A lo largo de este artículo se aborda el contexto histórico, social, espiritual y teológico en el que se enmarca el pensamiento eckhartiano: la agitada situación de Alemania a finales del siglo XIII y principios del XIV, la incesante búsqueda espiritual de tantas mujeres, beguinas y monjas, de los grupos de amigos de Dios, y las desviaciones de los seguidores del Libre Espíritu. Junto a ello, la escuela filosófica de Colonia, establecida por San Alberto Magno, a la que perteneció el (...) Maestro Eckhart junto con sus discípulos, Suso y Tauler. Asimismo se presentan las principales nociones para comprender su teología mística, cómo concibe a Dios, al ser humano y su "fondo del alma", de qué manera se produce la unión del alma con Dios, la "irrupción" o el nacimiento del Verbo en el alma, y las condiciones para ello, como el desprendimiento de todo lo creado y de uno mismo, para recibir, por gracia, la Vida divina, la bienaventuranza eterna. (shrink)

A lo largo de este artículo se aborda el contexto histórico, social, espiritual y teológico en el que se enmarca el pensamiento eckhartiano: la agitada situación de Alemania a finales del siglo XIII y principios del XIV, la incesante búsqueda espiritual de tantas mujeres, beguinas y monjas, de los grupos de amigos de Dios, y las desviaciones de los seguidores del Libre Espíritu. Junto a ello, la escuela filosófica de Colonia, establecida por San Alberto Magno, a la que perteneció el (...) Maestro Eckhart junto con sus discípulos, Suso y Tauler. Asimismo se presentan las principales nociones para comprender su teología mística, cómo concibe a Dios, al ser humano y su "fondo del alma", de qué manera se produce la unión del alma con Dios, la "irrupción" o el nacimiento del Verbo en el alma, y las condiciones para ello, como el desprendimiento de todo lo creado y de uno mismo, para recibir, por gracia, la Vida divina, la bienaventuranza eterna. (shrink)

Silvia Bara Bancel y Julián de Cos, OP (eds). Dios en Ti. Eckhart, Tauler y Susón a través de sus textos. Editorial San Esteban, Salamanca, 2017, 272 pp. ISBN 978-84-8260-339-1.

Today, in the situation that we call the instanternity of the digital age, the visual aspect of the social (and power) relations is ever more important. The majority of human interactions on the Internet are happening in the field of vision. In this field, human desire follows the scopic drive, which is, according to Freud, expressed in the ambivalence of voyeurism and exhibitionism. This means that voyeurism and exhibitionism are the fundamental mechanisms operating in, and structuring, the digital virtual. This (...) topic, in a broader sense, tackles the inscription of the subject within the digital virtual spectacle, which deals with the relation between the individual’s imaginary and symbolic identification, that is, between the ideal ego and the ego ideal. To a certain extent, this also relates to what has been marked as a »pathological narcissism«. Even if the changes brought about by the digital virtual, as far as the subject is concerned, are not ontological, i.e. they do not concern its relation to being, they do concern its entry into the field of the Other, and can, because they are systemic changes, fundamentally restructure the social fabric. The bet of this article is therefore not only to try to understand the mechanisms driving the formation of subjectivity within the digital virtual, but also to trace their transformative potential. (shrink)

The idea that there are some facts that call for explanation serves as an unexamined premise in influential arguments for the inexistence of moral or mathematical facts and for the existence of a god and of other universes. This book is the first to offer a comprehensive and critical treatment of this idea. It argues that calling for explanation is a sometimes-misleading figure of speech rather than a fundamental property of facts.

Non-skeptical robust realists about normativity, mathematics, or any other domain of non- causal truths are committed to a correlation between their beliefs and non- causal, mind-independent facts. Hartry Field and others have argued that if realists cannot explain this striking correlation, that is a strong reason to reject their theory. Some consider this argument, known as the Benacerraf–Field argument, as the strongest challenge to robust realism about mathematics, normativity, and even logic. In this article I offer two closely related accounts (...) for the type of explanation needed in order to address Field's challenge. I then argue that both accounts imply that the striking correlation to which robust realists are committed is explainable, thereby discharging Field's challenge. Finally, I respond to some objections and end with a few unresolved worries. (shrink)

