This article analyzes survey data from a national sample of K-12 public school teachers (N = 5190) with a focus on the nested sample of middle and high school social studies teachers (N = 927). The authors examine social studies teachers’ views on nationalism, including the sub-categories of chauvinistic nationalism and patriotism. In the analyses, the authors show differences in levels of nationalism based on demographic and regional factors and the relationship between levels of nationalism and teachers’ beliefs about educational (...) rights for undocumented immigrant students using both correlation and linear regression analyses. We argue that teachers’ views on nationalism could be a critical factor in shaping beliefs toward equity in relation to immigrant students. (shrink)

Actualmente abundan conceptualizaciones sobre pensamiento crítico. Gran parte de estas se enfocan en habilidades cognitivas, otras en resolución de problemas; algunas más, en toma de decisiones y acción; y otras, que integran los elementos nombrados. Ante la proliferación de concepciones surge la necesidad de hacer una clasificación de estos modelos en aras de comprender mejor sus enfoques y, en especial, la incidencia de las corrientes filosóficas en los elementos constituyentes que los sustentan para que los maestros tengan claridad sobre qué (...) aporta cada uno de ellos en sus prácticas de aula. Objetivo: identificar elementos constituyentes de los fundamentos conceptuales sobre pensamiento crítico para clasificarlos en modelos según sus finalidades. Metodología: análisis conceptual, realizado desde la filosofía analítica para revisar los conceptos esenciales expuestos por 44 teóricos en sus teorías. Se diseñaron matrices de análisis con 12 constituyentes que permitieron evidenciar los elementos de cada modelo y determinar qué corrientes filosóficas los fundamentan. Resultados: se evidenciaron cuatro modelos: lógico-racional, cognitivo-emotivo, cognitivo-cientificista y sociopragmático, en los cuales han incidido los aportes de grandes filósofos, quienes en su interés epistémico han vinculado la criticidad como elemento esencial en la construcción del conocimiento. Conclusiones: estos modelos aportarán claridad a los docentes, quienes intencionan su trabajo en el aula para formar pensadores críticos que cuestionen y transformen su entorno social. (shrink)

Instituciones políticas como la Comisión Europea y el Gobierno de España han manifestadosu interés y predisposición para sentar las bases de una gobernanza ética de la Inteligencia Artificial (IA). En particular, han planteado el impulso de una Inteligencia Artificial confiable a través de unconjunto de directrices y estrategias. A pesar del beneficio que reportan estas iniciativas políticas, no es posible apreciar en su conjunto una estrategia educativa específica que contribuya a la generación de un ecosistema ético de IA fundamentado en (...) la confianza. En ese sentido, el objetivo principal de este trabajo consiste en explicar que la enseñanza de la ética aplicada en los estudios de ingeniería constituye una apuesta para el fortalecimiento profesional, la gobernanza ética yuna investigación e innovación responsables. Para alcanzar este objetivo, en primer lugar, serándetallados algunos de los aspectos esenciales que dotan de un valor significativo a la enseñanza de la ética aplicada, subrayando la responsabilidad social que presentan las universidades en este terreno. En segundo lugar, se mostrará una clasificación de las asignaturas de ética relacionadas con la ingeniería en el entorno de las universidades públicas españolas. Y, en tercer lugar, se ofrecerá un marco teórico enraizado en la ética discursiva, promoviendo una mirada cívica en el contexto educativo de las profesiones. (shrink)

