on Organizational Behavior and Industrial/organizational Psychology that expands the range of empirical evidence relevant to the ongoing character-situation debate. This body of research, mostly neglected by moral philosophers, provides important insights to move the debate forward. First, the OB/io scholarship provides empirical evidence to show that social environments like organizations have significant power to shape the character traits of their members. This scholarship also describes some of the mechanisms through which this process of (...) reshaping character takes place. Second, the character-situation debate has narrowly focused on situational influences that affect behavior episodically and haphazardly. The OB/io research, however, highlights the importance of distinguishing such situational influences from influences that, like organizational influences, shape our character traits because they are continuous and coordinated. Third, the OB/io literature suggests that most individuals display character traits that, while local to the organization, can be consistent across situations. This puts pressure on the accounts of character proposed by traditional virtue ethics and situationism and provides empirical support to interactionist models based on cognitive-affective processing system theories of personality. Finally, the OB/io literature raises important challenges to the possibility of achieving virtue, provides valuable and untapped resources to cultivate character, and suggests new avenues of normative and empirical research. (shrink)

Scholars who favor shareholder primacy usually claim either that managers should not fulfill corporate duties of beneficence or that, if they are required to fulfill them, they do so by going against their obligations to shareholders. Distinguishing between structurally different types of duties of beneficence and recognizing the full force of the normative demands imposed on managers reveal that this view needs to be qualified. Although it is correct to think that managers, when acting on behalf of shareholders, are not (...) required to fulfill wide duties of charity, they are nevertheless required to fulfill a variety of narrow duties of beneficence. What is more, the obligation to fulfill these duties arises precisely because they are acting on behalf of shareholders. As such, this article 1) refines our understanding of the duties of corporate beneficence and 2) helps to identify which duties of beneficence are imposed on managers when they are acting on behalf of shareholders. (shrink)

According to epistemological disjunctivism (ED), in paradigmatic cases of perceptual knowledge, a subject, S, has perceptual knowledge that p in virtue of being in possession of reasons for her belief that p which are both factive and reflectively accessible to S. It has been argued that ED is better placed than both knowledge internalism and knowledge externalism to undercut underdetermination-based skepticism. I identify several principles that must be true if ED is to be uniquely placed to attain this goal. After (...) that, I use those principles to formulate a diachronic skeptical argument. This argument yields the counterintuitive conclusion that understanding a global skeptical hypothesis is all it takes for a rational subject to lose all her perceptual knowledge of the world. Next, I show that a popular Austinian move must reject one or another of the principles that underlie ED. I close by delineating a novel strategy that can block the diachronic skeptical argument while preserving all the principles. The key idea is that perceptual knowledge is grounded in primitive, perceptual and recognitional abilities. This view sheds new light on some puzzling features of global skepticism that have been noted by Descartes and Hume, among others. (shrink)

RESUMEN: El tema de este trabajo es la reconstrucción de la teoría de la selección natural darwiniana. Me propongo esbozar la ley fundamental de esta teoría de manera informal a partir de sus aplicaciones en El origen de las especies de Darwin y presentar sus conceptos fundamentales. Presentaré la red teórica de leyes especiales que surgen de la especialización de esta ley fundamental. Supondré el estructuralismo como marco metateórico. Señalaré también algunas consecuencias que mi propuesta tiene sobre ciertas discusiones metateóricas (...) en torno a la teoría y, finalmente, relacionaré mi reconstrucción con otras reconstrucciones disponibles.ABSTRACT: This paper is about the reconstruction of the Darwinian Theory of Natural Selection. My aim here is to outline the fundamental law of this theory in an informal way from its applications in The Origin of Species and to make explicit its fundamental concepts. I will introduce the theory-nets of special laws that arisefrom the specialization of the fundamental law. I will assume the metatheoretical structuralist frame. I will also point out many consequences that my proposal has about a few metatheoretical discussions around the theory and, finally, I will relate my propose to other reconstructions available. (shrink)

