Zonulin is a physiological modulator of intercellular tight junctions, which upregulation is involved in several diseases like celiac disease (CeD). The polyQ gliadin fragment binds to the CXCR3 chemokine receptor that activates zonulin upregulation, leading to increased intestinal permeability in humans. Here, we report a general hypothesis based on the structural connection between the polyQ sequence of the immunogenic CeD protein, gliadin, and enteric coccidian parasites proteins. Firstly, a novel interaction pathway between the parasites and the host is described based (...) on the structural similarities between polyQ gliadin fragments and the parasite proteins. Secondly, a potential connection between coccidial infections as a novel environmental trigger of CeD is hypothesized. Therefore, this report represents a promising breakthrough for coccidian research and points out the potential role of coccidian parasites as a novel trigger of CeD that might define a preventive strategy for gluten‐related disorders in general. Also see the video abstract here: https://youtu.be/oMaQasStcFI. (shrink)

This collection of essays represents a ground-breaking collaboration between moral philosophers, action theorists, lawyers and legal theorists to set a fresh research agenda on agency and responsibility in negligence. The complex phenomenon of responsibility in negligence is analysed from multi- and interdisciplinary perspectives, shedding light on key ethical and legal issues related to agency and negligence to impact substantive law and policy-making in different jurisdictions. The volume introduces new debates and questions old assumptions, inviting the reader to rethink substantive law (...) and practical ethical reflection. (shrink)

It is commonly thought that that the best system account of lawhood ((Mill (1843), Ramsey (1978)[fp. 1928], Lewis (1973)) makes available a nice explanation for why laws are ‘distinctively appropriate targets of scientific inquiry’ (Hall, 2015). The explanation takes the following general form: laws are especially valuable for agents like us because they efficiently encode a lot of valuable (non-nomic) information in a tractable format. The goal of this paper is to challenge this style of explanation: I argue that the (...) general principle it presupposes is in conflict with our best account of practical rationality. After considering and rejecting a number of proposals for dissolving the tension, I conclude that BSA proponents may need to scale back the explanatory ambitions of their theory; in particular, they may need to give up the hope of non-circular explanations of the value of nomic information. I end by outlining some challenges for the humean world-view that results after this shift. (shrink)

It’s relatively easy to say that the debates about whether trans and intersex women athletes deserve full and equal inclusion in women’s sport is a contentious contemporary issue. I’ve already argued for the legal, ethical, and scientific basis for full and equal inclusion of trans and intersex women in women’s sport. In this paper, I want to analyze what I take to be a representative selection of recent arguments against full and equal inclusion of trans and intersex women in women’s (...) sport. In short, these arguments tend to be based on mere assumption, unsupported “common sense,” straw arguments, fallacious question begging, and a number of hypotheticals and unsupported counterfactuals rather than established fact. Essentially, they’re based on a lot of “ifs.”. (shrink)

Let ‘semantic relevance’ be the thesis that the wide semantic properties of representational mental states (like beliefs and desires) are causally relevant to behavior. A popular way of arguing for semantic relevance runs as follows: start with a sufficient counterfactual condition for causal or explanatory relevance, and show that wide semantic properties meet it with respect to behavior (e.g., Loewer & Lepore (1987,1989), Rescorla (2014), Yablo (2003)).This paper discusses an in‐principle limitation of this strategy: even the most sophisticated counterfactual criteria (...) systematically misclassify irrelevant properties as relevant when they stand in certain kinds of modal co‐variation or ‘entanglement’ relations to genuinely relevant properties. This entanglement problem, I argue, is more general and more serious than proponents of the counterfactual strategy have recognized: it threatens recent interventionist arguments for semantic relevance, and is not easily solved by appeal to proportionality or naturalness. I end by suggesting that proponents of semantic relevance may need to shift their attention from patterns of counterfactuals to the lawful psychological generalizations that explain them. (shrink)

O objetivo deste artigo é apresentar uma argumentação sobre a possibilidade de se pensar a justiça como uma experiência do i m possível. Parte-se da distinção derridiana entre justiça e direito. Essa distinção trará algumas implicações no que tradicionalmente é entendido como ética. Partindo do jogo ou da différance marcada entre a presença/ausência, pretende-se estabelecer um ponto de diálogo entre Derrida e Levinas. O ponto de aproximação é a questão do terceiro na relação do face a face. Nesse sentido, problematiza-se (...) se a desconstrução pode ser adotada como um possível modo filosófico que fundamente a compreensão da justiça. (shrink)