Este artículo tiene el objetivo de reflexionar críticamente sobre la construcción del perfil profesional de los docentes de artes y humanidades en la Educación Superior de Ecuador, con el fin de mejorar su empleabilidad en escuelas, colegios e institutos. Por este motivo, la investigación utiliza una metodología cualitativa, de carácter exploratorio y descriptivo, que promueve una revisión filosófica y antropológica para reconceptualizar los procesos de enseñanza-aprendizaje que se dan en la asignatura ‘Educación Cultural y Artística’ (ECA) del currículo de Educación (...) General Básica (EGB). Como resultado, se muestran las estimaciones estadísticas publicadas por el Ministerio de Educación (2021) sobre la cantidad de instituciones educativas que forman estudiantes en asignaturas relacionadas con las artes tanto en Educación Básica y Bachillerato General Unificado, como en instituciones especializadas y que necesitan docentes-investigadores formados. Desde una visión educativa compleja, transdisciplinar, decolonial e intercultural, la investigación propone ocho principios filosóficos y antropológicos derivados de la cosmovisión indígena quechua del Sumak Kawsay, orientados a construir una filosofía educativa de formación docente que mejore sus competencias pedagógicas y artísticas. Para concluir, se debate sobre las políticas públicas y los planes de estudios de educación superior que orientan el perfil profesional de los estudiantes que ejercerán como docentes. (shrink)

In this paper, my aim is to offer some comments on the study of Mu‘tazilite kalām, framed around the study of a particular episode in the Mu‘tazilite dispute about man – a question with a deceptively Aristotelian cadence that is not too difficult to dispel. Within this episode, my focus is on one of the major arguments used by the late Baṣrans to hold up their side of the dispute, and on the relationship between the mental and the physical which (...) emerges from it. The most interesting – and most surprising – aspect of this relationship is that the mental and the physical do not seem to be treated as distinct terms, thus creating the space for questions about how the two relate. The first person perspective seems to be identified with the physical body. My interest then is in the response of the reader to this surprising presentation – or rather, in a certain kind of reader response, and thus a certain kind of interpretive mode, whose value and viability it is part of my aim to help clarify. (shrink)

Gonzalo Rodriguez-Pereyra presents an original study of the place and role of the Identity of Indiscernibles in Leibniz's philosophy. The Principle of the Identity of Indiscernibles rules out numerically distinct but perfectly similar things; Leibniz derived it from more basic principles and used it to establish important philosophical theses. Rodriguez-Pereyra aims to establish what Leibniz meant by the Principle of Identity of Indiscernibles, what his arguments for and from it were, and to assess those arguments and Leibniz's claims (...) about the Principle of Identity of Indiscernibles. He argues that Leibniz had a very strong version of the principle, according to which no possibilia are intrinsically perfectly similar, where this excludes things that differ in magnitude alone. The book discusses Leibniz's arguments for the Identity of Indiscernibles in the Meditation on the Principle of the Individual, the Discourse on Metaphysics, Notationes Generales, Primary Truths, the letter to Casati of 1689, the correspondence with Clarke, as well as the use of the Identity of Indiscernibles in Leibniz's arguments against the Cartesian conception of the material world, atoms, absolute space and time, the Lockean conception of the mind as a tabula rasa, and freedom of indifference. Rodriguez-Pereyra argues that the Identity of Indiscernibles was a central but inessential principle of Leibniz's philosophy. (shrink)

What happens in the agent that enables her to comply with the legal command or directive? When we perform an action because we are complying with the legal command or directive, are we still active, self-governed autonomous agents? In what sense are we still autonomous agents? The task of this study is to explain what legal authority is and the premise of the study is that this question can only be answered through understanding of how legal authority operates upon the (...) agent: if we recognize that legal commands or directives intervene upon, affect and change the agent’s practical reasoning, then we need to understand and explain how this happens. (shrink)

In most domains of human life, we are willing to accept that there are experts with greater knowledge and competencies that distinguish them from non-experts or laypeople. Despite this fact, the very recognition of expertise curiously becomes more controversial in the case of “moral experts”. Do moral experts exist? And, if they indeed do, are there ethical reasons for us to follow their advice? Likewise, can emerging technological developments broaden our very concept of moral expertise? In this article, we begin (...) by arguing that the objections that have tried to deny the existence (and convenience) of moral expertise are unsatisfactory. After that, we show that people have ethical reasons to ask for a piece of moral advice in daily life situations. Then, we argue that some Artificial Intelligence (AI) systems can play an increasing role in human morality by becoming moral experts. Some AI-based moral assistants can qualify as artificial moral experts and we would have good ethical reasons to use them. (shrink)

