The article is divided into two parts. The first part offers a careful reconstruction and detailed discussion of the argument of causal exclusion, as well as of the implications it has for physicalism. In its second part the article examines two important objections to the causal exclusion argument: the generalization objection, which holds that the argument is unacceptable since it confers causal efficacy only to ultimate basic properties, which arguably might not exist; and Yablo’s objection, according to which underlying the (...) argument of causal exclusion there is a principle of causal parsimony which leads to strong counterintuitive results and should therefore be abandoned. The article offers grounds for rejecting both objections as well as a new diagnosis of the problem for mental causation generated by the causal exclusion argument. (shrink)

One of the aims of “Mental Causation and Mental Properties” is to argue that Kim's position with respect to the problem of causal exclusion does not entail the causal heterogeneity of higher‐level properties pace Kim himself. I find that Esfeld's argument misses the point of Kim's position. In what follows I shall briefly try to explain why.

Sydney Shoemaker has been arguing for more than a decade for an account of the mind–body problem in which the notion of realization takes centre stage. His aim is to provide a notion of realization that is consistent with the multiple realizability of mental properties or events, and which explains: how the physical grounds the mental; and why the causal work of mental events is not screened off by that of physical events. Shoemaker's proposal consists of individuating properties in terms (...) of causal powers, and defining realization as a relation of inclusion between sets of causal powers. Thus, as the causal powers that define a mental property are a subset of the causal powers that characterize a physical property, it can be said that physical properties realize mental properties. In this paper we examine the physicalist credentials of Shoemaker's mind–body theory in relation to three important issues: the direction of the relation of dependence that the theory is committed to; the possibility of mental properties existing without being anchored by physical properties; and the compatibility of the theory with the causal closure of the physical world. We argue that Shoemaker's theory is problematic in all three respects. After that we consider whether the theory should count as a mind–body theory at all, given that it seems to be committed to a distorted view of mental properties. (shrink)

It has been suggested in the literature about actions that one can honour the philosophical intuition lying behind Davidson’s argument for the Anscombe Thesis (the claim that by-sentences --sentcnccs used to report actions of the general form: ‘A X-ed by V-ing’-- involve two descriptions of the same action) without accepting the argument’s conclusion. The suggestion in question is to interpret by-sentences as referring to two synchronous but different actions of the same agent. I argue that this suggestion, together with two (...) plausible semantic principles about the naming of events and a reasonable metaphysical principle about the constitution of events, leads to certain ontological commitments which are hardly acccptable. My conclusion is then that in order to deny the Anscambe Thesis what must be done is to show that Davidson’s intuition is wrong. (shrink)

In a series of influential articles (Kim 1989b, 1992b, 1993a and 1998), Jaegwon Kim has developed a strong argument against nonreductive physicalism as a plausible solution to mental causation. The argument is commonly called the ’causal exclusion argument’, and it has become, over the years, one of the most serious threats to the nonreductivist point of view. In the first part of this paper I offer a careful reconstruction and detailed discussion of the exclusion argument. In the second part I (...) show why some important objections to it actually fail. (shrink)

Physicalism is usually understood as the claim that every empirical entity is or is determined by physical entities. The claim is however imprecise until it is clarified what are the physical entities in question. A sceptical argument in the form of a dilemma tries to show that this problem of formulation of physicalism cannot be adequately met. If we understand physical entities as the entities introduced by current physics, the resulting claim becomes most probably false. If we instead understand physical (...) entities as those entities introduced by some future ideal physics, the claim then becomes indeterminate in content. Both horns seem equally bad. In the first part of the paper, I survey the strengths and weaknesses of different proposed solutions to this problem of formulation. In the second part, I lay out a new formulation of physicalism, partly based on a mereological principle, which overcomes the dilemma, and argue that it is a correct formulation of physicalism to the extent that it rules out clear antiphysicalist scenarios and is compatible with clear physicalist scenarios. (shrink)