Public engagement is one of the fundamental pillars of the European programme for research and innovation _Horizon 2020_. The programme encourages engagement that not only fosters science education and dissemination, but also promotes two-way dialogues between scientists and the public at various stages of research. Establishing such dialogues between different groups of societal actors is seen as crucial in order to attain epistemic as well as social desiderata at the intersection between science and society. However, whether these dialogues can actually (...) help attaining these desiderata is far from obvious. This paper discusses some of the costs, risks, and benefits of dialogical public engagement practices, and proposes a strategy to analyse these argumentative practices based on a three-tiered model of epistemic exchange. As a case study, we discuss the phenomenon of vaccine hesitancy, arguably a result of suboptimal public engagement, and show how the proposed model can shed new light on the problem. (shrink)

Much scientific research is characterized by a high degree of multidisciplinarity and interdependence between the experts. In these cases research may be described as a group activity, and as such analysed in terms of the intentions of the participants. In this paper I apply Bratman's notion of shared intentionality to explain the relations between social and epistemic elements in groups with a truth-oriented common goal. I argue that in truth-oriented activities the disposition to help – which is a constitutive part (...) of Bratman's notion of shared intentionality – takes the form of a commitment not to lie, and that mutual knowledge of this commitment gives the members an entitlement to rely on other members' testimonies. Thus, in truth-oriented group activities, common knowledge of the disposition toward mutual support gives epistemic relevance to cooperation. Scientific research is shaped by the coexistence of social and epistemic elements: social relations influence knowledge attributions, and the epistemic goal of the activity confers a particular character to these relations. (shrink)

Philosophers of physics have long debated whether the Past State of low entropy of our universe calls for explanation. What is meant by “calls for explanation”? In this article we analyze this notion, distinguishing between several possible meanings that may be attached to it. Taking the debate around the Past State as a case study, we show how our analysis of what “calling for explanation” might mean can contribute to clarifying the debate and perhaps to settling it, thus demonstrating the (...) fruitfulness of this analysis. Applying our analysis, we show that two main opponents in this debate, Huw Price and Craig Callender, are, for the most part, talking past each other rather than disagreeing, as they employ different notions of “calling for explanation”. We then proceed to show how answering the different questions that arise out of the different meanings of “calling for explanation” can result in clarifying the problems at hand and thus, hopefully, to solving them. (shrink)

Modal Security is an increasingly discussed proposed necessary condition on undermining defeat. Modal Security says, roughly, that if evidence undermines (rather than rebuts) one’s belief, then one gets reason to doubt the belief's safety or sensitivity. The primary interest of the principle is that it seems to entail that influential epistemological arguments, including Evolutionary Debunking Arguments against moral realism and the Benacerraf-Field Challenge for mathematical realism, are unsound. The purpose of this paper is to critically examine Modal Security in detail. (...) We develop and discuss what we take to be the strongest objections to the principle. One of the aims of the paper is to expose the weakness of these objections. Another is to reveal how the debate over Modal Security interacts with core problems in epistemology — including the generality problem, and the distinction between direct and indirect evidence. (shrink)

Many philosophers believe that when a theory is committed to an apparently unexplainable massive correlation, that fact counts significantly against the theory. Philosophical theories that imply that we have knowledge of non-causal mind-independent facts are especially prone to this objection. Prominent examples of such theories are mathematical Platonism, robust normative realism and modal realism. It is sometimes thought that theists can easily respond to this sort of challenge and that theism therefore has an epistemic advantage over atheism. In this paper, (...) I will argue that, contrary to widespread thought, some versions of theism only push the challenge one step further and thus are in no better position than atheism. (shrink)

The aim of the present study was to investigate the effects of communicative intention on action. In Experiment 1 participants were requested to reach towards an object, grasp it, and either simply lift it or lift it with the intent to communicate a meaning to a partner . Movement kinematics were recorded using a three-dimensional motion analysis system. The results indicate that kinematics was sensitive to communicative intention. Although the to-be-grasped object remained the same, movements performed for the ‘communicative’ condition (...) were characterized by a kinematic pattern which differed from those obtained for the ‘individual’ condition. These findings were confirmed in a subsequent experiment in which the communicative condition was compared to a control condition, in which the communicative exchange was prevented. Results are discussed in terms of cognitive pragmatics and current knowledge on how social behavior shapes action kinematics. (shrink)