This chapter proposes that encountering the Other through the face can be conditioned by social and built technologies. In “The Name of a Dog, or Natural Rights,” Emmanuel Levinas relates his experience as a prisoner of war, held in a forced-labor camp in Nazi Germany. He contrasts being denied his humanity by other humans, “called free” (DF, 152), while being recognized as human—indeed as a friend—by a dog the prisoners named Bobby. The episode suggests that though the concept of the (...) face applies to humans, the face is not enough for facing, at least not in the setting of the camp. By contrast, the prisoners seem able to face and be faced by Bobby, even if Levinas remains inconclusive about whether the face applies to animals elsewhere. It follows that the face is operating less like a property, and more like a capacity, a mode as Levinas calls it. But what conditions encountering an Other in this mode? If the face is neither sufficient for facing, nor prior to it, then what conditions facing (or effacing)? I propose that social structures, techniques, architectures, professional roles, and so on matter in coming to face (or efface) the Other. I conclude this from analyzing human-animal encounters in a scientific space of exception: the animal lab. Building on empirical accounts of animal research, I propose that animal research is populated by what I call “technologies of effacement.” These include: (1) built architectures; (2) entering and exit procedures; (3) protective garments and equipment; (4) identification and labeling techniques; and (5) experimental protocols. These technologies serve other manifest ends, but they operate to condition encounters between humans and animals in the lab: they help block the face of humans and animals. (shrink)

RésuméDans cette réponse à mes commentateurs, je réagis aux critiques de Alysia Blackham, Jessica Eisen, Pablo Gilabert, Andrea Sangiovanni, Dale Smith, Iyiola Solanke, et Daniel Viehoff incluses dans ce numéro spécial consacré à mon livre, Faces of Inequality. Parmi les sujets abordés, j'analyse les liens entre l’égalité et la discrimination, le rôle que joue la subordination dans ma théorie de la discrimination, et la méthodologie dans les théories de la discrimination.

El daño ambiental ha despertado el interés de la doctrina en Colombia, aunque aún no se aborda con rigor y profundidad. La razón, entre otras, es la omisión de los avances que ha dado el derecho comparado, donde la concepción del rol de las instituciones jurídicas va hasta una comprensión integral del daño a partir de la alteración funcional de los sistemas. Existe hoy cierto consenso respecto al deber ser del régimen de responsabilidad aplicable a esta noción integral del daño (...) ambiental, capaz de hacer frente a los componentes del medio natural y a todos los que lo conforman. El libro busca aportar al estudio del daño ambiental desde los avances antes descritos en la materia. (shrink)

Las trayectorias del arte caribeño, luego de la Segunda Guerra Mundial, experimentan profundas transformaciones en sus prácticas creativas y modos de comprensión cultural. Las complejas realidades sociales y políticas en las islas del Caribe hispano condujeron a un punto de giro en los procesos regionales, una transformación del campo del arte y replanteamientos de los discursos periféricos desde las manifestaciones, los temas de interés y el rol del artista en la sociedad. La fotografía, y especialmente aquella procedente de espacios periféricos (...) en las lógicas internacionales del arte, aportaron los iconos más contestatarios del momento. Los símbolos culturales de una nueva voz, que responde a un pensamiento emancipatorio y descolonizador, se expresan en la construcción de un discurso visual de paradigmas éticos y libertarios. Los lenguajes más renovadores de la época apelan a una base fotográfica de trasfondo por la relación entre la inmediatez y la pregnancia de la imagen, o la inherente reproductibilidad que propicia una función comunicativa más efectiva. (shrink)

