El estudio de la conciencia es de considerable relevancia en la filosofía de la mente contemporánea. Sin embargo, el enfoque “cientificista” imperante en esta disciplina, aunque de indiscutible utilidad, ha contribuido al rechazo de perspectivas cuyo valor explicativo resulta revelador en la investigación sobre la mente, la consciencia y el cuerpo. Una de estas perspectivas la podemos encontrar en la obra filosófica de Friedrich Nietzsche. El determinismo causal de la relación mente-cuerpo que propuso el filósofo alemán ha sido defendido por (...) medio de propuestas similares de neurocientíficos y filósofos de probada pericia. No obstante, la relevancia de la aportación nietzscheana no ha sido reconocida en su importancia histórica y teórica. El propósito de este artículo es señalar las particularidades sobre la determinación causal de la relación mente/cuerpo y sus implicaciones en los debates actuales sobre la naturaleza de la consciencia. (shrink)

The many constraints of outer space experience challenge the human ability to coexist. Paradoxically, astronauts assert that on the international space station there are no conflicts or, at least, that they are able to manage their differences, behavioral as well as cognitive, in full respect of human rights and the imperatives of cooperative living. The question is: Why? Why in those difficult, a-terrestrial, and therefore almost unnatural conditions do human beings seem to be able to peacefully and collaboratively live together? (...) What is there beyond terrestrial boundary conditions that allows for such a result? And what can we learn from the astronauts’ experience about the effectiveness of human rights on Earth? My proposal is that the a-terrestrial dimension deeply alters the mind/body indexical framework and, in this way, disentangles the human inclination to semiosis from the cognitive and behavioral habits of categorization and territorialization inherent in the experience on Earth. If analyzed through the spectrum of an interdisciplinary approach involving anthropology, semiology, law, and human geography, I think that outer space enterprises can offer many insights into the cognitive and ethical/political hindrances to the effectiveness of human rights and their intercultural uses. Meanwhile the compulsive greed for a possessive territorialization of outer space and celestial bodies is growing by leaps and bounds. It haunts and imbues both astropolitics and space law. The astronauts’ semio-anthropological experience of human rights and cooperative coexistence seems to have been left in orbit. The future requires awareness and action by anthropologists, semioticians, cognitive scientists, geographers and lawyers, working all together in an interdisciplinary effort to move beyond approaching the experiential with a territorial mindset. The hope is that the “dark dream” of human exploitation/colonization of outer space will not turn from a political and legal speculation into a future reality. (shrink)

On the basis of the evidence that tumor development is suppressed by the embryonic microenvironment, some experiments using the factors taken from Zebrafish embryo at precise stages of cell differentiation were made. These experiments demonstrated a significant growth inhibition on different tumor cell lines in vitro. The observed mechanism of tumor growth inhibition is connected with the key-role cell cycle regulation molecules, such as p53 and pRb, which are modified by transcriptional or post-translational processes. Research on apoptosis and differentiation revealed (...) that treatment with these factors induces caspase-3 with a p73 apoptotic-dependent pathway activation and a concurrent significant normalization of e-cadherin and beta-catenin ratio. Other experiments found a synergistic effect on the colon cancer proliferation curve after the concurrent treatment with these factors and 5-fluorouracil. Finally, a product prepared for human therapy demonstrated 19.8% regression and 16% stable disease in an... (shrink)

This book investigates how, from the seventeenth century onward, philosophers, philologists and historians described various world "cultures", colonized the past (or national pasts), and thus invented Europe's philosophical nature. In the recent past, critical discussions concerning notions such as "cultural area" and "area studies", as well as their relativizations by means of conceptions that avoid splitting clearly identified areas (inter alia, "third space", "hybridity", "diaspora", or "cosmopolitism"), drew attention to the long history of cultural territorialization. This book attempts to open (...) the history of philosophy to reflexive and globalizing tendencies elaborated in the field of "world history". From the seventeenth century onward, in both modern Europe and North America, historical sciences - notably philosophical historiography and cultural history - colonized both the past (or national pasts) and the "rest" of the world. The contributions gathered in the present volume address both phenomena to the extent that they have been linked with modern historicization of philosophy, sciences, and culture. (shrink)