Evidence from cognitive science supports the claim that humans and other animals see the world as divided into objects. Although this claim is widely accepted, it remains unclear whether the mechanisms of visual reference have representational content or are directly instantiated in the functional architecture. I put forward a version of the former approach that construes object files as icons for objects. This view is consistent with the evidence that motivates the architectural account, can respond to the key arguments against (...) representational accounts, and has explanatory advantages. I draw general lessons for the philosophy of perception and the naturalization of intentionality. (shrink)

ABSTRACT:The distinction between what I call nonelective obligations and discretionary obligations, a distinction that focuses on one particular thread of the distinction between perfect and imperfect duties, helps us to identify the obligations that carry over from principals to agents. Clarity on this issue is necessary to identify the moral obligations within “shareholder primacy”, which conceives of managers as agents of shareholders. My main claim is that the principal-agent relation requires agents to fulfill nonelective obligations, but it does not always (...) require discharging discretionary obligations. I show that the requirement to fulfill nonelective obligations is more far-reaching than has been acknowledged by most defenders and critics of shareholder primacy. But I also show that managers are not bound by certain discretionary obligations like charity, showing that their moral obligations are more circumscribed than the obligations that apply to human beings in general. (shrink)

Object files are mental representations that enable perceptual systems to keep track of objects as numerically the same. How is their reference fixed? A prominent approach, championed by Zenon Pylyshyn and John Campbell, makes room for a non-satisfactional use of properties to fix reference. This maneuver has enabled them to reconcile a singularist view of reference with the intuition that properties must play a role in reference fixing. This paper examines Campbell’s influential defense of this strategy. After criticizing it, a (...) new approach is sketched. The alternative view introduces representational contents to explain perceptual individuation. After arguing that those contents are not satisfactional, it is concluded that there is room for a third view of reference fixing that does not fit into the singularist/descriptivist dichotomy. (shrink)

Epistemological disjunctivism (ED) has been thought to solve the conditionality problem for epistemic externalism. This problem arises from externalists’ characterization of our epistemic standings as conditional on the obtaining of worldly facts which we lack any reflective access to. ED is meant to avoid the conditionality problem by explicating subjects’ perceptual knowledge in paradigmatic cases of perceptual knowledge via their possession of perceptual reasons that are both factive and reflectively accessible. I argue that ED’s account of reflectively accessible factive perceptual (...) reasons is also prey to the conditionality problem. After that, I submit that Stroud’s influential formulation of the conditionality problem relies on a methodological requirement that is potentially dissociable from ED. So, it is possible to put ED in the service of a more modest anti-skeptical strategy. I close by suggesting that this modest anti-skeptical strategy successfully undercuts the underdetermination-based skeptical paradox. Nevertheless, it does not have substantial advantages over some forms of epistemic externalism. (shrink)

Suele señalarse la fuerte influencia que la teología natural tuvo sobre Darwin en su conceptualización del fenómeno de la adaptación. La teoría de la selección natural explicaría el mismo fenómeno que los teólogos naturales querían explicar: la adaptación. Recientemente ha sido señalado, sin embargo, que la forma darwiniana de conceptualizar la adaptación es novedosa. Las adaptaciones de la teología natural presupondrían la idea de que los organismos existen para la realización y manutención del equilibrio natural establecido por el creador. El (...) punto de este trabajo discutir esta cuestión, asumiendo el marco del estructuralismo metateórico. The strong influence that natural theology had over Darwin’s conceptualization of the adaptation phenomenon is frequently noted. The natural selection theory would explain the same phenomenon that the natural theologist intended to explain: the adaptation. Recently has been claimed, on the contrary, that the Darwinian way of conceptualizing adaptation is new. The concept of adaptation from natural theology presupposes the idea that organisms exist for realization and support of the natural equilibrium stated by the creator. In this work I will discuss this point, assuming the metatheoretical structuralism frame. (shrink)

In this paper I tried to find a harm based solution to the non-identity problem. I explore the view upon which future persons are harmed if we prevent them from having what it is required by the Principle of Utility.