This article examines how migration contributes to the plurality of masculinities among Guatemalan men, particularly among migrant men and their families. I argue that migration offers an opportunity to men, both migrant and nonmigrant, to reflect on their emotional relations with distinct family members, and show how, by engaging in this reflexivity, these men also have the opportunity to vent those emotions in a way that offsets some of the negative traits associated to a hegemonic masculinity, such as being unemotional, (...) nonnurturing, aggressive, and dispassionate. This study contributes to transnational migration studies in three ways: by examining the more personal and emotional side of transnational life, by examining ways in which men step away from culturally expected hegemonic masculine identity, and by providing an empirical study of subaltern masculinities, particularly among transnational immigrant men. Drawing on multi-sited, in-depth interviews conducted in Guatemala and California, my research contributes to our understanding of the emotional costs of transnational migration for migrants and their families, particularly for men, by examining the interplay among gender, family, and transnational migration. (shrink)

The content-analysis of the Russian federal and regional basic legislation on the cultural policy has indicated a need in a deep revision of all existing regulatory legal acts, which support the state cultural policy implementation towards building a universal terminology and vesting the functions on the cultural policy implementation in the government as opposed to the statement of the departmental specific approach to the culture.

Ethical clinical practice requires cultural competency. In the United States, Hispanics report stronger attitudinal barriers to drug abuse treatment than any other racial/ethnic group. Hispanics report feeling that drug abuse treatment providers do not understand their unique cultural needs and are unfamiliar with their experiences of discrimination and immigration. Using this case study to explore broader ethical and policy issues, this study investigates the extent to which US universities train counselors to address the culturally specific needs of Hispanic patients and (...) how this is reflected in practice in Los Angeles County. Based on a content analysis of the required courses, syllabi, and course descriptions at 30 universities related to culture/race/racism/ethnicity/diversity at the undergraduate and graduate levels on the addiction therapist track, and thematic analysis of eight in-depth interviews with counselors working in outpatient rehabilitation centers in Los Angeles, I argue that cultural competency education for drug abuse counselors is too surface level and infrequent to adequately prepare students for a career in addiction counseling for Hispanic clients. Significant changes must be made to how cultural diversity is valued and prioritized in the field of psychology to provide better care for Hispanic people with a substance use disorder and fulfill the moral obligation to eliminate this health disparity. Although this study focuses on counselors in Los Angeles, these findings are relevant for professionals and healthcare systems across the United States and beyond who seek to provide equitable and effective care for Hispanic patients. (shrink)

This dissertation is the first comprehensive study of human freedom in the philosophy of Pierre Gassendi, a 17th century natural scientist, Catholic priest, and one of the founders of Early Modern philosophy. The key postulate of this dissertation is that the epistemology of probabilism, which represents Gassendi's skeptical stance toward the possibility of certain knowledge, is also the foundation of human freedom: the uncertain and merely probable nature of all our knowledge serves as a guarantee of the multiplicity of options (...) open to us, and thereby ensures freedom. ;The first part of the dissertation investigates the sources on which Gassendi drew to elaborate his notion of freedom. The main sources are Aristotle's ethical theory and discussion of necessity, chance, and choice, as well as the Epicureans' theory of freedom. In conjunction with the latter, I consider the possibility that Gassendi conceives of the human mind---the seat of freedom---as corporeal, and thereby capable of generating autonomous developments on the basis of the natural motions of its atoms. ;The second part is devoted to studying Gassendi's epistemology of probabilism as the foundation of freedom. I look at the process of judgment that underlies choice, and consider the various manifestations of the freedom of indifference in the process of acquiring knowledge or preparing for a practical decision. I also look at the roles of the will and the intellect throughout these activities. ;The third part looks at theological issues in Gassendi's philosophy that relate to human freedom: divine concurrence with created beings, divine providence, and the limitations that faith imposes on the scope of our inquiry. ;The fourth and final part presents a study of Gassendi's ethics from the perspective of freedom. I investigate the role of temperament, passions, and opinions in human behaviour, and study the role of freedom in shaping these factors. I also consider the concept of pleasure as the central motive of human actions, and its various manifestations in Gassendi's ethics. (shrink)

Aunque las Lecciones de fenomenología de la conciencia interna del tiempo tienen pocas referencias al marco metódico, ciertos pasajes apuntan a la reducción fenomenológica, de modo que su status se diferenciaría del de las Investigaciones lógicas y se acercaría al de Ideas i. Se ha señalado que aun si la reducción es empleada en este texto, no lo sería en su “versión madura”. Se busca determinar el estatus metodológico de las Lecciones a partir de una comparación entre los desarrollos metódicos (...) y las descripciones fenomenológicas que se presentan allí y aquellos consignados en Investigaciones e Ideas, teniendo como idea regulativa el esclarecimiento del papel del tiempo en la ampliación del dominio de la fenomenología como conjunto. (shrink)