The recent philosophical literature on emotional action is divided between Humeans, who think that emotional action, for all its peculiarities, can in fact be explained along Humean lines, that is, with belief–desire pairs; and emotionists, who think that emotional actions can only be explained by appealing to emotions and some of their special features. After reviewing this philosophical discussion, I will argue, first, that none of the philosophical accounts of emotional action analysed, whether Humean or emotionist, is satisfactory enough. Second, (...) I will argue that this philosophical debate has reached a stalemate, which does not allow further progress and which has not been able to provide us with a compelling account of such emotional actions where it is not obvious which is the goal involved. Third, I will argue that in order to overcome this stalemate, we need to approach emotional action in a radically different way. Drawing on ideas from some psychologists, I will suggest that the relevant philosophical issue should be whether emotional action is, or is not, goal-directed. Finally, I will suggest how emotional actions, particularly the most puzzling ones, can be accounted for according to this new approach. (shrink)

La teoría perceptiva de las emociones que Jesse Prinz ha defendido recientemente mantiene la tesis jamesiana según la cual la emoción es un efecto causal del conjunto de cambios corporales que aparecen típicamente durante los episodios emotivos, y es, por tanto, posterior a dichos cambios. Prinz defiende también que las emociones encierran valoraciones del estímulo emotivo, pero a la vista de sus razones a favor de la tesis jamesiana, sostiene que tales valoraciones son corporeizadas. En este trabajo, en primer lugar (...) presento tres objeciones a la teoría de Prinz y, en segundo lugar, ofrezco una teoría alternativa, la teoría valorativa multidimensional de las emociones. Mi argumento es que esta alternativa puede responder a los argumentos de Prinz sin necesidad de adoptar la tesis jamesiana. (shrink)

Most philosophers of mind nowadays espouse two metaphysical views: Nonreductive Physicalism and the causal efficacy of the mental. Throughout this work I will refer to the conjunction of both claims as the Causal Autonomy of the Mental. Nevertheless, this position is threatened by a number of difficulties which are far more serious than one would imagine given the broad consensus that it has generated during the last decades. This paper purports to offer a careful examination of some of these difficulties (...) and show the considerable efforts that one has to undertake in order to try to overcome them. The difficulties examined will concern only metaphysical problems common to all special science properties but not specific of mental properties. So, in proposing a functionalist version of Nonreductive Physicalism in what follows, I will not attempt to answer to well known objections such as the absent qualia argument and the like. This should not be interpreted as a limitation! in the scope of this work. On the contrary, in dealing with more general objections we will try to evaluate a position which entails (under common assumptions) the Causal Autonomy of the Mental, namely: Nonreductive Physicalism plus the causal efficacy of special science properties. (shrink)

In this paper I discuss, on behalf of the materialist, a consideration against the modal or conceivability argument against materialism which was first voiced in the third lecture of Naming and Necessity. This consideration is based on intertheoretic identities, statements in which both terms flanking the identity sign are theoretical. I argue that the defender of the conceivability argument has trouble to account for the appearance of contingency in those types of necessary identities. In fact, intertheoretic identities pose a formidable (...) dilemma for the defender of the modal argument and actually force the antimaterialist to say more about the semantics of theoretical terms than is implicit in standard discussions of the argument. I myself consider several options in this regard, the upshot being, however, that none of the alternative semantics for theoretical terms available to the antimaterialist is good enough to achieve the twofold aim which her modal argument requires, namely, to account for the a posteriori necessity of identities of this sort and, at the same time, to preserve her antimaterialist argument. Finally, in the last part of the paper, I argue that my defense of materialism can withstand some worries coming from David Chalmers’ recent views on a priori scrutability. (shrink)

Most philosophers of mind nowadays espouse two metaphysical views: Nonreductive Physicalism and the causal efficacy of the mental. Nevertheless, this position is threatened by a number of serious difficulties. In this paper, I propose a metaphysical account of functional properties and show how this proposal is able to overcome some of these difficulties, in particular, some recent arguments against the causal efficacy of multiply realized properties. However, in the second part of the paper an objection against this proposal is raised (...) and, after a detailed discussion of it, the conclusion reached is that the prospects for a functionalist nonreductive metaphysics of the mind which affords causal powers to the mental seem certainly dim. (shrink)