The advancement of Artificial Intelligence (AI) poses challenges in the field of bioethics, especially concerning issues related to life and death. AI has permeated areas such as health and research, generating ethical dilemmas and questions about privacy, decision-making, and access to technology. Life and death have been recurring human concerns, particularly in connection with depression. AI has created systems like Thanabots or Deadbots, which digitally recreate deceased individuals and allow interactions with them. These systems rely on information generated by AI (...) users during their lifetime, raising ethical and emotional questions about the authenticity and purpose of these recreations. AI acts as a mediator between life, death, and the human being, enabling a new form of communication with the deceased. However, this raises ethical issues such as informed consent from users and the limits of digital recreation. Companies offer services like the Digital Resurrection of deceased individuals and the generation of hyper-realistic avatars. Still, concerns arise about the authenticity of these representations and their long-term emotional impact. Interaction with Thanabots may alter perceptions of death and finitude, leading to a potential “postmortal society” where death is no longer viewed as a definitive end. Nevertheless, this raises questions about the value of life and the authenticity of human experiences. AI becomes a bridge between the living and the dead, partially replacing rituals and mystical beliefs. As technology advances, there will be a need for greater transparency in interacting with AI systems and ethical reflections on the role of these technologies in shaping perceptions of life and death. Ultimately, the question arises of whether we should allow the dead to rest in peace and how to balance the pursuit of emotional relief with authenticity and respect for the memory of the deceased. A deeper ethical consideration is needed on how AI alters traditional notions of life, death, and communication in contemporary society. In this research, an interdisciplinary approach was utilized to conduct a comprehensive systematic review of the recent academic literature, followed by a detailed analysis of two key texts. Central ideas were extracted, and recurring themes were identified. Finally, a reflective analysis of the findings was conducted, yielding significant conclusions and recommendations for future research. (shrink)

Gorgias’ On Not-Being survives only in two divergent summaries. Diels–Kranz's classic edition prints the better-preserved version that appears in Sextus’ Aduersus Mathematicos. Yet, in recent years there has been rising interest in a second summary that survives as part of the anonymous De Melisso, Xenophane, Gorgia. The text of MXG is more difficult; it contains substantial lacunae that often make it much harder to make grammatical let alone philosophical sense of. As Alexander Mourelatos reports, one manuscript has a scribal note (...) that reads: "The original contains many errors; no one should blame me; I just copy what I see.". The treatise's state of preservation has aptly prompted Michael Gagarin to liken it to a black hole: "something we cannot see directly but know must exist because of certain effects it has on other objects.". (shrink)

El objetivo de este artículo es realizar una historización del sistema sanitario de Neuquén, concretamente atendiendo a los programas de salud aplicados en esta provincia desde su surgimiento hasta el año 2020. En este marco, en primer lugar, me enfocaré en los lineamientos políticos que definieron las bases ideológicas de las políticas públicas llevadas a cabo en la atención sanitaria neuquina, y, en segundo lugar, examinaré las variables estadísticas publicadas por el sistema de salud provincial referidas a las condiciones materiales (...) de atención médica de la población en general, y de las mujeres indígenas mapuce en particular. Para efectuar dicho abordaje, analizaré específicamente la localidad de Las Coloradas. -/- . (shrink)

Plato's closing reference to the Iliad in the Sophist has been largely overlooked in contemporary scholarship. The reference, a quotation from the confrontation between Glaucus and Diomedes in Book 6, forms part of a broader frame to the dialogue. The frame, with its recurring themes of identification and misidentification, helps us make better sense of the dialogue's final description of the sophist and its central concerns about the relationship between philosophy and sophistry. It also provides a revealing case study of (...) Plato's use of Homer as part of a broader strategy for undermining simple appeals to authority. (shrink)