RESUMEN Aunque las Lecciones de fenomenología de la conciencia interna del tiempo tienen pocas referencias al marco metódico, ciertos pasajes apuntan a la reducción fenomenológica, de modo que su status se diferenciaría del de las Investigaciones lógicas y se acercaría al de Ideas i. Se ha señalado que aun si la reducción es empleada en este texto, no lo sería en su "versión madura". Se busca determinar el estatus metodológico de las Lecciones a partir de una comparación entre los desarrollos (...) metódicos y las descripciones fenomenológicas que se presentan allí y aquellos consignados en Investigaciones e Ideas, teniendo como idea regulativa el esclarecimiento del papel del tiempo en la ampliación del dominio de la fenomenología como conjunto. ABSTRACT Although there are few references to the methodological framework in On the Phenomenology of the Consciousness of Internal Time, certain passages point to the phenomenological reduction. Therefore, its status would differ from that of the Logical Investigations and approach that of Ideas I. Some have argued that the reduction used in this text is not the "mature version" of the same. The article seeks to determine the methodological status of PCIT on the basis of the comparison between the methodological developments and phenomenological descriptions found in this work and those found in Investigations and Ideas. The regulative idea guiding the analysis is the clarification of the role of time in broadening the sphere of phenomenology as a whole. (shrink)

The starting point of this article lies in the idea, defended by Hannah Arendt, according to which only goodness can be radical, while evil is merely banal. The idea of a banality of evil is present in Arendt’s work Eichmann in Jerusalem, although it is explicitly not presented as a general theory on evil as such – it is more particularly in her correspondence with Gershom Scholem that one can find this specific distinction between evil and goodness mentioned. How is (...) this distinction to be understood? This article proposes the idea that such a distinction has to be construed on an ontological level: evil is ontologically deficient, since it does not take hold in a specific capacity of human beings, which would be what Hannah Arendt calls the demonic evil, but in the absence of thinking, i.e. in the absence of a specific human faculty. Conversely, only goodness expresses a creative human faculty, which is precisely thinking, and which, following Hannah Arendt, can be fully realized only through a political, collective dimension. (shrink)

In this essay I compare Nussbaum's and Arendt's approach to narrativity. The point of the comparison is to find out which approach is more adequate for practical philosophy: the approach influenced by cognitive theory or the one influenced by hermeneutic phenomenology. I conclude that Nussbaum's approach is flawed by methodological solipsism, which is due to her application of cognitive theory.

The place that Arthur Danto gives to history, as constitutive to as and our world, as well as a discipline able to produce knowledge of the past, reach its cenit with his philosophy of art. In “the End of Art”, Danto announces an end of the history of the search of the philosophical definition of art and the beginning of the era of pluralism. It is in this account where essencialism and historicism are combined in a way that estimules a (...) heat debate that continues today. In this paper, I give a reconstruction of Danto’s Philosophy of historical language in order to show why this combination is possible and which compromises that should be assumed by an authentic historicism. (shrink)

In a 2008 paper, Justin Barrett designed a conceptual scale to measure the level of counterintuitiveness of concepts, “Barrett’s counterintuitiveness coding and quantifying scheme”. According to Barrett, the higher a concept scores in this scale, the more counterintuitive it is. The scale is meant as an auxiliary tool for one of the mainstream theories in the cognitive science of religion, namely, the Minimal Counterintuitiveness Hypothesis. For a concept to be adherent, i.e., to survive across cultures and across time, it has (...) to score points in the counterintuitiveness scale, but it has to score low. Concepts that score too high or that don’t score at all are non-adherent. In this paper the case is made that at least some varieties of religious belief involve concepts that resist accurate measuring. The case study presented here features Spiritual Oneness, the belief that “all things are one”, frequently prompted by mystical experiences and frequently described as being very adherent. We purport that the failure of Barrett’s scale to allow for an examination of the concepts at stake in Spiritual Oneness is to be explained by the fact that the background assumptions about counterintuitiveness underpinning the scale are too narrow. (shrink)

Whereas literature on satellites and outer space exploration has usually been dominated by vision, humankind’s initial encounter with the Earth’s first artificial satellite, Sputnik I, was overwhelmingly sonic. Tracking was originally enabled by the signal continuously transmitted by its radio beacon. Embedded in the International Geophysical Year (IGY) citizen science programs, radio amateurs played a crucial role in receiving the signal and assisting professional scientists in tracking the satellite in its initial phases. Their established existence as a distinctive worldwide community (...) of skilled operators and experimenters made hams special allies to IGY scientists and, in many respects, set them apart from other groups of amateur scientists. This essay focuses on radio amateurs’ practices and spaces of listening to Sputnik within the wider framework of the IGY. In transcending national and terrestrial boundaries, Sputnik’s signal shaped new spatialities at a variety of scales: from the macroscales of the globe and outer space to the intimate microscale of the domestic radio shack. Focusing on radio amateurs’ personal experiences and on the invisible agencies of Sputnik’s signal, the essay uses sound as a way into the sociocultural, political, and scientific importance of the IGY. More broadly, it contributes to a multisensory history (and geography) of science. (shrink)