Some causal explanations are non-committal in that mention of a property in the explanans conveys information about the causal origin of the explanandum even if the property in question plays no causal role for the explanandum . Programme explanations are a variety of non-committal causal (NCC) explanations. Yet their interest is very limited since, as I will argue in this paper, their range of applicability is in fact quite narrow. However there is at least another variety of NCC explanations, causal (...) orientation explanations, which offer a plausible model for many explanations in the special sciences. (shrink)

En este artículo exploro el compatibilismo, el punto de vista según el cual la tesis del hiato o hueco explicativo entre lo fenoménico y lo físico es compatible con una metafísica fisicista. Defiendo que el argumento del dualismo de propiedades es un argumento incompatibilista más fuerte que el argumento de Jackson-Chalmers o el de Kripke y exploro críticamente algunos intentos recientes de replicar al mismo. La conclusión a la que llego es que una posición compatibilista capaz de dar una respuesta (...) adecuada al argumento del dualismo de propiedades sigue todavía pendiente de articulación. In this paper I explore compatibilism, the view that the claim that there is an explanatory gap between the phenomenal and the physical is compatible with an overall physicalist metaphysics. I argue that the property dualism argument is an incompatibilist argument which is stronger than the Jackson-Chalmers argument or Kripke's argument and I critically explore some recent attempts in the literature to deal with it. The conclusion is that a compatibilist view, one able to cope with the property dualism argument, is still pending. (shrink)

An argument is offered which purports to show that Davidson's argument for Physical Monism is inconsistent with the thesis of Anomalism of the Mental.

It has been suggested in the literature about actions that one can honour the philosophical intuition lying behind Davidson’s argument for the Anscombe Thesis (the claim that by-sentences --sentcnccs used to report actions of the general form: ‘A X-ed by V-ing’-- involve two descriptions of the same action) without accepting the argument’s conclusion. The suggestion in question is to interpret by-sentences as referring to two synchronous but different actions of the same agent. I argue that this suggestion, together with two (...) plausible semantic principles about the naming of events and a reasonable metaphysical principle about the constitution of events, leads to certain ontological commitments which are hardly acccptable. My conclusion is then that in order to deny the Anscambe Thesis what must be done is to show that Davidson’s intuition is wrong. (shrink)

In this brief note I claim that, contrary to what Esfeld argues in his paper in this same volume, Kim's position with respect to the problem of causal exclusion does indeed commit him to the causal heterogeneity of realized properties.

In this contribution, I critically discuss the thesis, advanced by some recent writers, that nonreductive physicalists can solve the problem of causal exclusion by resorting to the metaphysical notion of grounding. After discussing the many problems confronted by very recent versions of this proposal, I conclude that a version of Nonreductive Physicalism framed in terms of a notion of realization of properties is in a better position than Grounding Physicalism in order to successfully deal with a notoriously complex metaphysical issue (...) such as the causal exclusion problem. (shrink)

In this paper I discuss critically Stalnaker's views on content.