Aunque la problemática de los daños ambientales ha atraído el interés sustancial de profesionales y académicos de diversas disciplinas, los motivos que impulsan esas prácticas han recibido poca atención en la literatura jurídica colombiana. Especialmente desde la perspectiva de la responsabilidad. Este capítulo presenta unas reflexiones preliminares de la responsabilidad por daños ambientales, para introducir el estudio de diversos temas, hacia una construcción doctrinal enmarcada no sólo en el deber de evitar el progresivo deterioro ambiental causado por el hombre, sino (...) para salvaguardar las especies vivas que habitan y habitarán este planeta, así como el legado que le quedará a las generaciones venideras. (shrink)

En una época de éxodo masivo global, se explora el documental De Nadie (2005) de Tin Dirdamal, el cual, a través de una variedad de instancias narrativas, presenta la experiencia y condición migrante, aún actual, de centroamericanos en su tránsito por México en su camino hacia EE.UU. Frente a la exclusión en el pasado de personajes migrantes femeninos, el cine y la narrativa literaria contemporánea despliegan significados culturales y sociales que avivan la presencia de mujeres como protagonistas en el vertiginoso (...) cruce entre fronteras, bajo los regímenes de movilidad. Estas narrativas ponen en evidencia la trascendencia identitaria de las mujeres migrantes a partir del desplazamiento. En específico, en este trabajo se examina el documental De Nadie (2005) bajo la lupa de la performatividad de género de la hondureña María, antes y durante su recorrido migratorio. (shrink)

The increasing application of artificial intelligence (AI) to healthcare raises both hope and ethical concerns. Some advanced machine learning methods provide accurate clinical predictions at the expense of a significant lack of explainability. Alex John London has defended that accuracy is a more important value than explainability in AI medicine. In this article, we locate the trade-off between accurate performance and explainable algorithms in the context of distributive justice. We acknowledge that accuracy is cardinal from outcome-oriented justice because it helps (...) to maximize patients’ benefits and optimizes limited resources. However, we claim that the opaqueness of the algorithmic black box and its absence of explainability threatens core commitments of procedural fairness such as accountability, avoidance of bias, and transparency. To illustrate this, we discuss liver transplantation as a case of critical medical resources in which the lack of explainability in AI-based allocation algorithms is procedurally unfair. Finally, we provide a number of ethical recommendations for when considering the use of unexplainable algorithms in the distribution of health-related resources. (shrink)

Tradición patrimonial y administración señorial en la América Latina Aspectos básicos del liberalismo brasileño del siglo XIX - El pensamiento conservador en Colombia, a lo largo del siglo XIX - El pensamiento conservador en Colombia, a lo largo del siglo XX - Iberoamérica como totalidad - Clientelismo mesianismo y liberación en la cultura Latinoamericana - Catequesis misionera y "saber de salvación" en el Brasil colonial - La filosofía brasileña en los siglos XVII, XVIII y XIX - La filosofía brasileña en (...) el siglo XX - Positivismo y realidad Latinoamericana - Cinco concepciones de la integración Latinoamericana - Etica y política en la cultura brasileña - Catolicismo y modernidad : la función moralizadora de la iglesia. (shrink)

The goal of this piece is to put some pressure on Brian O’Shaughnessy’s claim that perceptual experiences are necessarily mental processes. The author targets two motivations behind the development of that view. First, O’Shaughnessy resorts to pure conceptual analysis to argue that perceptual experiences are processes. The author argues that this line of reasoning is inconclusive. Secondly, he repeatedly invokes a thought experiment concerning the total freeze of a subject’s experiential life. Even if this case is coherent, however, it does (...) not show that perceptual experiences are processes. (shrink)