Surprises are important in our everyday lives as well as in our scientific and philosophical theorizing—in psychology, information theory, cognitive-neuroscience, philosophy of science, and confirmation theory. Nevertheless, there is no satisfactory theory of what makes something surprising. It has long been acknowledged that not everything unexpected is surprising. The reader had no reason to expect that there will be exactly 190 words in this abstract and yet there is nothing surprising about this fact. We offer a novel theory that explains (...) when and why an unexpected fact is surprising. We distinguish between descriptive and normative notions of what is surprising; clarify the sense in which surprising facts are unexpected; and, finally, develop and defend the significance account of surprise, according to which a fact is surprising to an agent if and to the extent that it is both unexpected and significant to the agent. Since a surprising fact can be significant to an agent in various ways—personal, moral, epistemic, and aesthetic—surprise is not merely or primarily epistemic. Fitting surprise reflects more than a person’s view of what is; it reflects a person’s view of what is significant. (shrink)

Motivated by examples, many philosophers believe that there is a significant distinction between states of affairs that are striking and therefore call for explanation and states of affairs that are not striking. This idea underlies several influential debates in metaphysics, philosophy of mathematics, normative theory, philosophy of modality, and philosophy of science but is not fully elaborated or explored. This paper aims to address this lack of clear explanation first by clarifying the epistemological issue at hand. Then it introduces an (...) initially attractive account for strikingness that is inspired by the work of Paul Horwich and adopted by a number of philosophers. The paper identifies two logically distinct accounts that have both been attributed to Horwich and then argues that, when properly interpreted, they can withstand former criticisms. The final two sections present a new set of considerations against both Horwichian accounts that avoid the shortcomings of former critiques. It remains to be seen whether an adequate account of strikingness exists. (shrink)

Several authors believe that there are certain facts that are striking and cry out for explanation—for instance, a coin that is tossed many times and lands in the alternating sequence HTHTHTHTHTHT…. According to this view, we have prima facie reason to believe that such facts are not the result of chance. I call this view the striking principle. Based on this principle, some have argued for far-reaching conclusions, such as that our universe was created by intelligent design, that there are (...) many universes other than the one we inhabit, and that there are no mathematical or normative facts. Appealing as the view may initially seem, I argue that we lack sufficient reason to accept it. (shrink)

What are the relevant values to the appraisal of research programs? This question remains hotly debated, as philosophers have recently proposed many lists of values potentially relevant to scientific appraisal. Surprisingly, despite being mentioned in many lists, little attention has been paid to fruitfulness. It is unclear how fruitfulness should be explicated, and whether it has any substantial role in scientific appraisal. In this paper, I argue we should explicate fruitfulness as the capacity to develop of research programs. Moreover, I (...) provide a novel strategy to assess and compare the fruitfulness of programs focused on their research questions and heuristics. To illustrate how this strategy would work, I will discuss a case study, namely the adaptationist program in evolutionary psychology. (shrink)

From governments to the general public, one may ask about the possible contributions of historians, if any, to the understanding and management of global disasters, as e.g. the ongoing coronavirus disease 2019. Given the confuse situation at the onset of the pandemic in terms of diagnosis, treatment, and prevention, a look into past experience with nonconventional medicine seemed relevant. In the present study I surveyed secondary literature on the role of Chinese medicine, Āyurveda, and homeopathy over time. The quantitative results (...) were disappointing: nothing on Āyurveda, and one single study each on Chinese medicine and homeopathy. The quality of the former compensates for the numerical short age. The case of homeopathy is rather sui generis, since this medical system was born and blossomed during epidemics and pandemics. I conclude with a short comment on reference sources, which might serve as point of departure for future studies of Āyurveda in epidemics. (shrink)

Pluralist mathematical realism, the view that there exists more than one mathematical universe, has become an influential position in the philosophy of mathematics. I argue that, if mathematical pluralism is true (and we have good reason to believe that it is), then mathematical realism cannot (easily) be justified by arguments from the indispensability of mathematics to science. This is because any justificatory chain of inferences from mathematical applications in science to the total body of mathematical theorems can cover at most (...) one mathematical universe. Indispensability arguments may thus lose their central role in the debate about mathematical ontology. (shrink)

I argue that recent attempts to deflect Access Problems for realism about a priori domains such as mathematics, logic, morality, and modality using arguments from evolution result in two kinds of explanatory overkill: the Access Problem is eliminated for contentious domains, and realist belief becomes viciously immune to arguments from dispensability, and to non-rebutting counter-arguments more generally.