The fundamental principles of the classical utilitarian school characterize this trend as an administrative and legal criminology. This had two implications. On the one hand, the motives, and ultimate causes of the behavior and the unequal consequences of an arbitrary rule were ignored. On the other hand, the role of the judge was reduced to enforcing the law, while it was up to the judge to set a penalty for each offence. At the end of the nineteenth century, these principles (...) saw the gradual emergence of another punitive episteme that had emerged as a result of the colonization of the legal space by the positive sciences and etiological action programs. This was not a planned and pre-established course, but the confluence of a series of theories and programs for penal prevention that Michel Foucault summarized as the realization that the law was increasingly functioning as a norm. Now, criminality, besides being the object of scientific interest, also constitutes the indicator of a social problem and therefore its insertion in an economy of changing power. (shrink)

While ancient civilizations worshipped strong, active emotions, modern societies have favored more peaceful attitudes, especially within the democratic process. We have largely forgotten the struggle to make use of _thymos_, the part of the soul that, following Plato, contains spirit, pride, and indignation. Rather, Christianity and psychoanalysis have promoted mutual understanding to overcome conflict. Through unique examples, Peter Sloterdijk, the preeminent posthumanist, argues exactly the opposite, showing how the history of Western civilization can be read as a suppression and return (...) of rage. By way of reinterpreting the _Iliad_, Alexandre Dumas's _Count of Monte Cristo_, and recent Islamic political riots in Paris, Sloterdijk proves the fallacy that rage is an emotion capable of control. Global terrorism and economic frustrations have rendered strong emotions visibly resurgent, and the consequences of violent outbursts will determine international relations for decades to come. To better respond to rage and its complexity, Sloterdijk daringly breaks with entrenched dogma and contructs a new theory for confronting conflict. His approach acknowledges and respects the proper place of rage and channels it into productive political struggle. (shrink)

pt. I. Matter: 1. Philosophy as worldview ; 2. Classical matter: bodies and fields ; 3. Quantum matter: weird but real ; 4. General concept of matter: to be is to become ; 5. Emergence and levels ; 6. Naturalism ; 7. Materialism -- pt. II. Mind: 8. The mind-body problem ; 9. Minding matter: the plastic brain ; 10. Mind and society ; 11. Cognition, consciousness, and free will ; 12. Brain and computer: the hardware/software dualism ; 13. Knowledge: (...) genuine and bogus -- pt. III. Appendices: 14. Appendix A: Objects ; 15. Appendix B. Truths. (shrink)

It is generally argued that if the wave-function in the de Broglie–Bohm theory is a physical field, it must be a field in configuration space. Nevertheless, it is possible to interpret the wave-function as a multi-field in three-dimensional space. This approach hasn’t received the attention yet it really deserves. The aim of this paper is threefold: first, we show that the wave-function is naturally and straightforwardly construed as a multi-field; second, we show why this interpretation is superior to other interpretations (...) discussed in the literature; third, we clarify common misconceptions. (shrink)

Classical philosophical Daoism as it is expressed in the Dao-De-Jing and the Zhuang-Zi is often interpreted as lacking a capacity for critique and resistance. Since these capacities are taken to be central components of Enlightenment reason and action, it would follow that Daoism is incompatible with Enlightenment. This interpretation is being refuted by way of developing a constructive dialogue between the enlightenment traditions of critical theory and recent philosophy of action from a Daoist perspective. Daoism's normative naturalism does neither rest (...) on a primitivist call for a return to the past, nor does it suggest future-directed activism. By way of reconstructing its descriptive, explanatory and emancipatory dimensions, it is shown that Daoism constitutes an alternative form of critical theory. In contrast to future-directed purposive action or blind rule-following, Daoism's key normative concept of "wu-wei" emphasizes effortless non-calculative responsiveness in the present. Drawing on recent insights in the philosophy of action, a reconstruction of wu-wei allows to conceive of a promising form of emancipatory agency. (shrink)

Let R be an o-minimal expansion of an ordered group R has no poles, R cannot define a real closed field with domain R and order R is eventually linear and every R -definable set is a finite union of cones. As a corollary we get that Th has quantifier elimination and universal axiomatization in the language with symbols for the ordered group operations, bounded R -definable sets and a symbol for each definable endomorphism of the group.