Radical skepticism relies on the hypothesis that one could be completely cut off from the external world. In this paper, I argue that this hypothesis can be rationally motivated by means of a conceivability argument. Subsequently, I submit that this conceivability argument does not furnish a good reason to believe that one could be completely cut off from the external world. To this end, I show that we cannot adequately conceive scenarios that verify the radical skeptical hypothesis. Attempts to do (...) so fall prey to one or another of three pitfalls: they end up incomplete, reveal a deep contradiction or recreate a non-skeptical hypothesis. I use these results to improve upon Pritchard’s recent attempt at undercutting radical skepticism. (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.

En On the Origin of Species Darwin distingue explícitamente entre tres tipos de selección: la selección natural, la artificial y la sexual. En este trabajo, a partir de un estudio más sistemático que historiográfico, se intenta encontrar la relación entre estos tres tipos de selección en la obra de Darwin. Si bien la distinción entre estos distintos mecanismos es de suma importancia en la obra de Darwin, la tesis de este trabajo es que tanto la selección artificial como la sexual (...) no son mecanismos distintos de la selección natural. Particularmente se sostiene que la selección artificial y la sexual son casos de la natural, y por esto sirven para su contrastación. (shrink)

Austere relationism rejects the orthodox analysis of hallucinations and illusions as incorrect perceptual representations. In this article, I argue that illusions of optimal motion present a serious challenge for this view. First, I submit that austere-relationist accounts of misleading experiences cannot be adapted to account for IOMs. Second, I show that any attempt at elucidating IOMs within an austere-relationist framework undermines the claim that perceptual experiences fundamentally involve relations to mind-independent objects. Third, I develop a representationalist model of IOMs. The (...) proposed analysis combines two ideas: Evans' dynamic modes of presentation and Fine's relational semantics for identity. (shrink)

It is widely assumed that perception is a source of reasons (SR). There is a weak sense in which this claim is trivially true: even if one characterizes perception in purely causal terms, perceptual beliefs originate from the mind's interaction with the world. When philosophers argue for (SR), however, they have a stronger view in mind: they claim that perception provides pre- or non-doxastic reasons for belief. In this article I examine some ways of developing this view and criticize them. (...) I exploit these results to formulate a series of constraints that a satisfactory account of the epistemic role of perception should fulfil. I also make a positive suggestion: coherentists are right when they claim that only beliefs can be reasons for other beliefs. Nevertheless, I depart from traditional coherentism, for I do not buy its conception of perception as bare sensation, nor explicate the justificatory status of beliefs in terms of coherence. My point is rather that, when one invokes experience to justify a belief, the justifying state must have structural features of beliefs. (shrink)

The rule account of self-conscious thought holds that a thought is self-conscious if and only if it contains a token of a concept-type that is governed by a reflexive rule. An account along these lines was discussed in the late 70s. Nevertheless, very few philosophers endorse it nowadays. I shall argue that this summary dismissal is partly unjustified. There is one version of the rule account that can explain a key epistemic property of self-conscious thoughts: Guarantee. Along the way, I (...) will rebut a number of objections and introduce two constraints on how the reflexive rule is implemented. (shrink)

This is a draft of my chapter on Negligence for the forthcoming Oxford Handbook in Moral Psychology. It discusses philosophical, psychological, and legal approaches to the attribution of culpability in cases of negligent wrongdoing.

According to MODERATISM, perceptual justification requires that one independently takes for granted propositional hinges like <There is an external world>, <I am not a brain in a vat (BIV)>, and so on. This view faces the truth problem: to offer an account of truth for hinges that is not threatened by skepticism. Annalisa Coliva has tried to solve the truth problem by combining the claim that external world propositions have a substantive truth property like correspondence with the claim that hinges (...) have a deflationary truth property. I argue that the resulting view cannot offer a coherent characterization of ‘skeptical switch scenarios’ while providing an effective anti-skeptical strategy. In a more positive vein, I defend an approach that combines a correspondence conception of truth with epistemological disjunctivism. (shrink)

