The aim of this work is to analyse the concept of semi-sentence from a linguistic, formal and computational point of view. A semi-sentence can be characterised as a sentence which, from a grammatical perspective, is neither absolutely correct nor incorrect . This study focuses on: - a characterisation of the semi-sentences in the setting of the grammar of a language. This study will help to analyse in depth the concept of grammaticality [3]; - the correlate of semi-sentences in formal languages, (...) i.e., semi-strings, which arise from applying productions that deviate from that which is strictly permitted by the rules of grammar [6]; - a Prolog program for handling semi-grammaticality in a computational manner [2]. (shrink)

The purpose of this article is to analyze Spanish first-person plural subjects as a cognitively grounded grammatical choice serving various discursive functions. Both the expressed and omitted variants of the subject will be considered, even if omission is by far the more frequent choice in Spanish and the more communicatively versatile one. The particularly vague reference of omitted nosotros ‘we’ – always involving an extension of the self towards a wider notional scope – results in a remarkable variety of possible (...) contextual projections. It can be used to signal speaker identities as well as manage interpersonal relationships through the iconic suggestion of viewpoint coincidence. First-person plural clauses are quantitatively and qualitatively investigated across two corpora of contemporary Spanish comprising a variety of spoken and written genres. It is found that, aside from the basic distinction between hearer-exclusive and hearer-inclusive first persons, a third, intermediate variant can be considered, that of empathic hearer-exclusive uses. These are typical of interactions where involvement of the audience is sought even if they are not referentially included in the subject, as is usual in some varieties of spoken mass-media discourse. Each one of the referential variants is used with different frequencies and contextual repercussions, depending on the socio-functional demands and goals of particular textual genres. (shrink)

El análisis que se desarrolla en este artículo, está dirigido a desconstruir el modelo de episteme de la racionalidadmoderna, que tiene por pretensión la reconstrucción objetiva de la realidad y su validez universal y absoluta para cualquier contexto cognitivo. Se propone una alternativa a este tipo..

Virtuous arguers are expected to manifest virtues such as intellectual humility and open-mindedness, but from such traits the quality of arguments does not immediately follow. However, it also seems implausible that a virtuous arguer can systematically put forward bad arguments. How could virtue argumentation theory combine both insights? The solution, I argue, lies in an analogy with virtue epistemology: considering both responsibilist and reliabilist virtues gives us a fuller picture of the virtuous arguer.

La literatura mexicana de Chicago es un fenómeno de extracción obrera que reivindica la figura del migrante, rompiendo así con paradigmas establecidos en la literatura canónica mexicana. La obra colectiva de los autores mexicanos de Chicago es, por lo tanto, una literatura subversiva.

Is a virtue approach in argumentation possible without committing the ad hominem fallacy? My answer is affirmative, provided that the object study of our theory is well delimited. My proposal is that a theory of argumentative virtue should not focus on argument appraisal, as has been assumed, but on those traits that make an individual achieve excellence in argumentative practices. An agent-based approach in argumentation should be developed, not in order to find better grounds for argument appraisal, but to gain (...) insight into argumentative habits and excellence. This way we can benefit from what a virtue argumentation theory really has to offer. (shrink)

Despite its obvious advantages, the disruptive development of neurotechnology can pose risks to fundamental freedoms. In the context of such concerns, proposals have emerged in recent years either to design human rights de novo or to update the existing ones. These new rights in the age of neurotechnology are now widely referred to as “neurorights.” In parallel, there is a considerable amount of ongoing academic work related to updating the right to freedom of thought in order to include the protection (...) of “freedom of thinking” (i.e., freedom of thought itself) and not only its social manifestations. Neurorights such as cognitive liberty, free will, mental freedom, and mental self-determination come into play here. Importantly, freedom of thought has often been considered a prerequisite for all the other fundamental freedoms and rights. In any case, just as other rights require additional legal instruments to guarantee their compliance, substantial neurorights will probably require specific complementary developments in procedural law. In relation to this, there is a long tradition of habeas corpus as an emergency remedy to enforce the rights of a citizen against illegal or arbitrary detention. More recently, the habeas data writ has been proposed and admitted in certain countries to guarantee a person’s ownership of their personal data. In this article, we propose to expand this procedural apparatus by incorporating a third habeas, which we call habeas cogitationem: a writ aimed primarily at enforcing the right to freedom of thinking (and, subsidiarily, the rest of neurorights) against direct, harmful interferences in a person’s thought process by both public and private perpetrators. (shrink)

A virtue approach to argumentation would focus on the arguers’ character rather than the arguments. Therefore, it must be explained how good arguments relate to virtuous arguers. This article focus on this issue and attempts to provide an answer to the question: Could a bad arguer produce a good argument? It is argued that, besides the usual logical, dialectical, and rhetorical standards, a virtuously produced good argument must meet two additional requirements: the arguer must be in a specific state of (...) mind, and the argument must be broadly conceived of as an argumentative interaction and thus excel from every perspective. (shrink)

Harry Frankfurt characterised bullshit as assertions that are made without a concern for truth. Assertions, however, are not the only type of speech act that can be bullshit. Here, I propose the concept of argumentative bullshit and show how a speech acts account of bullshit assertions can be generalised to bullshit arguments. Argumentative bullshit, on this account, would be the production of an argument without a concern for the supporting relation between reasons and claim.