I want to combine two hitherto largely independent research projects, scientific understanding and mechanistic explanations. Understanding is not only achieved by answering why-questions, that is, by providing scientific explanations, but also by answering what-questions, that is, by providing what I call scientific descriptions. Based on this distinction, I develop three forms of understanding: understanding-what, understanding-why, and understanding-how. I argue that understanding-how is a particularly deep form of understanding, because it is based on mechanistic explanations, which answer why something happens in (...) virtue of what it is made of. I apply the three forms of understanding to two case studies: first, to the historical development of thermodynamics and, second, to the differences between the Clausius and the Boltzmann entropy in explaining thermodynamic processes. (shrink)

The ontological models framework distinguishes ψ-ontic from ψ-epistemic wave- functions. It is, in general, quite straightforward to categorize the wave-function of a certain quantum theory. Nevertheless, there has been a debate about the ontological status of the wave-function in the statistical interpretation of quantum mechanics: is it ψ-epistemic and incomplete or ψ-ontic and complete? I will argue that the wave- function in this interpretation is best regarded as ψ-ontic and incomplete.

Philosophers now seem to agree that frequentism is an untenable strategy to explain the meaning of probabilities. Nevertheless, I want to revive frequentism, and I will do so by grounding probabilities on typicality in the same way as the thermodynamic arrow of time can be grounded on typicality within statistical mechanics. This account, which I will call typicality frequentism, will evade the major criticisms raised against previous forms of frequentism. In this theory, probabilities arise within a physical theory from statistical (...) behavior of almost all initial conditions. The main advantage of typicality frequentism is that it shows which kinds of probabilities (that also have empirical relevance) can be derived from physics. Although one cannot recover all probability talk in this account, this is rather a virtue than a vice, because it shows which types of probabilities can in fact arise from physics and which types need to be explained in different ways, thereby opening the path for a pluralistic account of probabilities. (shrink)

What does it take to understand a phenomenon ideally, or to the highest conceivable extent? In this paper, we answer this question by arguing for five necessary conditions for ideal understanding: (i) representational accuracy, (ii) intelligibility, (iii) truth, (iv) reasonable endorsement, and (v) fitting. Even if one disagrees that there is some form of ideal understanding, these five conditions can be regarded as sufficient conditions for a particularly deep level of understanding. We then argue that grasping, novel predictions, and transparency (...) are not reasonable conditions for ideal understanding. (shrink)

Suppose G is a definably connected, definable group in an o-minimal expansion of an ordered group. We show that the o-minimal universal covering homomorphism equation image: equation image→ G is a locally definable covering homomorphism and π1 is isomorphic to the o-minimal fundamental group π of G defined using locally definable covering homomorphisms.

Building on an illustrative case of a systemic environmental threat and its multi‐stakeholder response, this paper draws attention to the changing political impacts of corporations in the digital age. Political Corporate Social Responsibility (PCSR) theory suggests an expanded sense of politics and corporations, including impacts that may range from voluntary initiatives to overcome governance gaps, to avoiding state regulation via corporate political activity. Considering digitalization as a stimulus, we explore potential responsibilities of corporations toward public goods in contexts with functioning (...) governments. We show that digitalization—in the form of transparency, surveillance, and data‐sharing—offers corporations’ scope for deliberative public participation. The starry sky beetle infestation endangering public and private goods is thereby used to illustrate the possibility of expanding the political role of corporations in the digital sphere. We offer a contribution by conceptualizing data‐deliberation as a Habermasian variation of PCSR, defined as the (a) voluntary disclosure of corporate data and its transparent, open sharing with the public sector (b) along with the cooperation with governmental institutions on data analytics methods for examining large‐scale datasets (c) thereby complying with existing national and international regulations on data protection, in particular with respect to privacy and personal data. (shrink)

We argue that the asymmetry between diverging and converging electromagnetic waves is just one of many asymmetries in observed phenomena that can be explained by a past hypothesis and statistical postulate (together assigning probabilities to different states of matter and field in the early universe). The arrow of electromagnetic radiation is thus absorbed into a broader account of temporal asymmetries in nature. We give an accessible introduction to the problem of explaining the arrow of radiation and compare our preferred strategy (...) for explaining the arrow to three alternatives: (i) modifying the laws of electromagnetism by adding a radiation condition requiring that electromagnetic fields always be attributable to past sources, (ii) removing electromagnetic fields and having particles interact directly with one another through retarded action-at-a-distance, (iii) adopting the Wheeler-Feynman approach and having particles interact directly through half-retarded half-advanced action-at-a-distance. In addition to the asymmetry between diverging and converging waves, we also consider the related asymmetry of radiation reaction. (shrink)