The intuitive distinction between natural and unnatural properties (e.g., green vs. grue) informs our theorizing not only in fundamental physics, but also in non-fundamental domains. This paper develops a reductive account of this broad notion of naturalness that covers non-fundamental properties: for a property to be natural, I propose, is for it to figure in a law of nature. After motivating the account, I defend it from a potential circularity charge. I argue that a suitably broad notion of lawhood can (...) be defined independently of naturalness, if we help ourselves to the notion of a fundamental physical property. I end by showing how the notions of naturalness and lawhood that my account delivers help illuminate a number of other important philosophical notions, like causation, reference/meaning, and rational induction. (shrink)

Marc Crépon es director de investigación en el Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique y director del Departamento de Filosofía de l’École normale supérieure de París. Entre sus publicaciones se encuentran: La culture de la peur, I. Démocratie, identité, sécurité ; La culture de la peur, II. La guerre des civilisations ; Le consentement meurtrier ; La vocation de l’écriture ; La gauche c’est quand?.

On occasion, I am appointed by our local probate court to help make health care decisions for patients who are no longer capable of making these decisions for themselves. I'll visit my client in the hospital and review his or her chart, and I'll have numerous opportunities to talk about the illness and treatment options with attending physicians, residents, and nurses. My phone calls to them will be returned promptly. If doctors arrive at the conclusion that nothing further can be (...) done for the patient, we'll discuss how best to proceed. This end‐of‐life talk never comes as a surprise to me because I will have been included in the team's decision‐making process, in the manner of professionals interacting with another professional. Last fall, I became a family surrogate decision‐maker after my mother was hospitalized over the course of a few months, for a number of reasons, in three hospitals in New York. I assumed I would manage her care as I did my clients’, with a sense of control and involvement in the process, but I quickly learned that I had in fact entered a kind of alternate universe as far as decision‐making was concerned. (shrink)

In this article, I offer a reading of City of God 19.6 that is consonant with Augustine’s message to real judges. Often read as a suggestion that torture and execution are judicially necessary, I argue that 19.6 actually calls such necessities into question, though this is not its primary purpose; first and foremost, 19.6 is an indictment of Stoic apatheia. Situating 19.6 within Augustine’s larger polemic against the Stoics, I find that it presents the Stoic judge as a man who (...) lacks fellow feeling, and therefore, has only a parodic happiness, costly to himself and those judges. A new look at Augustine’s letters to judges confirms this reading, and shows that, for Augustine, the man of humanitas is the true model for the good judge, not the man of apatheia. (shrink)

The second half of the twentieth century has been witness to a blooming of reflections on the status of historical narrative. One of the main achievements of a narrativist philosophy of history (NPH) consists of having reinforced the worth of an autonomous historical knowledge vis à vis standard conceptions of science which made history appear as underdeveloped. Although NPH does not dismiss the importance of documentary evidence, it did not produce an integrative account of both dimensions (the work of writing (...) and the work with evidence), being slave of a number of epistemological dualism. On one hand, NPH seems to remain in the representationalist paradigm in the case of evidence, while, on the other hand, it only admits pragmatic evaluation in the case of narrative discourse. In this paper, I sustain that John Dewey’s and George H. Mead’s reflections on our knowledge of the past offer NPH good reasons to assess the role that literary theory can play in reconstructing historical controversies, without neglecting the importance of empirical research. For instance, Dewey holds that historical writing is a case of the judgments produced in response to problematic research situations. By virtue of this, the meaning of judgments referred to the past (that is, historical narrations) “have a future reference and function,” and thus understanding their meaning involves displaying the consequences that follow from such judgments. Mead, for his part, has argued that by appealing to the independent reality of the past as ground for our beliefs about it, rather than contributing to the rational resolution of our historical problems, we stray towards the search of something which is by definition unattainable. As a consequence, I shall show the urgency of advancing in the development of a narrativist, pragmatistically-informed philosophy of history. My considerations will be illustrated through the analysis of a controversial case about a past event: the main plot of the memorable film The man who shot Liberty Valance, by the equally memorable John Ford. (shrink)

