According to Marshall et al. (2024), some of the patients who refuse to stay in observation after being resuscitated following an opioid overdose are likely not making an autonomous choice. While I do not intend to dispute this claim, it merits discussion what is the concept of autonomy at play in making this assessment. I contend that the concept at work is more substantive than Marshall et al. acknowledge—and more substantive, too, than the form of autonomy usually thought to underpin (...) the moral justification of the requirement of informed consent . (shrink)

Can addiction be credibly invoked as an excuse for moral harms secondary to particular decisions to use drugs? This question raises two distinct sets of issues. First, there is the question of whether addiction is the sort of consideration that could, given suitable assumptions about the details of the case, excuse or mitigate moral blameworthiness. Most discussions of addiction and moral responsibility have focused on this question, and many have argued that addiction excuses. Here I articulate what I take to (...) be the best argument for this view, based on the substantial difficulty that people with severe addiction experience in controlling drug-related behavior. This, I argue, may in some cases be sufficient to ground a mitigating excuse, given the way in which addiction undermines agents’ responsiveness to relevant moral reasons to do otherwise. Much less attention has been devoted to a second set of issues that critically affect the possibility of applying this mitigating excuse in particular cases, derived from the ambivalent nature of agential control in addiction. In order to find a fitting response to moral harm, the person with the right standing to blame must make a judgment about the extent to which the agent possessed certain morally relevant capacities at the time of the act. In practice, this will often prove tremendously difficult to assess. The ethical challenge for the person with the right standing to blame is fundamentally one of making a judgment about matters that seem underdetermined by the available evidence. (shrink)

A restrictive view of self-control identifies exercises of self-control with synchronic intrapsychic processes, and pictures diachronic and externally-scaffolded strategies not as proper instances of self-control, but as clever ways of avoiding the need to exercise that ability. In turn, defenders of an inclusive view of self-control typically argue that we should construe self-control as more than effortful inhibition, and that, on grounds of functional equivalence, all these diverse strategies might be properly described as instances of self-control. In this paper, I (...) take a fresh look at this debate by focusing on cases of addiction. I argue that addicted agents face a paradigmatic sort of self-control challenge, which makes addiction an important test case for theories of self-control. And I discuss evidence that highlights both the unreliability of synchronic intrapsychic strategies and the crucial role that is played by diachronic and externally-scaffolded strategies in successful attempts at achieving abstinence by addicted individuals. Abstaining addicts are a paradigmatic case of agents who successfully exercise self-control, and they mostly do so by relying on diachronic and externally-scaffolded strategies. This, I argue, lends further support to an inclusive view of self-control. (shrink)

While some form of loss of control is often assumed to be a common feature of the diverse manifestations of addiction, it is far from clear how loss of control should be understood. In this paper, I put forward a concept of decrease in control in addiction that aims to fill this gap and thus provide a general framework for thinking about addictive behavior. The development of this account involves two main steps. First, I present a view of degrees of (...) control as the degree to which an agent would be responsive to potential or counterfactual sufficient reasons to do otherwise. Second, I sketch an account of the relevant control-undermining factors in addiction that is consonant with my proposed view of degrees of control. Being a high-level functional property, reasons-responsiveness is particularly well suited to frame an account of control-undermining factors that is doubly pluralistic: it encompasses the contribution of factors both internal and external to the agent, and it is consistent with various proposals as to the precise nature of the anomaly taking place in the psychology of addiction. (shrink)

Philosophy has always been concerned with mental health and mental disorder, and many prominent historical figures have held views that have drawn attention to these issues. In recent years, however, there has been a surge of interest in philosophical issues surrounding psychiatry. As a result, the philosophy of psychiatry has emerged as a distinct, well-established field of inquiry.