The existence of fundamental moral disagreements is a central problem for moral realism and has often been contrasted with an alleged absence of disagreement in mathematics. However, mathematicians do in fact disagree on fundamental questions, for example on which set-theoretic axioms are true, and some philosophers have argued that this increases the plausibility of moral vis-à-vis mathematical realism. I argue that the analogy between mathematical and moral disagreement is not as straightforward as those arguments present it. In particular, I argue (...) that pluralist accounts of mathematics render fundamental mathematical disagreements compatible with mathematical realism in a way in which moral disagreements and moral realism are not. 11. (shrink)

Can art, religion, or philosophy afford ineffable insights? If so, what are they? The idea of ineffability has puzzled philosophers from Laozi to Wittgenstein. In Ineffability and its Metaphysics: The Unspeakable in Art, Religion and Philosophy, Silvia Jonas examines different ways of thinking about what ineffable insights might involve metaphysically, and shows which of these are in fact incoherent. Jonas discusses the concepts of ineffable properties and objects, ineffable propositions, ineffable content, and ineffable knowledge, examining the metaphysical pitfalls involved (...) in these concepts. Ultimately, she defends the idea that ineffable insights as found in aesthetic, religious, and philosophical contexts are best understood in terms of self-acquaintance, a particular kind of non-propositional knowledge. Ineffability as a philosophical topic is as old as the history of philosophy itself, but contributions to the exploration of ineffability have been sparse. The theory developed by Jonas makes the concept tangible and usable in many different philosophical contexts. (shrink)

This article presents the first, systematic analysis of the ethical challenges posed by recommender systems through a literature review. The article identifies six areas of concern, and maps them onto a proposed taxonomy of different kinds of ethical impact. The analysis uncovers a gap in the literature: currently user-centred approaches do not consider the interests of a variety of other stakeholders—as opposed to just the receivers of a recommendation—in assessing the ethical impacts of a recommender system.

While there has been much discussion about what makes some mathematical proofs more explanatory than others, and what are mathematical coincidences, in this article I explore the distinct phenomenon of mathematical facts that call for explanation. The existence of mathematical facts that call for explanation stands in tension with virtually all existing accounts of “calling for explanation”, which imply that necessary facts cannot call for explanation. In this paper I explore what theoretical revisions are needed in order to accommodate this (...) phenomenon. One of the important upshots is that, contrary to the current consensus, low prior probability is not a necessary condition for calling for explanation. In the final section I explain how the results of this inquiry help us make progress in assessing Hartry Field’s style of reliability argument against mathematical Platonism and against robust realism in other domains of necessary facts, such as ethics. (shrink)

Several theorists have been attracted to the idea that in order to account for counterpossibles, i.e. counterfactuals with impossible antecedents, we must appeal to impossible worlds. However, few have attempted to provide a detailed impossible worlds account of counterpossibles. Berit Brogaard and Joe Salerno’s ‘Remarks on Counterpossibles’ is one of the few attempts to fill in this theoretical gap. In this article, I critically examine their account. I prove a number of unanticipated implications of their account that end up implying (...) a counterintuitive result. I then examine a suggested revision and point out a surprising implication of the revision. (shrink)

Prolégomènes méthodologiques Choisir une image du sport aux colonies : voilà qui relève de la gageure... Quelle image choisir? Et comment justifier un choix? Trois problèmes, au moins, se posent au chercheur. Le premier est la diversité des sources iconographiques possibles : images de périodiques, illustrations de livres, cartes postales, affiches, photographies privées… il faudrait pouvoir répertorier tous les types de supports par lesquels ont été véhiculées ces représentations, mais aus...

Le génocide du Rwanda constitue l'un des événements majeurs du xxe siècle : 800 000 Tutsis et Hutus de l'opposition au « gouvernement intérimaire » rwandais ont été massacrés entre avril et juin 1994. Or, la reconnaissance de ce génocide ne va pas de soi. Cet article analyse les « contre-feux interprétatifs » mis en place selon trois axes : négation du génocide, euphémisation en « guerre tribale », thèse du « double génocide ». La presse dans cette guerre de (...) mémoire a été un vecteur tout à fait essentiel. The genocide in Rwanda was one of the major events of the 20th century: 800, 000 Tutsis and Hutus opposing Rwanda's "interim government" were massacred between April and June 1994. But recognition of this genocide is by no means taken for granted. This article analyses the different interpretations that were brought in to deflect the issue, such as genocide denial, euphemistic references to the genocide as "tribal war­fare" and "double genocide" theory. The role of the press in this "war over memory" was crucial. (shrink)