Philosophy is sometimes perceived as an abstract and nerdy discipline dealing with problems of its own creation in an isolated chamber of the Ivory Tower. And there is some truth to this view. But philosophy can help us deal with common problems, such as the disagreements we have in our everyday lives.

This volume has 41 chapters written to honor the 100th birthday of Mario Bunge. It celebrates the work of this influential Argentine/Canadian physicist and philosopher. Contributions show the value of Bunge’s science-informed philosophy and his systematic approach to philosophical problems. The chapters explore the exceptionally wide spectrum of Bunge’s contributions to: metaphysics, methodology and philosophy of science, philosophy of mathematics, philosophy of physics, philosophy of psychology, philosophy of social science, philosophy of biology, philosophy of technology, moral philosophy, social and (...) political philosophy, medical philosophy, and education. The contributors include scholars from 16 countries. Bunge combines ontological realism with epistemological fallibilism. He believes that science provides the best and most warranted knowledge of the natural and social world, and that such knowledge is the only sound basis for moral decision making and social and political reform. Bunge argues for the unity of knowledge. In his eyes, science and philosophy constitute a fruitful and necessary partnership. Readers will discover the wisdom of this approach and will gain insight into the utility of cross-disciplinary scholarship. This anthology will appeal to researchers, students, and teachers in philosophy of science, social science, and liberal education programmes. 1. Introduction Section I. An Academic Vocation Section II. Philosophy Section III. Physics and Philosophy of Physics Section IV. Cognitive Science and Philosophy of Mind Section V. Sociology and Social Theory Section VI. Ethics and Political Philosophy Section VII. Biology and Philosophy of Biology Section VIII. Mathematics Section IX. Education Section X. Varia Section XI. Bibliography. (shrink)

When modeling informal proofs like that of Euclid’s Elements using a sound logical system, we go from proofs seen as somewhat unrigorous – even having gaps to be filled – to rigorous proofs. However, metalogic grounds the soundness of our logical system, and proofs in metalogic are not like formal proofs and look suspiciously like the informal proofs. This brings about what I am calling here the groundedness problem: how can we decide with certainty that our metalogical proofs are rigorous (...) and sustain our logical system? In this paper, I will expose this problem. I will not try to solve it here. (shrink)

Deployment Realism resists Laudan’s and Lyons’ objections to the “No Miracle Argument” by arguing that a hypothesis is most probably true when it is deployed essentially in a novel prediction. However, Lyons criticized Psillos’ criterion of essentiality, maintaining that Deployment Realism should be committed to all the actually deployed assumptions. But since many actually deployed assumptions proved false, he concludes that the No Miracle Argument and Deployment Realism fail. I reply that the essentiality condition is required by Occam’s razor. In (...) fact, there is a simpler formulation of essentiality which escapes Lyons’ criticisms and rescues the No Miracle Argument and Deployment Realism from their purported historical counterexamples: a hypothesis is essential when it has no proper parts (in Yablo’s sense) sufficient to derive the same prediction. Although essentiality so conceived cannot be detected prospectively, this is just natural, and it is not a problem but an advantage for Deployment Realism. (shrink)

This paper examines the view of ethical language that Wittgenstein took in later years. It argues that according to this view, ethics falls into place as a part of our natural history, while every sense of the mystical or supernatural that once surrounded it is irrevocably lost. Moreover, Wittgenstein argues that ethical language does not correspond to reality “in the way” in which a physical theory does. I propose an interpretation of this claim that shows how it sets his view (...) apart from a “realist” theory of ethics. The reality of which he speaks is the reality of human life. (shrink)

