Structured argumentation systems, and their implementation, represent an important research subject in the area of Knowledge Representation and Reasoning. Structured argumentation advances over abstract argumentation frameworks by providing the internal construction of the arguments that are usually defined by a set of (strict and defeasible) rules. By considering the structure of arguments, it becomes possible to analyze reasons for and against a conclusion, and the warrant status of such a claim in the context of a knowledge base represents the main (...) output of a dialectical process. Computing such statuses is a costly process, and any update to the knowledge base could potentially have a huge impact if done naively. In this work, we investigate the case of updates consisting of both additions and removals of pieces of knowledge in the Defeasible Logic Programming (DeLP) framework, first analyzing the complexity of the problem and then identifying conditions under which we can avoid unnecessary computations—central to this is the development of structures (e.g. graphs) to keep track of which results can potentially be affected by a given update. We introduce a technique for the incremental computation of the warrant statuses of conclusions in DeLP knowledge bases that evolve due to the application of (sets of) updates. We present the results of a thorough experimental evaluation showing that our incremental approach yields significantly faster running times in practice, as well as overall fewer recomputations, even in the case of sets of updates performed simultaneously. (shrink)

The standard inferentialist approaches to modal logic tend to suffer from not being able to uniquely characterize the modal operators, require that introduction and elimination rules be interdefined, or rely on the introduction of possible-world like indexes into the object language itself. In this paper I introduce a hypersequent calculus that is flexible enough to capture many of the standard modal logics and does not suffer from the above problems. It is therefore an ideal candidate to underwrite an inferentialist theory (...) of meaning for modal operators. Here I treat specifically the modal logics K, D, T, S4, B, and S5. I show that the calculi are adequate for each set of models, and show that they meet a large set of criteria that are generally thought necessary for a calculus to underwrite a theory of meaning. (shrink)

Affiliation is both an antecedent and a consequence of emotional mimicry (i.e. imitating a counterpart’s emotional expression). Thus, interacting with a disliked partner can decrease emotional mimicry, which in turn can further decrease liking. This perpetuating circle has not been investigated in the context of mental health stigma yet. The present study tested the influence of the label “schizophrenia” on liking, interpersonal closeness, and emotional mimicry. In an online experiment (n = 201), participants recruited from the general population saw several (...) videos of actors displaying emotional expressions. Actors were described with one of four labels: “schizophrenia”, “healthy”, “diabetes”, and a negative adjective (e.g. “hot-tempered”). Emotional mimicry was measured using OpenFace 2.2. Liking and interpersonal closeness were assessed with questionnaires. Overall, compared to other labels, participants reported less liking and interpersonal closeness to the actor with the schizophrenia label. However, no effect on emotional mimicry was found. The decreased liking of the schizophrenia actors was explained by a lack of knowledge about schizophrenia and the explicit stigma of schizophrenia. Our study contributes to the literature by highlighting the need to reduce the stigma of schizophrenia. (shrink)

Law and economics scholarship has traditionally analyzed efficient breach cases monolithically. By grouping efficient breach cases together, this literature treats the subjective motives and the distributive effects of the breach as immaterial. The Restatement (Third) of Restitution and Unjust Enrichment introduced a distinction based on the intent and the effects of the breach, allowing courts to use disgorgement remedies in cases of ‘opportunistic’ breach of contract (i.e., ‘deliberate and profitable’ breaches). In this article, we evaluate this approach, focusing on the (...) effects of disgorgement remedies on allocative and productive efficiency, information-forcing and competitive effects, and restraint of breach-searching incentives. We show that, even from a purely consequentialist perspective, disgorgement remedies may be normatively warranted, especially when involving sellers’ breach. Recent experimental evidence revealed that the preferences and reactions of ordinary people are in line with our evaluation of the effects of opportunistic breach. (shrink)

In our everyday life, we have the genuine feeling that when something we use works very well, we forget that we are doing something that is mediated by something else. It happens when we read through our glasses, or when we drive home, or when we play guitar. In all those cases, it can be said that the device becomes an extension of our body, or that we have incorporated it. In this paper I want to discuss the extension/incorporation dichotomy (...) as presented in contemporary cognitive sciences. I will present the state of the art in the debate in order to promote a methodological shift, namely to adopt two concept borrowed from Material Engagement Theory developed by Lambros Malafouris. By advocating the concepts of temporality and metaplasticity, I will argue for two different but related things: 1) extension and incorporation don’t have to be conceived only spatially, but temporally. This shift leads to two distinctive implications: first, the sooner two entities establish a prosthetic contact, the higher the chances to reach incorporation; second, extension temporally precedes incorporation; the former being an early-staged phenomenon of – a condition of possibility for – the latter. 2) Such a temporal perspective is at the base of metaplasticity, which describes, in the context of MET, the constant, co-constitutive loop between humans and things: metaplasticity deflates the privileged role traditionally attributed to the subject in the making of phenomenal experience. Finally, I will discuss extension and incorporation in media theory, relying on the concept of radical mediation. (shrink)