En "La evidencia de la experiencia" Joan Scott lanzó un desafío a las concepciones que sustentan las políticas de la identidad, de tal profundidad y agudeza, que llega incluso a cuestionar la razonabilidad de sus reclamos y la eficacia de tal política. Las reacciones no tardaron en llegar, generando múltiples intentos de responder al desafío. Se destacan entre ellos el programa Realista pospositivista de Satya Mohanty, cuyo objetivo primordial será ofrecer una consideración alternativa de la noción de experiencia subjetiva -antiesencialista (...) pero se opondrá a la disolución deconstructiva del posmodernismo. En el presente trabajo, analizaré cómo una u otra consideración puede responder más eficazmente a reclamos de legitimidad de identidades marginalizadas. In "The Evidence of Experience" Joan Scott challenged the philosophical accounts that support identity politics based on the fact that this tradition puts the razonability of the claims and the efficiency of this policies at risk. Multiples responses have been given to this argument, but the most profound and sharpest critiques were introduced by the Realist Post-positivist Programme. This theory, developed by Satya Mohanty and et al, tries to give an alternative consideration of the notion of "subjective experience"-antiessencialist but the opposite to the posmodernist deconstructive dissolution of this term. In this paper I analyze both positions and I will try to give a consideration on my own in order to offer a better and more efficient response to identity-claims. (shrink)

We obtain a large class of significant examples of n-random reals (i.e., Martin-Löf random in oracle $\varphi ^{(n - 1)} $ ) à la Chaitin. Any such real is defined as the probability that a universal monotone Turing machine performing possibly infinite computations on infinite (resp. finite large enough, resp. finite self-delimited) inputs produces an output in a given set O ⊆(ℕ). In particular, we develop methods to transfer $\Sigma _n^0 $ or $\Pi _n^0 $ or many-one completeness results of (...) index sets to n-randomness of associated probabilities. (shrink)

Using possibly infinite computations on universal monotone Turing machines, we prove Martin-Löf randomness in ∅' of the probability that the output be in some set.

The central problem of the ‘normativity of law’ concerns how legal rules or directives give us reasons for actions. The core of this question is how something that is external to the agent, such as legal rules or directives, can be ‘part of the agent’, and how they can guide the agent in performing complex actions (such as legal rule-following) that persist over time. David Enoch has denied that the normativity of law poses any interesting challenge to theories of law. (...) He argues that law provides reasons for actions in terms of what he calls triggering-reasons and he advances the view that because there are many circumstances in which reasons are triggered, law does not pose a special challenge. According to Enoch, once we understand the way that triggering reasons operate, we can understand how legal rules and directives provide us with reasons for actions. In §II of this paper, I set the stage for the debate and establish a set of principles that emerge from the common sense of view of reasons for actions and argue that any theory of reasons for action should provide a coherent explanation of these key principles. I focus on the idea that a satisfactory account of reasons for action should also explain reasons in actions. In §III I explain briefly the different theories of reasons for action and locate Enoch’s conception of reasons for action as triggering-reasons within this theoretical framework. In §IV I show that Enoch’s conception of reasons for actions does not explain some of the key features or principles that emerge from our common sense view of reasons for action and nor does it explain reasons in actions.Resumen:El problema central de la ‘normatividad del derecho’ versa sobre cómo las reglas o directrices jurídicas nos dan razones para la acción. El núcleo de esta cuestión reside en cómo algo que es externo al agente, tal como las reglas o directrices jurídicas, pueden ser ‘parte del agente’, y cómo pueden guiar a ese agente al llevar a cabo acciones complejas (tal como la obediencia de las reglas) que persisten en el tiempo. David Enoch ha negado que la normatividad del derecho presente algún reto interesante a las teorías del derecho. Arguye que el derecho provee razones para la acción en términos de lo que él llama razones detonantes (triggering-reasons) y propone la perspectiva de que, dado que hay muchas circunstancias bajo las cuales se detonan las razones, el derecho no plantea ningún reto especial. De acuerdo con Enoch, una vez que entendemos la manera en que operan las razones detonantes, podemos comprender cómo las reglas y directrices jurídicas nos proveen razones para la acción. En la sección II de este artículo, fijo el escenario para el debate y establezco una serie de principios que emergen de la visión de sentido común sobre las razones para las acciones, y sostengo que cual- quier teoría de las razones para la acción debería proporcionar una explicación coherente de estos principios clave. Me centro en la idea de que una concepción satisfactoria de las razones para la acción también debe- ría explicar las razones en las acciones. En la sección III, explico brevemente las diferentes teorías de las razones para la acción y ubico la concepción de Enoch de razones para la acción como razones detonantes (triggering-reasons) dentro de este marco teórico. En la sección IV muestro que la concepción de Enoch de razones para las acciones no explica algunas de las principales características o principios que emergen de nuestra visión de las razones para la acción basada en el sentido común, ni tampoco explica las razones en las acciones. (shrink)