Predictivists use the no miracle argument to argue that “novel” predictions are decisive evidence for theories, while mere accommodation of “old” data cannot confirm to a significant degree. But deductivists claim that since confirmation is a logical theory-data relationship, predicted data cannot confirm more than merely deduced data, and cite historical cases in which known data confirmed theories quite strongly. On the other hand, the advantage of prediction over accommodation is needed by scientific realists to resist Laudan’s criticisms of the (...) no miracle argument. So, if the deductivists are right, the most powerful argument for realism collapses. There seems to be an inescapable contradiction between these prima facie plausible arguments of predictivists and deductivists; but this puzzle can be solved by understanding what exactly counts as novelty, if novel predictions must support the no miracle argument, i.e., if they must be explainable only by the truth of theories. Taking my cues from the use-novelty tradition, I argue that (1) the predicted data must not be used essentially in building the theory or choosing the auxiliary assumptions. This is possible if the theory and its auxiliary assumptions are plausible independently of the predicted data, and I analyze the consequences of this requirement in terms of best explanation of diverse bodies of data. Moreover, the predicted data must be (2) a priori improbable, and (3) heterogeneous to the essentially used data. My proposed notion of novelty, therefore, is not historical, but functional. Hence, deductivists are right that confirmation is independent of time and of historical contingencies such as if the theorist knew a datum, used it, or intended to accommodate it. Predictivists, however, are right that not all consequences confirm equally, and confirmation is not purely a logical theory-data relation, as it crucially involves background epistemic conditions and the notion of best explanation. Conditions (1)–(3) make the difference between prediction and accommodation, and account for the confirming power of theoretical virtues such as non ad-hocness, non-fudging, non-overfitting, independence and consilience. I thus show that functional novelty (a) avoids the deductivist objections to predictivism, (b) is a gradual notion, in accordance with the common intuition that confirmation comes in degrees, and (c) supports the no miracle argument, so vindicating scientific realism. (shrink)

This paper seeks to establish whether the categories of MacIntyrean virtue ethics as applied to business organizations are meaningful in a non-western business context. It does so by building on research reported in Moore : 363–387, 2012) in which the application of virtue ethics to business organizations was investigated empirically in the UK, based on a conceptual framework drawn from MacIntyre’s work. Comparing these results with an equivalent study in Sri Lanka, the paper finds that the categories are meaningful but (...) that there are both similarities to and considerable differences in the content of these categories from the UK study. The paper draws on aspects of institutional theory to explore and explain these findings. Overall, there is supportive evidence that the categories of MacIntyrean virtue ethics are generalizable, and so can be used to characterize problems of organizational virtue and vice around the world, while providing evidence that there may be polities which are more conducive to the ‘practice-like conduct of production’ : 77–91, 2008). (shrink)

In this paper we will demonstrate that a computational system can meet the criteria for autonomy laid down by classical enactivism. The two criteria that we will focus on are operational closure and structural determinism, and we will show that both can be applied to a basic example of a physically instantiated Turing machine. We will also address the question of precariousness, and briefly suggest that a precarious Turing machine could be designed. Our aim in this paper is to challenge (...) the assumption that computational systems are necessarily heteronomous systems, to try and motivate in enactivism a more nuanced and less rigid conception of computational systems, and to demonstrate to computational theorists that they might find some interesting material within the enactivist tradition, despite its historical hostility towards computationalism. (shrink)

This paper investigates the historical origin and ancestors of typicality, which is now a central concept in Boltzmannian Statistical Mechanics and Bohmian Mechanics. Although Ludwig Boltzmann did not use the word typicality, its main idea, namely, that something happens almost always or is valid for almost all cases, plays a crucial role for his explanation of how thermodynamic systems approach equilibrium. At the beginning of the 20th century, the focus on almost always or almost everywhere was fruitful for developing measure (...) theory and probability theory. It was apparently Hugh Everett III who first mentioned typicality in physics in 1957 while searching for a justification of the Born rule in his interpretation of quantum mechanics. The historically closest concept before these developments is moral certainty, which was invented by the medieval French theologian Jean Gerson, and it became a standard concept at least until the Age of Enlightenment, when Jakob Bernoulli proved the Law of Large numbers. (shrink)