In this talk I will introduce two spaces: the first space is the usual n-dimensional vector space with the unusual feature that n is a non-integer; the second space is composed of the linear matrices acting on the previous space (physicists are particularly interested in studying the limit as n goes to zero). These two spaces are not known to most mathematicians, but they are widely used by physicists. It is possible that, by extending the notion of space, they can (...) become well defined mathematical objects. (shrink)

The purpose of this work is to provide a metaphysical theory of properties and scientific laws. This sentence will require some unpacking. By a ‘metaphysical’ theory here, I mean a theory of what exists in the world. In this investigation I am primarily concerned with a theory of what properties there are in the world and the role they play in scientific laws. This may be contrasted with a linguistic or epistemic project, as it is not primarily about our language, (...) ideas, or theorizing but rather about what is in the world itself. Properties are what we may pre-philosophically think of as the characteristics of an object: such as its height, weight, color, etc. Investigation may cause us to doubt whether some of these pre-philosophical properties are genuine in a metaphysical sense: whether or not the property is actually present as a feature of the world. By scientific laws, I mean the statements we make in the form of exceptionless generalities about the world within the sciences. Here I do not mean to evaluate how science comes about these generalizations, only that they do and how these generalizations may be grounded in a metaphysical theory of properties. The link between these two things: properties and scientific laws, comes about because our scientific laws prominently feature properties: velocity, temperature, charge, viscosity, etc. After a review of some of the theories currently proposed in the philosophical literature along with a treatment of some of the problems that arise out of these theories, I will propose a new theory. This theory, entitled ‘Constitutive Trope Theory’ is a form of a ‘bundle trope theory’ as it proposes that objects in the world are composed entirely out of particularized properties. However, rather than proposing a primitive relation that does the bundling, this theory will propose that, at least for the objects we are familiar with, properties arise out of relations between lower-level properties that instantiate them. For example, a mammal may exist because of the relationship between the organs that lead to its unique properties as a mammal. Those organs in turn exist because of relationships between their cells that lead to their unique properties as a particular kind of organ. And so on down the chain until we hit ‘foundational properties’: properties which are not dependent on any other properties for their existence. I will say very little about these properties as I do not believe that any such properties have currently been found and will argue that such theorizing is premature before such properties have been empirically identified. Following this account, I will consider some of the problems that must be overcome and some final considerations in favor of this theory over other competing theories of properties and scientific laws. (shrink)

In this thesis, I attempt to reconcile two alternative approaches to justice: distributive and relational egalitarianism. When examining the two accounts, I claim that relational egalitarianism has distributive egalitarian implications. This implies an extensional overlap between the two accounts, namely a correspondence between the normative outcomes of relational and distributive egalitarianism. This work is addressed primarily to relational egalitarian scholars, as well as others who are convinced by the value of relational equality as a worthy moral and political ideal. My (...) aim is to prove that their goal implies embracing equality of distribution beyond relational equality. When making the case that relational egalitarians should take equality seriously, I claim that they should refrain from embracing distributive principles other than – or incompatible with – principles of distributive equality. This statement entails both a negative and a positive thesis. On the negative side, we should be critical toward the prominent tendency within the relational egalitarian debate, as influenced by the work of Elizabeth Anderson, to reject claims of distributive egalitarian justice in favour of sufficientarian claims of distribution. On the positive side, distributive equality is required by the logic of relational egalitarianism, although its normative significance exists independently of it. While presenting my statements, I provide support for the externalist understanding of relational equality as most recently advanced by Kasper Lippert-Rasmussen, through which the egalitarian character of someone’s relation depends on features external to their relation, such as on the distribution of the relevant currency among them. Whether or not individuals relate to one another as equals – I maintain – depends not merely on the internal feature of their relation, that is, on how they perceive or regard one another, but also, significantly, on how goods such as resources, welfare or opportunities are distributed among them. On my account, individuals are only equals when they recognize each other as equal in status and grant one another an equal share of the justice-relevant good. In defending my thesis, I critically engage with the literature on both distributive egalitarianism and relational egalitarianism. In particular, in the first part, I reconstruct the egalitarian debate and its approach to equality as either a relational or a distributive ideal. In the second part, I question such either/or relation by arguing that relational equality implies distributive equality, because arbitrary distributive inequality violates the deliberative constraint of relating as equals. I strengthen this claim by looking at the particular instantiation of distributive inequality in the field of education, and unveil its theoretical implications while supporting the project of reconciling distributive egalitarian and relational egalitarian approaches to justice. In my view, relational and distributive egalitarianism are compatible theories within one and the same egalitarian framework. Their normative outcomes are – at least in part – equivalent. (shrink)