The scientific revolution of the XVII siècle is normally described as erasing final causes and the teleology of physics. Nevertheless, the functional language plays a central role in certain areas of biological practice. This is why many philosophers have tried to explicate the concept of function, sometimes to defend the relevance of its use, some other times to show that it is merely a way of speaking that could be easily eliminated without any relevant information loss. The principal purpose of (...) this paper is to show the necessity of appealing to functional concepts for an adequate reconstruction of the Darwinian natural selection theory. Thus, functional language is used in the conceptualization of the theory’s domain of application, and that domain should be determined independently of the natural selection theory. (shrink)

This paper argues that habits, just like beliefs, can guide intentional action. To do this, a variety of real-life cases where a person acts habitually but contrary to her beliefs are discussed. The cases serve as dissociations showing that intentional agency is possible without doxastic guidance. The upshot is a model for thinking about the rationality of habitual action and the rationalizing role that habits can play in it. The model highlights the role that our history and institutions play in (...) shaping what actions become habitual for us. (shrink)

Abstract: In Mind and World, McDowell conceives of the content of perceptual experiences as conceptual. This picture is supposed to provide a therapy for skepticism, by showing that empirical thinking is objectively and normatively constrained. The paper offers a reconstruction of McDowell's view and shows that the therapy fails. This claim is based on three arguments: 1) the identity conception of truth he exploits is unable to sustain the idea that perception-judgment transitions are normally truth conducing; 2) it could be (...) plausible only from an externalist point of view that is in tension with the view of normativity that motivates conceptualism; 3) the identity conception of truth is incompatible with McDowell's recent version of conceptualism in terms of ‘non-propositional intuitive contents’. (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)

Duties of beneficence are said to allow for leeway to discharge them. By distinguishing between two different types of leeway, Mejia identified three structurally different duties of beneficence. In this Commentary I deploy those distinctions to clarify the nature of a fourth type of duty of beneficence, one prompted by a global pandemic, a duty with a peculiar, and seldom recognized, conceptual logic. I provide some guidelines that should orient managers when they take themselves to be fulfilling such a duty (...) on behalf of shareholders. (shrink)

A traditional view holds that the self-concept is essentially indexical. In a highly influential article, Ruth Millikan famously held that the self-concept should be understood as a Millian name with a sui generis functional role. This article presents a novel explanatory argument against the Millian view and in favor of the indexical view. The argument starts from a characterization of the self-concept as a device of information integration. It then shows that the indexical view yields a better explanation of the (...) integration function than the Millian view. The resulting account can rebut Millikan’s objections and it has broader implications for the debate on the essential indexical. (shrink)

Aunque parece una teoría relativamente simple, la teoría de la selección natural ha traído muchas discusiones al respecto de su reconstrucción. En particular, los autores han tenido dificultades a la hora de elucidar el concepto de aptitud (fitness) adecuadamente. El punto de vista de este trabajo consiste en que para entender adecuadamente esta cuestión, y además, para dar cuenta de manera adecuada de las explicaciones seleccionistas, tanto las dadas por Darwin como sus aplicaciones más actuales, es necesario a la hora (...) de reconstruir la teoría utilizar más conceptos de los que habitualmente se utilizan. En este trabajo se explayará sobre este punto y se presentará una reconstrucción de la teoría en cuestión con las herramientas del estructuralismo metateórico. -/- Title: Structuralist Reconstruction of Natural Selection Theory Abstract: Despite seeming relatively simple Natural Selection Theory has brought up many discussions regarding its reconstruction. In particular, many authors have had difficulties in explicating the concept of fitness. The point of view of this paper is that more concepts are needed in order to, on the one hand, understand more adequately this issue, and on the other hand, to account for selectionist explanations, both Darwin’s and current applications, in an adequate way. Having this in mind, I will offer a reconstruction of Natural Selection Theory using the tools of metatheoretical structuralism. (shrink)