Le modèle démocratique est fondé, entre autres, sur l'individu et une forme spécifique du pouvoir d'État. Cette conception est loin d'être partagée par toute la planète où dans la plupart des cas, le groupe a priorité sur l'individu et, pour ce qui est du pouvoir, l'exclusivité, l'occulte, l'arbitraire, etc. l'emportent sur la pluralité et le droit. Il s'agit donc, dans cet ouvrage, de questionner les représentations du monde, les valeurs, les institutions et les pratiques sociales qui sont à l'origine du (...) modèle politique occidental et les confronter avec d'autres représentations, d'autres valeurs, d'autres modes d'organisation sociale et politique. C'est un questionnement de l'intérieur qui cherche le sens caché des actions collectives et de leurs motivations. Ce type d'interrogation est frappé d'interdit de nos jours. Le discours universaliste dominant et les politiques qui lui sont associées nient la présence des différences culturelles de fond. L'argument massue évoqué pour étayer cet interdit est l'exploitation politique de cette problématique par les courants réactionnaires et xénophobes en Occident ou les dictateurs dans les autres contrées du monde. C'est dire l'assujettissement de la recherche et de la politique à des raisonnements qui devraient leur être étrangers, surtout à la première. Car les différences, avec leurs cohortes de défis scientifiques et politiques sont bel et bien là. Leur occultation conduit les chercheurs et les politiques à des situations souvent intenables. Le clivage entre discours privé et discours public est en soi malsain. En définitive, cette occultation les empêche de poser les questions de fond et d'y faire face. (shrink)

Authored by an interdisciplinary team of experts, including historians, classicists, philosophers and theologians, this original collection of essays offers the first authoritative analysis of the multifaceted reception of Greek ethics in late antiquity and Byzantium, opening up a hitherto under-explored topic in the history of Greek philosophy. The essays discuss the sophisticated ways in which moral themes and controversies from antiquity were reinvigorated and transformed by later authors to align with their philosophical and religious outlook in each period. Topics examined (...) range from ethics and politics in Neoplatonism and ethos in the context of rhetorical theory and performance to textual exegesis on Aristotelian ethics. The volume will appeal to scholars and students in philosophy, classics, patristic theology, and those working on the history of education and the development of Greek ethics. (shrink)

Background and objectives: Definitions of medical futility, offered by healthcare professionals, bioethicists and other experts, have been rigorously debated by many investigators, but the perceptions of patients of futility have been explored only by a few. Patients were allowed to discuss their concerns about end-of-life care, so that their ideas about treatment futility or utility could be extrapolated by us.Methods: In this cross-sectional study, in-depth, semistructured interviews were conducted with 30 elderly people who were receiving outpatient care in a large, (...) urban Veterans Affairs medical centre in the US. Each of their healthcare providers was also interviewed. Participants were asked to consider four terms commonly used in advance directive forms and to discuss what these terms meant to them. Audiotapes of the open-ended interviews were transcribed and responses were coded and categorised by constant comparison, a commonly used qualitative method.Results: The following four factors were taken into account by the participants when discussing end-of-life interventions and outcomes: expected quality of life; emotional and financial costs of treatment; likelihood of treatment success; and expected effect on longevity.Conclusions: Although the terms “utility” or “futility” were not generally used by the participants, segments of speech indicating their perceptions of these terms were identified. Treatment was not always discussed in the same way by patients and providers, but seemed to reflect the same four concerns. Therefore, it may be fruitful for providers to focus on these concerns when discussing end-of-life treatment options with their patients. (shrink)

We claim the climate crisis is the proper baseline for establishing the terms of debate about the viability of a post-work future. In this paper, we aim to assess the viability of a post-work future in which automation replaces a significant portion of human labor. We do this by laying out the possible outcomes of what such a future will look like based on three related axes: technological capacity, politics and social distribution, and alternative conceptions of the good. The purpose (...) in tracking these outcomes is to have a clear picture of those outcomes we should be pursuing in contrast to those we ought to avoid. Put another way, to achieve a post-work future that is egalitarian in character will require ensuring that technological capacity is used to improve the prospects for all humanity. The argument proceeds along the following lines. First, we summarize the scientific consensus about the causes and consequences of climate change, as well as the tools of mitigation and adaptation it recommends. The causes are primarily rooted in the global system of production and consumption that has developed over the last century. We refer to this pattern of development as the “Growth Model” since it primarily relies on energy created from burning fossil fuels and the exponential consumption of resources to promote more growth (Rose 2020). Second, we construct a range of possible outcomes regarding the climate crisis that are based on different trajectories of development. We do so by examining each of two cases located on the poles of three different axes. These axes include technology, political organization and social distribution, and conceptions of the good, yielding eight possible outcomes. The point of considering these cases and how they intersect along these axes is two-fold: to clarify the features that define them and compare their merits and drawbacks, enabling us to formulate the means for avoiding some outcomes and strive for others. Third, we then consider the viability of a post-work future in terms of these outcomes. Some of these outcomes point in a direction where automation replaces labor, and its benefits are shared widely. Others indicate a future in which some groups benefit at the expense of others, while some appear to preclude the emergence of such a future altogether. Finally, we conclude with some observations about the viability of a post-work future given our evaluation of these outcomes. (shrink)