In this essay, I offer an interpretation of Arendt’s biography of the Jewish-German salonnière, Rahel Varnhagen: The Life of a Jewess. Treating the book as a work of political theory, I develop two arguments: First, I contend that Arendt’s study lays the grounds for a political epistemology of marginality and exclusion, making her a standpoint theorist avant la lettre. Second, I argue that Arendt’s book gives us an account of the process of ‘becoming political.’ This helps complement, and to a (...) degree counter, her insistence in more widely read books that political freedom is an exclusively plural experience in the public realm. This insistence sidelines the role played by individual political consciousness in the decision to engage in action, as well as the necessary interaction between the private and the public spheres in becoming a political subject. Arendt’s biography suggests that becoming political can be facilitated by a solidary, and private encounter with the excluded other. (shrink)

While many scholars have explored the Ciceronian roots of Augustine’s thought, the influence of De Finibus on De ciuitate dei has, as yet, remained unexamined. Dismissed by Testard as abstract and scholastic, De Finibus has long remained in the shadow of Cicero’s other work of moral philosophy, Tusculanae Dispuationes. This article reconsiders the nature of De Finibus and demonstrates its importance for De ciuitate dei. It begins by arguing that the dialogue is actually a meta-commentary on philosophic dogmatism, showing how (...) each of the schools that Cicero’s interlocutors represent—i.e., the Epicureans, Stoics, and Peripatetics—claim certainty about the Wise Man’s happiness. At the heart of the dialogue’s drama is Cicero’s skepticism about this claim. This article then shows how Augustine picks up on Cicero’s explanation as to why the adherents of these schools cling so tightly to their belief in the Wise Man’s happiness. Echoing Cicero, Augustine suggests that the reason for this belief is therapeutic. Going beyond Cicero, however, he diagnoses it as a symptom of pride, arguing that what the philosophers really need is not a model of self-sufficient virtue, but a Mediator. The article ends by briefly considering how Cicero might respond to Augustine’s position. (shrink)

Contemporary virtue epistemology has been progressing remarkably in the activity of virtue profiling, yet a lot remains to be discussed about the many ways and extents to which some virtues and vices of the intellect impact our lives. This paper is an attempt at sketching a preliminary profile to an epistemic virtue that hasn't received a lot of attention to this date: the virtue of being a good convincer, aka persuasiveness. I submit that there is a particular way of using (...) speech in which persuasiveness is allied with benevolence as a means of conveying a distinctive type of epistemic good, the good of understanding. (shrink)

O presente artigo parte da enunciação da tese de que são os tumultos uma das principais razões para o ordenamento republicano. A partir da análise do capítulo quatro do livro I dos Discursos sobre a primeira década de Tito Lívio, da autoria de Nicolau Maquiavel, é possível afirmar que a república, forma de governo que na tipologia maquiaveliana se opõe à monarquia ou principado, encontra na duplicidade dos humores existentes no tecido social a causa de sua liberdade, na medida em (...) que da tensão entre o desejo insaciável de poder dos grandes e o desejo popular de proteção contra a opressão enseja a criação de um espaço institucional propício para o exercício legislativo voltado para o bem comum. O campo da política deixa de ser observado enquanto obra da fortuna ou da virtù, tal como defendido pela tradição humanista, para ser analisado a partir da realidade social concreta. (shrink)

In many ways one’s quest for knowledge can go wrong. Since the publication ofAmélie Rorty’s article “Akratic Believers”, in 1983, there has been a great deal of discussion asto one particular form of flaw in reasoning to which we, as less-than-perfect rational entities,are continuously prone to in our epistemic endeavors: “epistemicakrasia”. The debate that article gave rise became, then, split between authors to whom the ideaof epistemicakrasiapromotes an interesting diagnosis of some of our intellectual imperfec-tions, and their opponents, those who (...) disclaim the very possibility of the phenomenon. Inthis paper I’ll examine, and present original objections to, four of the main arguments put for-ward by the latter, showing that none of them have consistently ruled out all the legitimatelyconceivable forms of the phenomenon. (shrink)

This essay proposes a reductive account of robust macro-regularities. On the view proposed, regularities can earn their elite scientific status by featuring in good summaries of restricted regions in the space of physical possibilities: our “modal neighborhoods.” I argue that this view vindicates “nomic foundationalism”, while doing justice to the practice of invoking physically contingent generalizations in higher-level explanations. Moreover, the view suggests an explanation for the particular significance of robust macro-regularities: we rely on summaries of our modal neighborhoods when (...) reasoning hypothetically about “agentially accessible” possibilities. (shrink)