The standard view of classical cognitive science stated that cognition consists in the manipulation of language-like structures according to formal rules. Since cognition is ‘linguistic’ in itself, according to this view language is just a complex communication system and does not influence cognitive processes in any substantial way. This view has been criticized from several perspectives and a new framework (Embodied Cognition) has emerged that considers cognitive processes as non-symbolic and heavily dependent on the dynamical interactions between the cognitive system (...) and its environment. But notwithstanding the successes of the embodied cognitive science in explaining low-level cognitive behaviors, it is still not clear whether and how it can scale up for explaining high-level cognition. In this paper we argue that this can be done by considering the role of language as a cognitive tool: i.e. how language transforms basic cognitive functions in the high-level functions that are characteristic of human cognition. In order to do that, we review some computational models that substantiate this view with respect to categorization and memory. Since these models are based on a very rudimentary form of non-syntactic ‘language’ we argue that the use of language as a cognitive tool might have been an early discovery in hominid evolution, and might have played a substantial role in the evolution of language itself. (shrink)

In this case report, we studied Theory of Mind and figurative language comprehension in a 7.2-year-old child, conventionally named RJ, with isolated and complete agenesis of the corpus callosum, a rare malformation due to the absence of the corpus callosum, the major tract connecting the two brain hemispheres. To study ToM, which is the capability to infer the other’s mental states, we used the classical false belief tasks, and to study figurative language, i.e., those linguistic usages involving non-literal meanings, we (...) used tasks assessing metaphor and idiom comprehension. RJ’s intellectual level and his phonological, lexical, and grammatical abilities were all adequate. In both the ToM false belief tasks and novel sensory metaphor comprehension, RJ showed a delay of 3 years and a significant gap compared to a typically developing control group, while in idioms, his performance was at the border of average. These outcomes suggest that RJ has a specific pragmatic difficulty in all tasks where he must interpret the other’s communicative intention, as in ToM tasks and novel sensory metaphor comprehension. The outcomes also open up interesting insights into the relationships between ToM and figurative language in children with isolated and complete ACC. (shrink)

INDICE -/- Note biografiche Introduzione, di Riccardo Faucci -/- Parte I - Da Verri a Toniolo 1. Jeremy Bentham: Contemporary Interpretations, di M.D.A. Freeman 2. Su Helvétius, Beccaria e Bentham, di Letizia Gianformaggio 3. L'etica utilitaristica di Pietro Veti, di Vincenzo Polignano 4. ll liberismo interventista di Vincenzo Emanuele Sergio, di Anna Li Donni 5. Il concetto di " felicità pubblica, nella << Genesi del diritto penale » di Romagnosi, e il rapporto Romagnosi-Bentham, di Robertino Ghiringhelli 6. « La più (...) grande felicità per il maggior numero » all'Accademia dei Georgofili ( 18)0-1850), di Gabriella Gioli 7. Una nota su Manzoni critico dell'utilitarismo, di Maurizio Mori 8. Sul concetto di utile in Francesco Ferrara e in Maffeo Pantaleoni, di Daniela Parisi Acquaviva 9. Sul pensiero sociale cristiano di fronte all'edonismo, di Luciano Avagliano 10. Giuseppe Toniolo e il recupero cattolico dell'utile e del valore, di Anna Camaiti -/- Parte II Aspetti di storia del pensiero economico nell’età classica -/- 1. La filosofia economica di Thomas Hobbes, di Marco Bertozzi 2. Ordinamento del sapere, modelli metodologici ed economia politica in Adam Smith, di Sergio Cremaschi 3. Elementi classici nel pensiero di Adam Smith: giurisprudenza romana e morale stoica, di Gloria Vivenza 4. Il “lusso” negli economisti italiani del Settecento, di Cosimo Perrotta 5. Prezzi naturali, prezzi di mercato e legge degli sbocchi nel dibattito fra Malthus e Ricardo, di Lilia Costabile 6. Marx e la moneta, di Roberto Petrini -/- . (shrink)

This article is devoted to understanding the worldview expressed in Vladimir Bibikhin’s Leo Tolstoy’s Diaries. The most important feature of this worldview is its practical nature: Bibikhin focuses on changing one’s view of things instead of trying to develop a doctrine. Practical phenomenology is extremely vulnerable to criticism because of its pre-philosophical nature. Therefore, at this stage, I try to explicate some of the features of this peculiar thought while avoiding trying to find its faults. I draw a connection between (...) Bibikhin’s ontological interpretation of the phenomenon with Heidegger’s concept of detachment (Gelassenheit) as a form of behavior, and illustrate that practical phenomenology turns out to be an ontology of contact. It thematizes the philosopher’s own being and focuses on the problems of the contact made in the “change of view,” in which thought, word, and deed converge. Bibikhin’s practical phenomenology is on the outskirts of modern academic philosophy, gravitating towards understanding philosophy as a way of life, in which the contemplative attitude takes the leading place, paradoxically combining experiment with their perception of “first things,” trust in them, and the ability to describe the indescribable, the “change of view.” This makes practical phenomenology related to the experimental phenomenology of Michel Henry. (shrink)