Desde un esquema epistemológico sujeto-sujeto y desde un planteo feminista decolonial, nos acercará narrativas de mujeres mapuce que versan sobre la precarización de sus vidas y salud como parte de las violencias instituidas por la cultura hegemónica, poniendo sobre relieve la resiliencia de las culturas subalternizadas a partir de la lucha y re-existencia de estas mujeres.

I argue that T.M. Scanlon's contractualist account of morality has difficulty accommodating our intuitions about the moral relevance of the number of people affected by an action. I first consider the "Complaint Model" of reasonable rejection, which restricts the grounds for an individual's rejection of a principle to its effects upon herself. I argue that it can accommodate our intuitions about numbers only if we assume that, whenever we do not know who will be affected, each individual may appeal only (...) to the _expected effects on her. This assumption, I suggest, leads to counterintuitive results in cases where, although we do not know who will be affected, we do know that _someone will be. I then consider two proposals to supplement the complaint model with a direct appeal to aggregation. I argue that both are open to serious objections. (shrink)

In this paper, we first investigate a bit of feminist and hermeneutical aesthetics. Building upon these theories, we expand the discussion of art to include the fleshy canvas.We argue that a feminist philosophy of art suggests a sound theoretical framework by which one can maintain that skin art is just that – art. In its contemporary practice, tattooing has become a new form of art, and feminist theory provides context for interpretation. The tattooed body may agitate conventional conceptions of fine (...) art – but art evolves, and history makes this much clear. Definitions of art tend to develop, as does artistic practice. Artistic innovations subvert what is old and stale within the institutional art world, while art theory empowers that subversion and provides a context for the appreciation of art. (shrink)

1. The Bundle Theory I shall discuss is a theory about the nature of substances or concrete particulars, like apples, chairs, atoms, stars and people. The point of the Bundle Theory is to avoid undesirable entities like substrata that allegedly constitute particulars. The version of the Bundle Theory I shall discuss takes particulars to be entirely constituted by the universals they instantiate.' Thus particulars are said to be just bundles of universals. Together with the claim that it is necessary that (...) particulars have constituents, the fundamental claim of the Bundle Theory is: (BT) Necessarily, for every particular x and every entity y, y constitutes x if and only ify is a universal and x instantiates y. 2 The standard and supposedly devastating objection to the Bundle Theory is that it entails or is committed to a false version of the Principle of Identity of Indiscernibles (Armstrong 1978: 91, Loux 1998: 107), namely: (Pll) Necessarily, for all particulars x and y and every universal z, if z is instantiated by x if and only if z is instantiated byy, then x is numerically identical with y. The most famous counterexample to the Identity of Indiscernibles is that put forward by Max Black, consisting of a world where there are only two iron spheres two miles apart from each other, having the same diameter, temperature, colour, shape, size, etc (Black 1952: 156). Let us from now on think of the properties of the spheres in this world as universals. The possibility of this world, which I shall hereafter refer to as 'Black's world', makes (Pll) false.' And according to common philosophical opinion this means that the Bundle Theory is false.. (shrink)