It is often assumed that, except perhaps in a few rare cases, people with addiction can be aptly held responsible for having acquired the condition. In this chapter, I consider the argument that supports this view and draw attention to a number of challenges that can be raised against it. Assuming that early decisions to use drugs were made in possession of normal-range psychological capacities, I consider the key question of whether drug users who later became addicted should have known (...) that addiction was a likely outcome of their decisions to use drugs in a way that makes them blameworthy for their lack of foresight. I focus on three different points of contention surrounding this claim: how likely the outcome to be predicted was, how tolerable risk should be weighed against the expected value of decisions to use, and how reliable the relevant predictive abilities of the average person are. Once we consider in some detail what would have to be true in order for someone to be aptly held responsible for becoming addicted, the prospects for making a convincing case to that effect look, I argue, somewhat more uncertain than they might at first appear. (shrink)

People display recognizably characteristic behavioral patterns across time and situations, with a given degree of regularity. These patterns may justify the attribution of personality traits. It is arguably the commonsense view that the proper explanation of these behavioral regularities is given by intrinsic properties of the agent’s psychology. In this paper, I argue for an externalistic view of the causal basis of personality-characteristic behaviors. According to the externalistic view, the relevant behavioral regularities are better understood as the result of a (...) systematic interaction between features internal to the agent and environmental-situational factors. Moreover, if the premise is granted that people are typically able to exercise a certain degree of control over the environmental-situational conditions they find themselves in, the resulting picture is of active sort of externalism, as people may at times engage in selection and manipulation of environmental-situational conditions as a way of managing their own behavioral tendencies. (shrink)

En este trabajo me propongo explorar algunas consecuencias que implica adoptar una lectura disolutoria fuerte de las Investigaciones Filosóficas de Wittgenstein. A tal fin, recorreré los textos clave para la lectura disolutoria y exploraré la relación que tal concepción guarda con el estilo de composición de la obra, a partir de la clarificación del tipo de objetivo que Wittgenstein se propone. A partir de allí, desarrollaré las consecuencias que supone el modo wittgensteiniano de entender la terapia filosófica sobre los recursos (...) argumentativos con que puede desarrollarse dicha empresa, en términos del contraste entre argumentación y persuasión. Finalmente, propondré que el trabajo del terapeuta filosófico que pretende llevarnos a ver el lenguaje de otra manera puede iluminarse a partir de un paralelismo con el tratamiento wittgensteiniano de la visión de aspectos. (shrink)

In this paper I look into a problem concerning the characterization of the main conceptual commitments of the ‘post-cognitivist’ theoretical framework. I first consider critically a proposal put forward by Rowlands (2010), which identifies the theoretical nucleus of post-cognitivism with a convergence of the theses of the extended and the embodied mind. The shortcomings I find in this proposal lead me to an indepedent and wider issue concerning the apparent tensions between functionalism and the embodied and enactive approaches.

This paper argues that the crucial feature of the drug-related desires experienced by addicted agents is not that they ‘push’ the agent with a force she cannot oppose, but that they are not easily undermined by things that normally have the ability to undermine desires —in other words, that they are extraordinarily recalcitrant. As a result, the disposition to experience these desires is very persistent over the long-term, manifesting itself in particular episodes of wanting to use drugs that recur with (...) great frequency. Both the persistence and the recurrence of these desires, it is argued, contribute to a diminished ability to respond to relevant reasons that speak against drug use. (shrink)

The question I address in this paper is what is it exactly for desires to possess a certain strength. And my aim is twofold. First, I argue for a pluralistic account of desire strength. On this view, there are several dimensions along which desires possess greater or lesser strength, and none of them is intrinsically privileged. My second aim is to highlight some time-based properties of desires, recurrence and persistence. Both desires’ degree of persistence across time and their rate of (...) episodic recurrence are, I argue, further dimensions of desire strength. (shrink)

Las soluciones a la paradoja de la ficción propuestas por Kendall Walton y Gregory Currie, a pesar de diferir en puntos de detalle importantes, suponen dos movimientos conceptuales comunes para entender la situación de quien está inmerso en una obra de ficción, a través del recurso a la noción de “cuasi-emociones” y de la idea de construcción de escenarios imaginarios. Aquí propondré que sus propuestas fallan en sus dos puntos centrales, a partir de problemas que son, sin embargo, independientes. Por (...) un lado, sus ideas sobre las emociones que sentimos al estar atrapados por una obra de ficción fallan al suponer una versión inaceptable de la tesis cognitivista acerca de las emociones. Por otro, sus ideas sobre la construcción de mundos imaginarios por parte de los “consumidores de ficción” fallan al suponer una dicotomía entre mundos de ficción y realidad. Finalmente, discutiré brevemente el modo en que ambos tipos de problemas repercuten sobre la viabilidad del planteo de la paradoja misma. (shrink)