Si no es posible comprender el desarrollo de El Capital sin conocer la Ciencia de la lógica, se busca trazar los lineamientos generales para alcanzar dicha comprensión. En seis tesis se ponen de relieve algunos aspectos importantes del pensamiento de Marx que han sido poco tratados, y se dialoga con la tradición marxista para señalar ciertos equívocos y resaltar algunas interpretaciones. Esto permite ofrecer un nuevo cuadro para entender la actitud crítica que adopta el "último" Marx frente a la dialéctica (...) de su maestro. Because it is not possible to comprehend Capital without knowing the Science of Logic, this article aims to chart some general guidelines to reach such an understanding. In six thesis, I highlight some important aspects of Marx's thought that have been little treated and dialog with the Marxist tradition to indicate certain equivocations and highlight some interpretations. This offers a new framework to understand the critical attitude that the "mature" Marx adopted regarding his teacher's dialect. (shrink)

Background:Women's health has received renewed attention in the last few years including health rehabilitation options for women affected by breast cancer. Dancing has often been regarded as one attractive option for supporting women's well-being and health, but research with women recovering from breast cancer is still in its infancy. Dancing with Health is multi-site pilot study that aimed to evaluate a dance programme for women in recovery from breast cancer across five European countries.Methods:A standardized 32 h dance protocol introduced a (...) range of Latin American dances presented within a sports and exercise framework with influences from dance movement therapy. Fifty-four women (M age 53.51; SD 7.99) participated in the study who had a breast cancer diagnosis 6 weeks, no indication of metastasis, or scheduled surgery/chemotherapy/radiation treatment for the duration of the intervention. Primary outcome data was collected for anthropometric and fitness measures next to cancer-related quality of life.T-tests and Wilcoxon signed ranked tests were used to establish differences pre and post intervention. Cohen's d was also calculated to determine the effect size of the intervention.Results:Statistically significant changes were found for: (i) weight, right and left forearm circumference and hip; (ii) 6 min walking, right and left handgrip, sit-to-stand and sit-and-reach; (iii) the EORTC-QLQ C30 summary score as well as the subscales of emotional and social functioning and symptoms. In all cases the direction of change was positive, while Cohen's d calculated showed that the effect of the intervention for these parameters ranged from intermediate to large.Conclusion:Changes on the above anthropometric, fitness and quality of life measures suggest that the intervention was of value to the participating women recovering from breast cancer. Results also advocate collaborative efforts across countries to further research. (shrink)

Este artículo ofrece una exégesis de la conversación que Sócrates conduce con Céfalo y Polemarco en el libro I de la República en torno a la adecuada definición de la justicia. En el curso de esta conversación emergen gradualmente algunos ingredientes definitorios que por su básico carácter estructural se insinúan como constituyentes de obligatoria inclusión en cualquier tentativa auspiciosa de definición de la justicia. La aparición de estos ingredientes en el curso de la conversación se encuentra entreverada con la de (...) otros componentes más notorios para el lector cuanto más controvertibles. El artículo se propone un escrutinio de los primeros más que un análisis de estos últimos. No se concentra en el correspondiente estudio de las refutaciones a las que Sócrates somete finalmente la definición de la justicia de Polemarco. La interpretación que aquí se ofrece opta, así, por un énfasis algo inusual en las interpretaciones de esta primera parte del libro I de la República. Palabras clave: República; Justicia; Poder; Céfalo; PolemarcoThis paper offers an exegesis on the conversation led by Socrates with Cephalus and Polemarchus in Republic’s book I, on the adequate definition of justice. In the course of that conversation some defining elements gradually emerge. Because of their structural character, they display themselves as constituents which cannot be overlooked in any auspicious attempt to define justice. The emergence of these ingredients in the course of the conversation is intertwined with that of other components, the more controversial they are, the more noteworthy they turn out to be. The paper intends to scrutinize the former rather than analyze the latter. It does not focus on the corresponding study of Socrates’ refutations on Polemarchus’ definition of justice. The interpretationoffered here opts, thus, for a somewhat unusual emphasis on the interpretations of this first part of Republic’s book I. Keywords: Republic; Justice; Power; Cephalus; Polemarchus. (shrink)

Knowledge and Ignorance of Self in Platonic Philosophy is the first volume of essays dedicated to the whole question of self-knowledge and its role in Platonic philosophy. It brings together established and rising scholars from every interpretative school of Plato studies, and a variety of texts from across Plato's corpus - including the classic discussions of self-knowledge in the Charmides and Alcibiades I, and dialogues such as the Republic, Theaetetus, and Theages, which are not often enough mined for insights about (...) this crucial philosophical topic. The rich variety of readings and hermeneutical methods allows for an encompassing view of the relevant scholarly debates. The volume is intended to serve as a standard resource for further research on Plato's treatment of self-knowledge, and will highlight the relevance of Plato's thought to contemporary debates on selfhood, self-reflection and subjectivity. (shrink)