Algunos aspectos de La expresión de las emociones de Charles Darwin pueden resultar intrigantes, pues, en la explicación de cómo tales expresiones se originan, Darwin casi nunca apela a la selección natural. En cambio, apela principalmente a la idea de que movimientos voluntarios se asocian a emociones, volviéndose por hábito innatos e involuntarios al heredarse a la descendencia. Si bien Darwin da varias razones para defender esta explicación, en este trabajo trataré de mostrar que, si se entiende el libro sobre (...) las expresiones en relación con los objetivos explícitos e implícitos de El origen del hombre, el asunto se entiende mejor. En particular, resulta interesante la tesis que Desmond y Moore plantean respecto a la importancia de los ideales antiesclavistas de Darwin a la hora del tratamiento de las razas. Defenderé en este trabajo que el enfoque de Desmond y Moore puede extenderse al libro acerca de las expresiones. Específicamente, estableceré vínculos entre la explicación del origen de las razas y la explicación del origen del rubor. Palabras clave: Charles Darwin, La expresión de las emociones, El origen del hombre, Rubor, Antiesclavismo. (shrink)

Xenophon’s conception of the dialectical method shares many similarities with Antisthenes’ point of view regarding the relation between language and reality. The key element supporting this reading is the parallel between Xenophon’s method of dialegein kata genē and Antisthenes’ method of episkepsis tōn onomatōn. In this paper, I claim that a correct understanding of both methods yields a clear structural proximity between the two Socratics on the issue of dialectics. Although they present some significant differences, which I will also explore, (...) I will argue that both variants express a single Socratic motive with regard to dialectics. That is that dialectics, in its basic structure, consists of organizing reality through discourse in order to make it comprehensible. In particular, this is done through establishing unified instances capable of comprehending a multiplicity. This nuclear position could also be extended to include middle Plato’s concept of dialectics. This concurrence takes up different forms in Plato, Xenophon and Antisthenes. Nevertheless, they share the same structure, which indicates quite plausibly a major characteristic of Socratic philosophies, as opposed to previous attempts by the Presocratics and the Sophists. (shrink)

En este artículo, se pretende brindar una nueva perspectiva al respecto de la atribución de funciones en biología. La idea consiste en considerar que los conceptos funcionales son conceptos primitivos de una teoría científica, tal como desarrollada por Darwin en sus textos sobre la fecundación cruzada. Intentaré mostrar que teorías, que hacen ese uso de los conceptos funcionales, tienen características sintomáticas de teorías consideradas habitualmente genuinas y compararé mi enfoque con otros alternativos acerca de las funciones. En la reconstrucción, se (...) presupondrán las herramientas del estructuralismo metateórico. (shrink)

Research in vision science, developmental psychology, and the foundations of cognitive science has led some theorists to posit referential mechanisms similar to indices. This hypothesis has been framed within a Fodorian conception of the early vision module. The article shows that this conception is mistaken, for it cannot handle the ‘interface problem’—roughly, how indexing mechanisms relate to higher cognition and conceptual thought. As a result, I reject the inaccessibility of early vision to higher cognition and make some constructive remarks on (...) the perception–cognition interface. -/- 1 The Case for Visual Indices 1.1 Preliminary assumptions 1.2 Transcendental arguments 1.3 Evidence from vision science 2 Visual Indices, Object Files, and Fodorian Modularity 3 The Interface Problem 3.1 Top-down attention and modularity 3.2 Selective attention and information 4 Revising the Indexing Hypothesis 4.1 Revising the perception–cognition interface 4.2 Revising the modularity of early vision 5 Concluding Remarks. (shrink)

Carter and Pritchard (2016) and Pritchard (2010, 2012, 2016) have tried to reconcile the intuition that perceptual knowledge requires only limited discriminatory abilities with the closure principle. To this end, they have introduced two theoretical innovations: a contrast between two ways of introducing error-possibilities and a distinction between discriminating and favoring evidence. I argue that their solution faces the “sufficiency problem”: it is unclear whether the evidence that is normally available to adult humans is sufficient to retain knowledge of the (...) entailing proposition and come to know the entailed proposition. I submit that, on either infallibilist or fallibilist views of evidence, Carter and Pritchard have set the bar for deductive knowledge too low. At the end, I offer an alternative solution. I suggest that the knowledge-retention condition of the closure principle is not satisfied in zebra-like scenarios. (shrink)