Hermeneutic phenomenology is absent in 4 EAC literature . The aim of this article is to show that hermeneutic phenomenology as elaborated in the work of Heidegger is relevant to 4 EAC research. In the first part of the article I describe the hermeneutic turn Heidegger performs in tandem with his ontological turn of transcendental phenomenology, and the hermeneutic account of cognition resulting from it. I explicate the main thesis of the hermeneutic account, namely that cognition is interaction with the (...) world, followed by a discussion of the modes of cognition distinguished in the hermeneutic account. In the second part of the article I discuss the implications of this account with respect to the status and meaning of first, second and third person perspective of cognition. The article concludes with the draft and discussion of an exploratory model of hermeneutic cognition. (shrink)

We live in dangerous times, ruled by the imperatives of what Hannah Arendt calls “the catastrophic interiority of the selfish I” 1 which threatens the planet and the survival of humanity. But I believe, nevertheless, that it is possible to reinvent the world since, by and large, it is evident that its shape reflects our notions of reality and value, the way we weave together the various strands of existence. Antonio Gramsci may have had something like this in mind when (...) he wrote that it is only by “the conquest of greater consciousness” that we will be able to bring a different kind of culture into being because, “man is above all spirit,” a creature, that is, with imagina- tion, the ability to reconfigure the way we see ourselves and the world. Just as importantly, he argues that this may mean returning to some things we once knew but have now forgotten or ignored. Poetry or, to be more accurate, poetic ways of seeing, may be one of these things, to the extent that it generates ways of seeing beyond the merely rational. In this essay I therefore want to explore the work of Judith Wright and the ways in which it explores the possibilities of being ‘true to the earth’. 2. (shrink)

Throughout the 1990-ies Nussbaum, in collaboration with others, has elaborated and argued for a list of human capabilities which specifies necessary conditions of human flourishing. The capabilities approach has been enormously influential in putting issues of global development and justice, and especially justice for women, on the philosophical and political agenda. Moreover, many international agencies and institutions, including the United Nations Development Program, have started to make use of this approach. Despite of its obvious good intentions the approach deserves more (...) serious critical attention from philosophers than it has received until now. In my paper I take up some fundamental problems with Nussbaum’s philosophical framework. I will argue that Nussbaum’s conception of human nature is still (implicitly) Cartesian and, more in particular, that her conception of reason is outdated. It raises problems with respect to the question of universal values, the possibility of which Nussbaum defends by reference to the faculty of reason. (shrink)

Hacking’s Law of Likelihood says—paraphrasing—that data support hypothesis H1 over hypothesis H2 whenever the likelihood ratio for H1 over H2 exceeds 1. But Hacking later noted a seemingly fatal flaw in the LR itself: it cannot be interpreted as the degree of “evidential significance” across applications. I agree with Hacking about the problem, but I do not believe the condition is incurable. I argue here that the LR can be properly calibrated with respect to the underlying evidence, and I sketch (...) the rudiments of a methodology for so doing. (shrink)

Hacking’s Law of Likelihood says – paraphrasing– that data support hypothesis H1 over hypothesis H2 whenever the likelihood ratio for H1 over H2 exceeds 1. But Hacking noted a seemingly fatal flaw in the LR itself: it cannot be interpreted as the degree of “evidential significance” across applications. I agree with Hacking about the problem, but I don’t believe the condition is incurable. I argue here that the LR can be properly calibrated with respect to the underlying evidence, and I (...) sketch the rudiments of a methodology for so doing. (shrink)

In this essay, I focus on two biographical works by Hannah Arendt and Simone de Beauvoir that I read as political texts: Rahel Varnhagen: The Life of a Jewess and “Must We Burn Sade?”. Reading Arendt's Varnhagen and Beauvoir's “Sade” side by side illuminates their shared preoccupation with lived experience and their common political premises: the antagonism between freedom and sovereignty, and the centrality of action and constructive relations with others. My argument is that these texts constitute an original style (...) of political thinking, which I call politico-biographical hermeneutics, or reading the life of others as exercises in political theory. Politico-biographical hermeneutics, as I take it, is not a systematic methodology, but an approach to interpreting sociopolitical forces as they come to bear and are embodied and inscribed in the lived experiences, struggles, and works of representative or exemplary individuals. This approach identifies the political lessons of lived experience and supports one of the central claims of feminist philosophy, namely, that the personal and the political are not antithetical, but relational. (shrink)

It is commonly thought that that the best system account of lawhood ((Mill (1843), Ramsey (1978)[fp. 1928], Lewis (1973)) makes available a nice explanation for why laws are ‘distinctively appropriate targets of scientific inquiry’ (Hall, 2015). The explanation takes the following general form: laws are especially valuable for agents like us because they efficiently encode a lot of valuable (non-nomic) information in a tractable format. The goal of this paper is to challenge this style of explanation: I argue that the (...) general principle it presupposes is in conflict with our best account of practical rationality. After considering and rejecting a number of proposals for dissolving the tension, I conclude that BSA proponents may need to scale back the explanatory ambitions of their theory; in particular, they may need to give up the hope of non-circular explanations of the value of nomic information. I end by outlining some challenges for the humean world-view that results after this shift. (shrink)

Using Twin Peaks' Agent Dale Cooper as an example, we explore the paradox of fiction. Employing resources from Aimee Thomasson's account of fictional characters in conjunction with some research on parasocial interaction, we make offer a potential solution for the paradox.