Summary In a noteworthy new study, Richard Velkley brings together Martin Heidegger and Leo Strauss as part of a reexamination of the foundations and nature of philosophical questioning. In what follows, I critically reflect on this shared search for foundations, and particularly on the role of Plato in Strauss's effort to forge a new path for philosophy which moves away from Heidegger without losing sight of him.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Hegel on Self-Consciousness: Desire and Death in the Phenomenology of SpiritAndy R. GermanRobert B. Pippin. Hegel on Self-Consciousness: Desire and Death in the Phenomenology of Spirit. Princeton-Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2011. Pp. viii + 103. Cloth, $29.95.If Hegel's system cannot be understood without the Phenomenology of Spirit, it is certainly impossible to understand the Phenomenology without understanding its famous transition, in chapter 4, to self-consciousness and the (perhaps (...) all-too-famous) master-slave dialectic. In these published lectures, then, Robert Pippin has compelling reasons for seeking the heart of the Phenomenology in two of its crucial assertions: that "Self-Consciousness is desire itself" and that "Self-Consciousness attains its satisfaction only in another self-consciousness" (¶¶167 and 175 in Miller's translation).Pippin's Hegel is essentially Kantian, concerned with the apperceptive nature of self-consciousness, i.e. not as mere receptivity to sensory or intellectual form, but as an activity, a judging or "taking" the world to be such and so. For Kant, this activity is transcendental or purely formal, the unification of the spatio-temporal manifold by a continuous, apperceptive "I" (31). Pippin argues that Hegel jettisons Kantian formality in favor of a broader question: how, rather than being subject to my desires, am I the subject of my desires? (32). An answer is possible only if self-consciousness is neither observational nor an immediate self-presence but instead (i) a practical achievement (15) that (ii) requires other self-conscious subjects (19). Unlike Platonic erōs, then, which points away from human life, self-conscious desire is constant self-examination of the reasons for our actions or beliefs. This is Hegel's version of Kant's insight that reason is the desire for justification, ultimately before "all others" (56–57).Thus we pivot to the claim that the successful or "satisfying" achievement of self-consciousness involves recognition by others. "Our answerability to the world," as Pippin writes, "is inextricably bound up with... our answerability to each other" (61). Unlike John McDowell's interpretation of the master-slave dialectic as an analogy for the struggle between the passive and active elements within one mind (42), Pippin argues that self-consciousness is social all the way down. It is "something like having a position," i.e. avowing a practical commitment or making a normative claim (65), which implies the presence of another self-conscious subject who recognizes my right to such claims, or challenges that right, even to the outermost—a struggle to the death over recognition and authority. Self-consciousness, then, is "not... a reflection of some substantive or metaphysical nature but... a social achievement... bound up with... social conflict" (75). On the decisive point, Pippin agrees with Brandom's neo-pragmatism: "[S]elf-conscious beings do not have natures, they have histories" (68), specifically, the history of struggle and reconciliation among rational, mutually recognizing subjects.But what, then, does recognition mean and how does it "satisfy"? And in what does our "answerability to others" consist if there is no "non-question begging... standard" (83) by which to judge our answers? Hegel, Pippin writes, "has a ‘pragmatic' or a ‘historicized' or ‘dialogical' view of what counts as the appeal to reasons.... He understands practical reason as a kind of interchange of attempts at justification among persons... " (84). Justification, however, cannot mean an appeal to nature. Indeed, in the struggle for recognition, self-conscious freedom means indifference to mere natural life or desire. Nature no longer points to philosophical wholeness, as our love of seeing does in Aristotle's Metaphysics. To paraphrase Pippin's titles, he shows with superior clarity that Hegel's idealism really is modernism: i.e. the most thoroughgoing rejection of the Greek link between eleutheria and eudaimonia.But when Hegel writes of "the point where knowledge no longer needs to go beyond itself... where Concept corresponds to object and object to Concept" as the necessary "goal" of knowledge (¶80), this suggests that the "interchange of justifications" reaches an end. Even if this end is the socio-political order of mutual recognition among rational persons, it is surely not the mere fact of recognition that satisfies us... (shrink)

Most scholars agree that Plato’s concept of freedom, to the extent he has one, is ‘intellectualist’: true freedom is submission to the rule of reason through philosophical knowledge of rational order. Surprisingly, though, there are few explicit linkages of philosophy and freedom in Plato. Socrates is called many things in the dialogues, but not ‘free’. I aim to understand why by studying the Theaetetus, heretofore ignored in discussions of Platonic freedom. By examining the Digression and Socrates’ ‘dream’ about wholes and (...) parts, I show that describing freedom as ‘rule of reason’ simplifies what, for Plato, is a more tangled skein. In the Digression, philosophers are free in occupying a comprehensive standpoint transcending all limited and partial perspectives. Socrates’ dream, however, shows that logos cannot completely account for the knowledge of complex wholes or for itself as such a whole. Philosophical freedom cannot mean comprehensive discursive knowledge, then, since reason lacks a comprehensive grasp of itself. Socrates dreams of the rational whole, but is aware of why it remains only a dream, rather than wakeful knowledge. This awareness constitutes a freedom attained, not in total liberation from the confines of the partial human perspective, but within those confines. (shrink)