Tal como reconoce el propio Montesquieu, este escrito de juventud no se compara con las obras maestras de su pensamiento ni tampoco revela lo esencial de él. Por ello, este texto tendría poco valor si con él pretendiésemos estudiar y comprender la filosofía y el pensamiento montesquiano. No obstante, el valor que tiene el Discurso sobre Cicerón para nuestra compresión de la recepción, la valoración y la inluencia de la filosofía ciceroniana en la Modernidad, fue la razón por la cual (...) decidí realizar por primera vez una traducción al español de este texto. El estudio de la pervivencia del pensamiento ciceroniano en la Historia de la Filosofía es un campo de estudio relativamente reciente en la historiografía de la filosofía: después de ser condenada al olvido, tan sólo a partir de la década de los años 90 la filosofía ciceroniana ha empezado a ser revalorada y estudiada. En el caso de la Modernidad, la cuestión es bastante difusa. La mayoría de los estudiosos han tenido que esforzarse por hacer explícita la impronta ciceroniana, tratando de remediar la escasez y muchas veces la ausencia de referencias directas a Cicerón en las obras de los modernos. De ahí que el Discurso de Cicerón sea una pequeña joya y una pieza fundamental para comprender la presencia de Cicerón en la Modernidad. Por otra parte, el elogio que este discurso hace a la filosofía ciceroniana contrasta con la airmación de un contemporáneo de Montesquieu, el filósofo escoces David Hume: “la filosofía abstracta de Cicerón ha perdido su crédito, pero la vehemencia de su oratoria aún es objeto de nuestra admiración” (2005, p. 503). Vemos, así, como este discurso poco conocido nos ayuda a percibir los contrastes con los que se presenta la figura de Cicerón en la Modernidad. (shrink)

In this book, which thoroughly revises and greatly expands his classic work Sameness and Substance, David Wiggins retrieves and refurbishes in the light of twentieth-century logic and logical theory certain conceptions of identity, of substance and of persistence through change that philosophy inherits from its past. In this new version, he vindicates the absoluteness, necessity, determinateness and all or nothing character of identity against rival conceptions. He defends a form of essentialism that he calls individuative essentialism, and then a (...) form of realism that he calls conceptualist realism. In a final chapter he advocates a human being-based conception of the identity and individuation of persons, arguing that any satisfactory account of personal memory must make reference to the life of the rememberer himself. This important book will appeal to a wide range of readers in metaphysics, philosophical logic, and analytic philosophy. (shrink)

Lipsey and Lancaster's "general theory of second best" is widely thought to have significant implications for applied theorizing about the institutions and policies that most effectively implement abstract normative principles. It is also widely thought to have little significance for theorizing about which abstract normative principles we ought to implement. Contrary to this conventional wisdom, I show how the second-best theorem can be extended to myriad domains beyond applied normative theorizing, and in particular to more abstract theorizing about the normative (...) principles we should aim to implement. I start by separating the mathematical model used to prove the second-best theorem from its familiar economic interpretation. I then develop an alternative normative-theoretic interpretation of the model, which yields a novel second best theorem for idealistic normative theory. My method for developing this interpretation provides a template for developing additional interpretations that can extend the reach of the second-best theorem beyond normative theoretical domains. I also show how, within any domain, the implications of the second-best theorem are more specific than is typically thought. I conclude with some brief remarks on the value of mathematical models for conceptual exploration. (shrink)

Artificial intelligence has historically been conceptualized in anthropomorphic terms. Some algorithms deploy biomimetic designs in a deliberate attempt to effect a sort of digital isomorphism of the human brain. Others leverage more general learning strategies that happen to coincide with popular theories of cognitive science and social epistemology. In this paper, I challenge the anthropomorphic credentials of the neural network algorithm, whose similarities to human cognition I argue are vastly overstated and narrowly construed. I submit that three alternative supervised learning (...) methods—namely lasso penalties, bagging, and boosting—offer subtler, more interesting analogies to human reasoning as both an individual and a social phenomenon. Despite the temptation to fall back on anthropomorphic tropes when discussing AI, however, I conclude that such rhetoric is at best misleading and at worst downright dangerous. The impulse to humanize algorithms is an obstacle to properly conceptualizing the ethical challenges posed by emerging technologies. (shrink)

A collection of 14 essays honoring the life and work of Oxford philosopher Wiggins touching on topics from ancient philosophy to ethics, metaphysics and the theory of meaning. The contributing scholars debate many of the seminal issues of Wiggins' work, including the determinancy of distinctness, relative identity, naturalism in ethics, logic and truth in moral judgments, and the practical wisdom of Aristotle. The collection uniquely features replies by Wiggins to each of the papers. Annotation copyright by Book News, Inc., Portland, (...) OR. (shrink)