Rousseau has always had an uncertain relationship with the theory of constituent power. On the one hand, his distrust of political representation and support for popular sovereignty seem consistent with the idea of the people as a legally unlimited constitution-maker. On the other hand, if, from those views about representation and sovereignty, it follows that Rousseau is a proponent of direct democracy, then there seems to be no place in his thought for a theory that presupposes, above all, a separation (...) between those who exercise a delegated authority and those who possess an original constitution-making power. In a legal order in which all laws must be directly made by the people, such a separation is absent: the constituent and the legislative body are one and the same. It is therefore not surprising that Rousseau’s name is largely absent from contemporary literature on constituent power. In this article, however, I will show that once Rousseau’s particular conception of law, as well as his distinction between sovereignty and government, are properly understood, one finds in his work not only the first major formulation of the theory of constituent power, but also a careful exploration of its implications for actual constitutional practice. (shrink)

How do we react to uncomfortable futures? By developing the notion of chronopolitics, this article presents two ways that we typically react to future challenges in the present. At the core of the chronopolitics of prevention, we find a striving for normalization and conservation of the present vis-à-vis dangerous futures. In contrast, the chronopolitics of preemption are geared towards a reformation, if not even a revolution of the present. Two case studies in the field of science and technology policy illustrate (...) the difference between prevention and preemption. The debate on human embryonic stem cells illuminates prevention. The debate on nanotechnology clarifies preemption. (shrink)

This provocative volume, one of the most important interpretive works on the philosophical thought of the Renaissance, has long been regarded as a classic in its field. Ernst Cassirer here examines the changes brewing in the early stages of the Renaissance, tracing the interdependence of philosophy, language, art, and science; the newfound recognition of individual consciousness; and the great thinkers of the period—from da Vinci and Galileo to Pico della Mirandola and Giordano Bruno. _The Individual and the Cosmos in Renaissance (...) Philosophy_ discusses the importance of fifteenth-century philosopher Nicholas Cusanus, the concepts of freedom and necessity, and the subject-object problem in Renaissance thought. “This fluent translation of a scholarly and penetrating original leaves little impression of an attempt to show that a ‘spirit of the age’ or ‘spiritual essence of the time’ unifies and expresses itself in all aspects of society or culture.”—_Philosophy_. (shrink)

The papers that follow were read and discussed at the first Symposium on Exact Philosophy. This conference was held at Montreal on November 4th and 5th, 1971, to celebrate the sesquicentennial of McGill University and establish the Society for Exact Philosophy. The expression 'exact philosophy' is taken to signify mathematical phi losophy, i.e., philosophy done with the explicit help of mathematical logic and mathematics. So far the expression denotes an attitude rather than a fully blown discipline: it intends to convey (...) the intention to try and pro ceed in as exact a manner as we can in formulating and discussing phi losophical problems and theories. The kind of philosophy we wish to practice and promote is disciplined rather than wild, systematic rather than disconnected, and capable of being argued over rather than oracular. We believe that even metaphysics, notoriously riotous, can be subjected to the control of logic and mathematics. Even the history of philosophy, notoriously unsystematic, can benefit from an exact reconstruction of some classical ideas. (shrink)

Standard economic theory usually analyzes the decisions made by individuals as a rational process in which each individual has sound and consistent preferences and makes decisions according to the principle of subjective expected utility maximization. Starting from the pioneering work of Herbert Simon and the research of cognitive psychologists Kahneman and Tversky, the contributions provided by cognitive-behavioral theory have repeatedly shown that real agents make choices in a way that differs systematically from standard theory, hence highlighting its limits. Rather than (...) considering standard normative theory as false or unable to explain the data obtained by behavioral economists, several economists decided to develop new formal models that could include the results of different experiments and empirical observations that captured all dimensions of the choice made by an individual. In this sense, they proposed new models that were not intended to challenge standard theory but rather designed to provide a kind of psychological expansion to it. This article has the aim of describing and analyzing the advantages and limitations of these new models, which unfortunately are not always suited to describe the individual behavior, the individuals’ actions, or the equilibria due to the combination of the actions of several players. To overcome the limits of these models, we decided to take into consideration the unfortunately unfinished work of Michael Bacharach, who strived to understand the individual and collective forms of rationality without applying only analytical devices or a theoretical vision of the world but bringing rationality back to the perception level of the agents. (shrink)

I. L'ordine della mente e le forme del pensiero al tempo delle rivoluzioni nelle tecnologie della comunicazione.