The nature–nurture controversy has been with us since it was first outlined by Plato and Aristotle. Nobody likes it anymore. All reasonable scholars today agree that genes and environment interact to determine complex cognitive outcomes. So why does the controversy persist? First, it persists because it has practical implications that cannot be postponed (i.e., what can we do to avoid bad outcomes and insure better ones?), a state of emergency that sometimes tempts scholars to stake out claims they cannot defend. (...) Second, the controversy persists because we lack a precise, testable theory of the process by which genes and the environment interact. In the absence of a better theory, innateness is often confused with (1) domain specificity (outcome X is so peculiar that it must be innate), (2) species specificity (we are the only species who do X, so X must lie in the human genome), (3) localization (outcome X is mediated by a particular part of the brain, so X must be innate), and (4) learnability (we cannot figure out how X could be learned, so X must be innate). We believe that an explicit, plausible theory of interaction is now around the corner, and that many of the classic maneuvers to defend or attack innateness will soon disappear. In the interim, some serious errors can be avoided if we keep these confounded issues apart. That is the major goal of this chapter: not to attack innateness but to clarify what claims about innateness are (and are not) about. (shrink)

http://dx.doi.org/10.5007/1808-1711.2008v12n1p97 This paper defends the idea that there are three determinant elements in the identity of theories in accordance with the semantic approach of theories: the kind of theoretic models, the data models and the empirical claims, but with some exceptions in each case. I uphold this thesis in an analysis the Structuralist view and van Fraassen’s one about this respect.

This paper defends the idea that there are three determinant elements in the identity of theories in accordance with the semantic approach of theories: the kind of theoretic models, the data models and the empirical claims, but with some exceptions in each case. I uphold this thesis in an analysis the Structuralist view and van Fraassen’s one about this respect.

The aim of this article is to follow Honig's intention of thinking inoperativity as a form of refusal. It demonstrates that Agamben's inoperativity entails an intensification of use that can circumvent the pitfalls associated with the language of 'demands,' or the need to rescue the city as the space of the political par excellence, all while preserving its potential for instituting change. I claim that all destitution entails instituting practices and forms of experimentation that modify the subject, and that, with (...) the help of Agamben, subjects are nothing other than these modifications. The wager of this short intervention, therefore, is that a form of refusal that pays critical attention not only to the suspension but also to the intensification of use that this suspension inherently entails is attainable, all while acknowledging that the city is shaped by anti-blackness. (shrink)

In her 2014 monograph, Sarah Broadie argues that Timaeus’s cosmology points to a radical Platonic insight: the full rationality of the cosmos requires the existence of individualized, autonomous, and finite beings like us. Only human life makes the cosmos truly complete. But can Timaeus do full justice to the uniquely human way of being and hence to his own insight? My paper argues that he cannot and that Plato means for us to see that he cannot, by showing how Timaeus (...) treats a famous Platonic theme: eros. Timaeus describes human perfection as assimilation to the mathematical proportions of the cosmos, but by comparing Timaeus with the Symposium I show that, given his deeply mathematized conception of reason, Timaeus cannot provide what Diotima can: a phenomenologically satisfactory account of how we come to identify ourselves with this perfection. Such identification is a transformation in our self-understanding explicable only because of the desirous and reflexive character of the soul. Expressing this character, however, requires combining the mathematical with a poetic, or even mantic, register. Only these sensibilities together grant access to Plato’s cosmology in its fullness. (shrink)

Can the Euthydemus illuminate the philosophical significance of sophistry? In answering this question, I ask why the most direct and sustained confrontations between Socrates and the two brothers should all center on time and the soul. The Euthydemus, I argue, is a not primarily a polemic against eristic manipulation of language, but a diagnosis of the soul’s ambiguous unity. It shows that sophistic speech emerges from the soul’s way of relating to its own temporal character and to logos. Stated differently, (...) a central theme of this dialogue is one which, we are repeatedly told, the Greeks had not yet thematized--the nature of interiority. (shrink)

Many have argued that Plato’s intermediates are not independent entities. Rather, they exemplify the incapacity of discursive thought to cognizing Forms. But just what does this incapacity consist in? Any successful answer will require going beyond the intermediates themselves to another aspect of Plato’s mathematical thought - his attribution of a quasi-numerical structure to Forms. For our purposes, the most penetrating account of eidetic numbers is Jacob Klein’s, who saw clearly that eidetic numbers are part of Plato’s inquiry into the (...) ontological basis for all counting: the existence of a plurality of formal elements, distinct yet combinable into internally articulate unities. However, Klein’s study of the Sophist reveals such articulate unities as imperfectly countable and therefore opaque to διάνοια. And only this opacity, I argue, successfully explains the relationship of intermediates to Forms. (shrink)