La propuesta de Arnold Gehlen ha sido calificada como “antropobiología”. En el presente artículo, se describe la continuidad, establecida por él, entre la biología del hombre y las dimensiones específicamente humanas, como la técnica y la cultura. Dicha continuidad se descubre, desde un punto de vista negativo, en la precariedad biológica del cuerpo humano; desde un punto de vista positivo, en la apertura al mundo mediante la acción. Con su actividad, el hombre compensa su carencia física y construye el mundo (...) en la forma de artefactos técnicos, instituciones y sistemas éticos. Por último, se examina de manera crítica el alcance y los límites de la propuesta gehleniana, principalmente acerca de la unidad del hombre, la comprensión de la acción y la idea de una vida lograda. (shrink)

Polo's philosophy is deeply rooted in Aquinas' distinction between being and essence. The author applies a circular hermeneutic. Aquinas philosophy of the person is read from the perspective of Polo's account in order to elucidate Polo's own Trascendental Anthropology. The expo-sition is structured in two parts, each one describing a fundamental thesis. The first concerns the notion of person in Thomas, which appears in his discussion of Boethius' definition. The second one deals with the problem of conciliating mind as form (...) of the body and as a spiritual substance. (shrink)

The present study seeks to determine which elements in the thought of Thomas Aquinas would make possible a transcendental expansion of kowing as proposed by Polo. For this purpose, the classical doctrine of the transcendentals is explaines, and the anthropological value of verum and bonum is underlined, especially in those passages that deal with the soul’s self-knowledge, the reditio in seipsum and the principle bonum diffusivum sui. From this analysis, a peculiar sese of being can be understood: one which is (...) proper to spirit, and which does not merely constitute being, but rather is the granting of act. This sense of being can be described as ‘openness towards the inside’ or ‘intimacy’, and allows the study of the transcendental consideration of created person. (shrink)

Virtue argumentation theory focuses on the arguers’ character, whereas pragma-dialectics focuses on argumentation as a procedure. In this paper I attempt to explain that both theories are not opposite approaches to argumentation. I argue that, with the help of some non-fundamental changes in pragma-dialectics and some restrictions in virtue argumentation theory, it is possible to regard these theories as complementary approaches to the argumentative practice.

La dogmática de los principios penales adolece de una reconstrucción normativa a partir de categorías estructurales. La propuesta de Atienza y Ruiz Manero sobre los enunciados jurídicos contiene un arsenal conceptual que resulta especialmente adecuado a la hora de realizar una taxonomía de los principios y límites penales. Esta reconstrucción resulta particularmente provechosa en el ámbito del control de constitucionalidad de las leyes penales, ya que, a partir del test de proporcionalidad, los derechos y bienes constitucionales son clasificados por parte (...) de la doctrina y de la jurisprudencia constitucional comparada como principios o reglas. Por tanto, este estudio pretende sentar las bases teóricas y metodológicas de una reconstrucción estructural de los principios penales. (shrink)

The international community has not been able to agree on a definition of “terrorism,” which has been a controversial term for decades. In order to understand the controversy, here the meaning of “terrorism” is analysed by means of the inferentialist framework developed by Robert Brandom. It will be shown that there is wide agreement about (at least some of) the consequences of application of the term, whereas the conditions of application are precisely what is at issue. Three consequences of application (...) will be distinguished: epistemic, evaluative, and programmatic. Evaluative and programmatic consequences of application of the term “terrorism” are widespread and very serious, even in the absence of a precise definition, and that explains why the conditions of application are a controversial matter. In the end, the controversy is best understood as a clash of interests regarding when the consequences of the term should apply. (shrink)

Los argumentos y las explicaciones son dos tipos de discurso que no siempre han sido distinguidos cabalmente. En la actualidad, tanto en la pedagogía de la ciencia como en los estudios de la argumentación, se ha insistido en la necesidad de diferenciarlos para captar adecuadamente la naturaleza de las explicaciones y los argumentos. Es en la teoría de la argumentación donde más explícitamente se han propuesto criterios de demarcación entre ambos. Sin embargo, aquí argumentaré que los criterios que habitualmente se (...) usan en la teoría de la argumentación para distinguir entre un argumento y una explicación (lo que llamo la “distinción estándar”) adolecen de varios problemas. Por un lado, en varios casos relevantes los criterios no proporcionan ninguna orientación o arrojan resultados cuestionables. Por otro lado, los criterios de distinción se han limitado al ámbito de la argumentación teórica y han ignorado las particularidades del ámbito práctico. (shrink)

Populism has become one of the most worrying political phenomena, and given its complexity, one of the most controversial and debated today in social sciences. This article deconstructs and compares the discourses of the Spanish parties that are generally classified as populist —the left-leaning Podemos, the right-wing Vox and the Basque and Catalan secessionist parties EH Bildu, Esquerra Republicana de Catalunya and Junts per Catalunya— according to five dimensions of populism: i) antagonism, ii) morality, iii) idealised construction of society, iv) (...) exaltation of popular sovereignty, and v) personalist leadership. This article shows that, despite significant ideological and programmatic differences, all these parties share many discursive features and a similar way of articulating their communications, interpreting social and political dynamics, as well as instrumentalizing crises to build new political identities. (shrink)

Hilary Kornblith has criticised reasons-based approaches to epistemic justification on the basis of psychological research that shows that reflection is unreliable. Human beings, it seems, are not very good at identifying our own cognitive processes and the causes of our beliefs. In this article I defend a conception of reasons that takes those empirical findings into account and can avoid Kornblith’s objections. Reasons, according to this account, are not to be identified with the causes of our beliefs and are useful (...) first and foremost in argumentation instead of reflection. (shrink)