Why study notations, diagrams, or more broadly the variety of nonverbal “representations” or “signs” that are used in mathematical practice? This chapter maps out recent work on the topic by distinguishing three main philosophical motivations for doing so. First, some work (like that on diagrammatic reasoning) studies signs to recover norms of informal or historical mathematical practices that would get lost if the particular signs that these practices rely on were translated away; work in this vein has the potential to (...) broaden our view of the specific normativity of mathematics beyond logical proof. Second, some work focuses on signs to highlight the open-ended and “nonrigorous” aspects of mathematical practice, and the role of these aspects in the historical development of mathematics. The third motivation is based on the following observation: the reason differences in signs matter in mathematics is that humans are finite agents, with cognitive and computational limitations. Accordingly, studying signs can be a way to study how human computational constraints shape the mathematics that we do, and to tackle the topic of mathematical understanding. (shrink)

El cordobés Damián de Castro, gran exponente de la platería rococó española en la centuria dieciochesca, realizó junto a otros artífices diferentes piezas para el cardenal Delgado y Venegas, arzobispo hispalense entre 1776 y 1781. Hoy muchas de estas piezas las podemos contemplar en las vitrinas de nuestro museo catedralicio, sin embargo la existencia en su tiempo de diferentes piezas similares produjo cierta confusión en su posterior identificación. En este nuevo trabajo intentaremos desentrañar las dudas sobre dos de las más (...) vistosas piezas del tesoro de nuestro templo mayor: las dos bandejas de plata sobredorada que, ejecutadas en un exuberante y depurado rococó, deslumbran al visitante con sus fúlgidos destellos y atrevido diseño. (shrink)

According to dispositionalism about modality, a proposition <p> is possible just in case something has, or some things have, a power or disposition for its truth; and <p> is necessary just in case nothing has a power for its falsity. But are there enough powers to go around? In Yates (2015) I argued that in the case of mathematical truths such as <2+2=4>, nothing has the power to bring about their falsity or their truth, which means they come out both (...) necessary and not possible. Combining this with axiom (T), it is easy to derive a contradiction. I suggested that dispositionalists ought to retreat a little and say that <p> is possible just in case either p, or there is a power to bring it about that p, grounding the possibility of mathematical propositions in their truth rather than in powers. Vetter’s (2015) has the resources to provide a response to my argument, and in her (2018) she explicitly addresses it by arguing for a plenitude of powers, based on the idea that dispositions come in degrees, with necessary properties a limiting case of dispositionality. On this view there is a power for <2+2=4>, without there being a power to bring about its truth. In this paper I argue that Vetter’s case for plenitude does not work. However, I suggest, if we are prepared to accept metaphysical causation, a case can be made that there is indeed a power for <2+2=4>. (shrink)

RESUMEN El artículo ingresa en la ontología del acontecer y recorre cuatro momentos. En primer lugar, distingue la visión del mundo en general, propia de la llamada “metafísica” de la visión del ser como acontecer, y busca un diálogo entre la perspectiva del ser en la metafísica y ontología de Hans-Georg Gadamer. En segundo lugar, analiza la estructura del acontecer o el modo como se despliega el movimiento del sentido, para determinar la lógica de la pregunta como estructura del acontecer. (...) En tercer lugar, entabla un diálogo entre la idea de acontecer y la categoría de finitud, para evidenciar que, cuando se piensa en una ontología del acontecer, esta remite a la determinación de la finitud. Y, finalmente, plantea algunas líneas de desarrollo para profundizar en esta investigación. ABSTRACT The articles discusses the ontology of the event and covers four moments. First, it identifies the general worldview typical of the “metaphysics” of being as event, and seeks to establish a dialogue between the perspective of being in Hans-Georg Gadamer’s metaphysics and his ontology. Secondly, it analyzes the structure of the event or the way in which the movement of meaning unfolds, in order to determine the logic of the question as structure of the event. Third, through a dialogue between the idea of event and the category of finitude, the article shows that thinking the ontology of the event leads to the determination of finitude. Finally, the article suggests a few lines of inquiry for further in-depth research of this topic. (shrink)