The only traces which remain of Abū Sahl al-Qūhī's work on centers of gravity are the correspondence he maintained with Abū Is[hdotu]āq al-[Sdotu]ābi', and the first chapter of the Kitāb Mīzān al-[hdotu]ikma, which 'Abd al-Ra[hdotu]mān al-Khāzinī attributes to al-Qūhī and to Ibn al-Haytham, without distinguishing between their respective contributions. The author of the present article attempts to confront the texts and to analyse all the testimonies which have come down to us on this subject, which are susceptible of shedding light (...) upon al-Qūhī's contribution and the importance of his work on centers of gravity. (shrink)

It is well-established that algorithms can be instruments of injustice. It is less frequently discussed, however, how current modes of AI deployment often make the very discovery of injustice difficult, if not impossible. In this article, we focus on the effects of algorithmic profiling on epistemic agency. We show how algorithmic profiling can give rise to epistemic injustice through the depletion of epistemic resources that are needed to interpret and evaluate certain experiences. By doing so, we not only demonstrate how (...) the philosophical conceptual framework of epistemic injustice can help pinpoint potential, systematic harms from algorithmic profiling, but we also identify a novel source of hermeneutical injustice that to date has received little attention in the relevant literature: epistemic fragmentation. Epistemic fragmentation is a structural characteristic of algorithmically-mediated environments that isolate individuals, making it more difficult to develop, uptake and apply new epistemic resources. This, in turn, can impede the identification and conceptualisation of emerging harms in these environments. We trace the occurrence of hermeneutical injustice back to the fragmentation of the epistemic experiences of individuals, who are left more vulnerable by the inability to share, compare, and learn from shared experiences. (shrink)

Are there any facts that call for explanation? According to one possible view, all facts call for explanation; according to another, none do. This paper is concerned with an intermediate view according to which some facts call for explanation and others do not. Such a view requires explaining what makes some facts call for explanation and not others. In this paper, I explore a neglected proposal, inspired by the work of George Schlesinger, according to which facts call for explanation when (...) they belong to extraordinary types. I compare the merits of this view to those of several alternatives and respond to a salient objection. I end with a discussion of how the theory fares when applied to cosmological fine-tuning arguments. (shrink)

This paper reviews current psychological theories of syllogistic inference and establishes that despite their various merits they all contain deficiencies as theories of performance. It presents the results of two experiments, one using syllogisms and the other using three-term series problems, designed to elucidate how the arrangement of terms within the premises affects performance. These data are used in the construction of a theory based on the hypothesis that reasoners construct mental models of the premises, formulate informative conclusions about the (...) relations in the model, and search for alternative models that are counterexamples to these conclusions. This theory, which has been implemented in several computer programs, predicts that two principal factors should affect performance: the figure of the premises, and the number of models that they call for. These predictions were confirmed by a third experiment. Dans cet article sont passées en revue les théories psychologiques du traitement des syllogismes. On établit qu'en dépit de leurs mérites variés toutes sont en défaut en tant que théories de la performance. On présente les résultats de deux expériences, une utilisant des syllogismes et l'autre des problémes avec des séries de trois termes conçues pour élucider comment l'arrangement des termes dans les premises affecte la performance. Ces données sont utilisées pour construire une théorie fondée sur l'hypothése que les gens construisent des modèles mentaux des premises, formulent des conclusions explicites sur les relations dans le modèle et cherchent des modèles qui seraient des contre-exemples pour leurs conclusions. Cette théorie, utilisée dans plusieurs programmes d'ordinateur, prédit que deux principaux facteurs affectent la performance: la figure des premises et le nombre de; modèles qu'ils mettent en jeu. Cette prédiction est confirmée dans les trois expériences. (shrink)

Do carbon-offsetting schemes morally offset emissions? The moral equivalence thesis is the claim that the combination of emitting greenhouse gasses and offsetting those emissions is morally equivalent to not emitting at all. This thesis implies that in response to climate change, we need not make any lifestyle changes to reduce our emissions as long as we offset them. An influential argument in favor of this thesis is premised on two claims, one empirical and the other normative: (1) When you emit (...) + offset, the net result is the same as that of not emitting. (2) With emissions, the net result is what matters morally. I argue against both premises. The net result of emitting + offsetting is never equivalent to that of not emitting, and even if it were equivalent, the net result is not the only thing that matters morally. My conclusion is that although we should offset our emissions, avoiding emissions is morally preferable. This conclusion supports a stronger claim: that carbon offsets cannot relieve us of our duty to make significant lifestyle changes so as to reduce emissions and thus lesson our contribution to the harms of climate change. (shrink)