En Homo sacer I. Il potere sovrano e la nuda vita, Giorgio Agamben recuerda una expresión que le dirigiera Walter Benjamin a Pierre Klossowski e, indirectamente, al grupo Acéphale: vous travaillez pour le fascisme. En este artículo quisiéramos mostrar que es el pensamiento político-ontológico del propio Agamben, y también en cierto sentido el de Benjamin – quien ha influido de modo decisivo en el filósofo italiano –, el que en verdad corre el riesgo de trabajar para el fascismo. Mostraremos por (...) eso la necesidad de distinguir dos niveles de lo político: un nivel trascendental y un nivel empírico. Si no se atiende a esta distinción, argumentaremos, se corre el riesgo de trabajar, efectivamente, para el fascismo. (shrink)

What are we doing with utopia? The ideas I am going to share with you relate to what urban designers have done with utopia, which is based on the historical relationship that grew up between utopian thinking and the intent to organize and control the arrangement of space and thus manage society in order to ensure its development.

I argue that Plato’s deployment of the resumptive phrase πάλιν ἐξ ἀρχῆς illuminates the philosophical significance of his art of transition in Socratic dialogues. These explicit calls for a new beginning often appear when a conversation fails to account for two particular elements of ordinary experience: assumptions about whole-part relations and about the interlocutor’s self-conception as a being responsive to basic rational and normative distinctions. Returning to the archē is a form of ἀνάμνησις, reminding us that these assumptions constitute true, (...) but inarticulate, opinions of a fundamental kind. They are the preconditions for discourse that philosophical διαλέγεσθαι must preserve and ground. (shrink)

I argue that Plato’s deployment of the resumptive phrase πάλιν ἐξ ἀρχῆς illuminates the philosophical significance of his art of transition in Socratic dialogues. These explicit calls for a new beginning often appear when a conversation fails to account for two particular elements of ordinary experience: assumptions about whole-part relations and about the interlocutor’s self-conception as a being responsive to basic rational and normative distinctions. Returning to the archē is a form of ἀνάμνησις, reminding us that these assumptions constitute true, (...) but inarticulate, opinions of a fundamental kind. They are the preconditions for discourse that philosophical διαλέγεσθαι must preserve and ground. (shrink)

In this paper, I argue that in the “Great Speech” of the Protagoras, Plato investigates the consequences of a view of history as progress away from nature, as expressed in Protagoras’ account of humanity’s origin and development. Socrates’ hedonistic calculus, in the dialogue’s second half, confronts Protagoras with the full implications of his view - showing how, absent a doctrine of natural human perfections, progress necessarily devours its own tail.

Este artículo se propone: I. Dilucidar la pasividad en tanto campo de investigación fenomenológica para establecer que el cuidado del alma es la reflexividad que sabe el peso de la misma. II. Presentar el chorismós como la condición de posibilidad de ser uno uno mismo, y de poder llevar a cabo la tarea de la libertad. III. Establecer la libertad como metanoia, es decir, la puesta en juego del despliegue de los potenciales físicos y anímicos que afirma un horizonte de (...) posibilidad y responsabilidad en tanto transformación absoluta de lo mismo en lo otro. IV. Sustentar que lo metafísico de la libertad radica en que se proyecta en una futuridad infinita, pero se arraiga en el suelo de lo que ha posibilitado el presente viviente, aquí y ahora, como ha sido donado. V. Para finalizar se dilucida —como anexo— la propuesta del pensador checo en torno a la conversión como condición de posibilidad de la formación. Todos estos temas tienen como hilo conductor el problema de la experiencia pasiva en el pensamiento de Jan Patočka y lo que podría considerarse como los límites del eurocentrismo. (shrink)