Current relational phenomenologies of the Holy Mass remain on a fundamentally horizontal level. Here I develop a phenomenology of the Holy Mass and of Eucharistic devotion that explores the spiritual as well as the ethical transformations attendant on individuals of faith who engage in these practices. On the one hand, I hold as premise the traditional and magisterial teachings of the Church on the Sacrament and its devotion. On the other hand, I make use of the phenomenology of Emmanuel Levinas, (...) interpreting him in line with the minority but not unsubstantial spiritual reading of his work. After first summarizing Church teaching on the Mass and the Eucharist, I point out how the relational approach to a phenomenology of the Eucharist has been misapplied to the Sacrament. I then point out shortcomings in the phenomenology of two other Catholic writers on the Eucharist, Jean-Luc Marion and Michael Purcell. Finally, I develop a more adequate phenomenology of the Mass and the Eucharist, bringing together the spirituality and the ethics of the individual and of the Church as an ethical people. (shrink)

El siguiente artículo pretende dar cuenta de una mirada alternativa en lo que respecta al abordaje de problemáticas socio-productivas y habitacionales. Para esto se acercaran diferentes discusiones que aportan a la comprensión integral de un escenario complejo: producción epistémica participativa, desarrollo de tecnología, territorialidad e interactoralidad. El grupo de investigación que presenta el artículo propone algunas dimensiones conceptuales para el abordaje de esta temática, introduciendo las nociones de Tecnología Social y Co-construcción de Conocimiento, como eje referencial del análisis. A propósito (...) de lo expuesto, se vincularán estos campos teóricos con un proyecto de investigación [i] teórico-empírico, que se desarrolla en la localidad de Concordia, provincia de Entre Ríos (Argentina). [i] Proyectos financiados por el Ministerio de Ciencia, Tecnología e Innovación Productiva de la Nación (Argentina), en sus líneas “Desarrollo Tecnológico Municipal” (DETEM) y “Programa Consejo de la Demanda de Actores Sociales” (PROCODAS); iniciados en 2011. (shrink)

In this paper, I discuss Goldberg and Zipursky’s Recognizing Wrongs and argue that there is a tension between their philosophy of action as applied to the law of negligence and the idea that the directive-based relationality thesis is central and, therefore, the action and conduct of the defendant should not be part of the core explanation of the tort of negligence.

I would like to locate the thought-provoking ideas advanced by Lane’s Of Rule and Office: Plato’s Idea of the Political within the context of contemporary intellectual legal philosophy and constitu...

Raymond Geuss asserts that there are fragmented views on what human rights are and that there is no unifying principle underlying such notion. I think that this view has its merits. It conveys the particularity of our perspectives, attitudes, desires and selfunderstandings. It rejects abstractness and is committed to a thick, perspectivist, historical understanding of personhood. To understand who we are, is to understand how we arrive at being who we are. By contrast, the notion of human rights deploys abstractness, (...) unification of agency, necessity and a thin view of personhood. In this paper, I attempt to bring into focus these two aspects of the notion of human rights. I will first analyse the genealogical method advocated by Geuss and argue that it has the merit of elucidating our historical contingencies; however, it is argued that any view in favour of the genealogical method relies on the idea that evaluative or normative concepts cannot be defined in terms of a common denominator. We reconstruct the Aristotelian idea of ‘focal meaning’ as core-resemblance and show that there is a unifying concept of human rights. We conclude that the perspectivist spirit of genealogy is not far from the Aristotelian tradition. Aristotle’s inquiry into a concept that could grasp different perspectives and contingencies as opposed to a Platonic understanding of abstract and universal forms shows that genealogical worries are germane to the tradition. (shrink)

This review article examines David Enoch’s recent book Taking Morality Seriously and focuses on ‘the deliberative indispensability of irreducibly normative truths’ which is a central argument of the book. I will show that this important and original argument as it stands fails. I will also argue that if Enoch had embraced all the consequences of his argument, then he would have opened up a more promising line of argument via which to defend the robust realism of normative truths. I will, (...) therefore, attempt to defend a modified version of robust realism of normative truths and, in so doing, I will show how all the implications of Enoch’s insight can fully be embraced. I will finally demonstrate how this modified version illuminates some Dworkinian insights on the nature of law, but also undermines Dworkin’s theory of constructive interpretation. (shrink)