Para algunos la selección natural se identifica con las diferencias de éxito de distintos organismos en la reproducción diferencial. Si esto fuese así, el principio de Hardy-Weinberg, por permitir determinar con bastante precisión bajo ciertos supuestos que la frecuencia génica en una población no es la esperada, podría ser visto como una versión cuantitativa de la selección natural cualitativa propuesta por Darwin. Es mi intención mostrar, a través del análisis de explicaciones dadas por Darwin, que la selección natural es más (...) que la mera diferencia en el éxito en la reproducción diferencial e investigar algunas relaciones entre la teoría de la selección natural y la genética de poblaciones. (shrink)

En este trabajo realizaré afirmaciones sobre la fuerza de las razones en contra de dañar. Distinguiré diferentes tipos de estados de daño y de acciones dañosas. Explicaré qué tipo de estado de daño es más grave y qué tipo de acción dañosa genera razones más fuertes en contra de dañar. Finalmente compararé la fuerza de las razones en contra de dañar derivadas tanto de los estados de daño como de los distintos tipos de acciones dañosas, para establecer una regla de (...) prioridad entre ellas. -/- In this work, I present some considerations on the strength of the reasons against harming. I distinguish between different kinds of harmed states and harming actions, and explain which kind of harmed state is worse, and which kind of harming action provides stronger reasons against harming. Finally, I compare the strength of the reasons against harming provided by harmed states and those provided by the different kinds of harming actions in order to establish a priority rule between them. (shrink)

Respuesta al comentario de Gustavo Caponi. “Ginnobili, Santiago. ‘El estatus fenomenológico de la teoría de la selección natural’”, Ideas y Valores LXII/152 (2013): 319-322.

Zaratustra, y muy especialmente sus dos primeras partes, son un canto al Superhombre. La mayor parte de filósofos, capitaneados por Fink y Heidegger, ven ese nombre como una especie de seudónimo del hombre que conoce y acepta las doctrinas del eterno retorno y-o de la voluntad de poder. Y nos ponen en guardia contra el exceso de términos biológicos que Nietzsche utiliza e incluso sobre el que pueda ser su verdadero significado (empezando por el de la misma palabra “vida”). Una (...) labor que no tendrán más remedio que hacer extensiva a algunos de los párrafos que podemos encontrar en los Fragmentos Póstumos escritos por Nietzsche en esas fechas y que no se dejan tergiversar tan fácilmente (unas notas utilizadas tan solo para uso propio y que por lo tanto no tienen por qué haber sido acicaladas): “la humanidad no tiene un fin; pero puede darse uno: no un final, no conservar la especie, sino sobrepasarla” [4 (20)]; “¡El hombre es el pretexto para alguna cosa que ya no es el hombre¡ ¿es la conservación de la especie lo que queréis? Yo digo: ir más allá de la especie” [5 (35)]; “Mi reivindicación: crear seres que estén por encima de la especie “hombre”; y para ese fin sacrificarse a sí mismo y al “prójimo”. [7 (21)]. El significado, cuando menos aparente, de estas frases parece claro. Mientras que para Darwin la evolución ha acabado con la llegada de nuestra especie, el Zaratustra de las dos primeras partes acaricia la idea de ir un poco más allá. Aunque tal vez esa ilusión sea tan esotérica como fugaz. (shrink)

In this paper, I argue that Aristotle was already aware in his earlier texts of the fundamental distinction between motion and activity and of the criterion which structures this contrast. Moreover, I will present textual evidence which suggests that Aristotle’s original concept of ἐνέργεια applies primarily to activities which contain their ends in themselves, and not to motions, which are different from their ends.