El sentido como cabe o entre en el orden de lo público, en laCondición humana de Hannah Arendt, es de suyo esclarecedorde las posibilidades del lenguaje; y, de retorno, el lenguaje comofundamento para la comprensión de lo político (público); en estosdos lados se presenta como una dialéctica del fluir de la acción–que quizá por igual puede llamarse: la experiencia humana delmundo. Interesa, igualmente, ver la distinción entre el fluir –en elmodo del río heraclíteo– del sentido y la emergencia –en el (...) mododel nacimiento del agua en una fuente. Nuestra hipótesis es queen el pensamiento de Arendt tiene más el segundo que el primersentido. ¿Cómo se relacionan en este caso tiempo y sentido? Es,como telón de fondo, la pregunta que atraviesa nuestro “ensayode comprensión”1. La ponencia se desarrollo en cinco apartados;en el apartado, I La preeminencia del derecho, se mira el enlaceentre la teoría política de la autora y juicio de Eichmann; en elapartado II, La identidad narrativa, se estudia la primacía de lajustificación en mediante la cual el sujeto se construye en el relatoy, así mismo, el ir hacia o la apertura de sentido que ofrece elmismo; en el apartado III, Lo público, se estudia cómo la intersubjetividades terreno común para llegar a construir lo propio, la esfera de propiedad; en el apartado IV, El lenguaje, se mira sucarácter de entre, en medio de o cabe tanto en las relacionesintersubjetivas como en la comprensión subjetiva de mundo; finalmente,el apartado V, La persona, y a manera de conclusión sediscute la preeminencia de las tesis agustinianas sobre la persona–su carácter de hipóstasis al ser, al tiempo, entre y suidad– encuanto relación, así mismo se discuten los alcances y limitacionesde la tesis de la autora siempre que se evalúen a la luz de la perspectivafenomenológico-genética para el estudio de la políticacomo cosa misma. (shrink)

In this paper I will evaluate the normative assumptions of Nozick's experience machine. I try to show that the intrinsic value that experiment gives to objectivity should be rejected from utilitarianism and that subjectivity counts as a necessary and sufficient condition for moral evaluation. I also conclude that satisfaction preferences utilitarianism to stay within the boundaries of utilitarianism should be considered as broad mental states consequentialism.

In a very short article, James Sterba argues that there is a moral duty to sacrifice one’s life to save the lives of others. Sterba justifies this duty by drawing an analogy with a series of cases in which some degree of sacrifice would be commonly accepted for the benefit of third parties. In this paper, I argue that Sterba’s argument reaches the correct conclusion, but is invalid. In addition, I point out two different arguments to support the existence of (...) a duty to sacrifice one’s life to save the lives of others. (shrink)

Being a pacifist who refrains from lethal violence is considered a praiseworthy commitment but not morally obligatory. One reason for denying that pacifism is morally obligatory is the high cost that would be implied for agents under attack, who cannot defend their own lives. Thus, pacifists are usually seen as lambs between lions and, therefore, pacifism is seen as morally over-demanding. In this paper, I intend to clarify the over-demandingness objection and to show its limits against pacifism. First, I argue (...) that the cost of an act is neither a necessary nor sufficient condition to determine its obligatory nature. Second, arguing from an analogy to Batman, I maintain that there is a plausible moral obligation to never use lethal violence against another human being that arises from adopting a specific social role, namely, the leadership of a pacifist movement. (shrink)

I propose a few epistemological and methodological reflexions to account for intercultural daily communication. These reflexions emerged during a sociological research in Mendoza, Argentina, with Huarpes Indigenous students at the University of Cuyo. I observed that Indigenous people became quasi ethnographers of diverse environments. To make intelligible their classmates’ behavior, and to account for their own behavior, Huarpes follow, in diverse environments and interactions, public rules of meaning. The objective of this paper is twofold: (a) to stress the methodological scope (...) of ordinary communication and ordinary reasoning in order to study understanding between people from different groups and categories, and (b) to contest a kind of pessimist standpoint in social sciences and philosophy according to which the use of ordinary language reduces possibilities for understanding. Interviews, participant observation in natural situations, and a review of literature about language and understanding are the basis of this paper. (shrink)

Knowledge and Ignorance of Self in Platonic Philosophy is the first volume of essays dedicated to the whole question of self-knowledge and its role in Platonic philosophy. It brings together established and rising scholars from every interpretative school of Plato studies, and a variety of texts from across Plato's corpus - including the classic discussions of self-knowledge in the Charmides and Alcibiades I, and dialogues such as the Republic, Theaetetus, and Theages, which are not often enough mined for insights about (...) this crucial philosophical topic. The rich variety of readings and hermeneutical methods allows for an encompassing view of the relevant scholarly debates. The volume is intended to serve as a standard resource for further research on Plato's treatment of self-knowledge, and will highlight the relevance of Plato's thought to contemporary debates on selfhood, self-reflection and subjectivity. (shrink)

As a consequence of the explosion of enrollments, higher education institutions have been confronted by new categories of students the last forty years. In this paper, cultural and political dimensions of the integration of students into educational institutions will be explored. The focus will be on the experience of what I called “newleavers,” namely, people who are leaving their environment of origin without knowing if they will return. The contradictory commitments and challenges faced by newleavers will be studied with a (...) sociological approach based on intercultural, phenomenological and praxiological research. To sketch an analysis of the experience of newleavers in general, I will explore strangeness and uprooting in an educational setting; the research is based on the experience of Huarpes students at the University of Cuyo, in Argentina. I claim that newleavers who keep ties with their environment of origin develop an “ethnographic stance,” namely, a moral posture and a cognitive perspective allowing them to critically identify rules, norms, and values, by comparing environments and groups. (shrink)