En este trabajo analizo el entramado conceptual de la concepción causal de la metáfora (Davidson 1978). Para ello me enfocaré en primer lugar en su discusión con las concepciones semánticas, lo que nos llevará a discutir el tratamiento davidsoniano de la noción de significado y su distinción entre significado de la oración y significado del hablante. Luego plantearé un problema interno a este enfoque, en términos de cómo entender esta última distinción dentro del marco nominalista del pragmatismo davidsoniano. Finalmente, analizaré (...) las consecuencias de adoptar este enfoque a la hora de pensar a las metáforas como vehículos para la transmisión de contenido cognitivo. (shrink)

I consider the prospects of building a unified theoretical framework that features extended, embodied and enactivist approaches to mind and cognition. I identify and discuss some main problems that stand in the way of the unification project.

Mi propósito en este trabajo es reconsiderar una de las lecturas más relevantes y provocativas que se han hecho sobre John Dewey en el mundo de habla hispana. En la primera parte reconstruyo las circunstancias que rodearon la difusión, interpretación y traducción de las obras de Dewey en el México de mediados de los años 1940, y en concreto las razones que llevaron a que la visión sociológica que José Medina Echavarría quiso dar de Dewey fuera finalmente desplazada por la (...) filosófica de José Gaos. En la segunda parte analizo la traducción y lectura que Gaos hizo de Experience and Nature de Dewey, teniendo muy presente sus comparaciones con Sein und Zeit de Heidegger . Finalmente, propongo algunas críticas a la visión que Gaos transmite de Dewey como un pensador carente de un tipo de "soberbia diabólica" propia de la verdadera gran filosofía. The purpose of this work is a reconsideration of one of the most relevant and provocative readings of John Dewey written in the Hispanic World. In the first part I reconstruct the circumstances which surrounded the publicity, interpretation and translation of John Dewey's works in the Mexico of the middle 1940's, particularly the reasons why the sociological reading of Dewey that José Medina Echavarría proposed was finally displaced by the metaphysic perspective of José Gaos. In the second part I reconsider Gaos' own translation and interpretation of Experience and Nature, taking in consideration his comparisons with Heidegger's Sein und Zeit . Finally I analyze critically Gaos' view of Dewey as a thinker whose philosophy lacked the "diabolical arrogance" that true great philosophy would seem to require. (shrink)

G.E. Moore’s argument in “Proof of an External World” seems to beg the question against the skeptic and to miss the point of the challenge posed by skeptical hypotheses. I propose an interpretation that frees the argument from both charges. Starting from a distinction between the way Moore understood his dialectical position against the idealist and the skeptic, I attempt to illuminate the conception of skepticism that lies behind his argument. I propose that the argument’s core is found in a (...) strong anti-Cartesian statement, even though its relevance for epistemology is to be found in its potential as a stance regarding justification which is closer to the problematic of Pyrrhonic skepticism. (shrink)

Political philosophy in the last decades has turned away from universal narratives of progress, on grounds that these narratives produce exclusion and justify domination. However, the universal values that underlie emancipatory political projects seem to presuppose universal history, which explains its persistence in some contemporary political philosophers committed to such projects. In order to find a response to the paradox according to which universal history is inherently exclusionary and yet necessary to uphold universal values, I examine the contrast between Adorno’s (...) and Lyotard’s perspectives on the problem of writing history ‘after Auschwitz’. For both philosophers, Auschwitz interrupts our fundamental normative and cognitive values, because any attempt to identify the meaning of the camps by means of these values misunderstands the suffering that took place in them. Yet this interruption produces a feeling that calls for the institution of new universal normative values. For Adorno, this value is a purely negative command to act in such a way that Auschwitz does not repeat itself. For Lyotard, by contrast, it is the demand to invent new idioms that make it possible to find meaning in Auschwitz. (shrink)

Lyotard’s diagnosis of a ‘postmodern condition’ has been repeatedly interpreted as a disavowal of the universal aspiration of political action and judgment. This article challenges this interpretation by showing that postmodernity involves an attempt to reconsider universality in such a way that it involves dissensus rather than consensus. I proceed by reconstructing Lyotard’s critique of the idea of consensus as a ground of political action and judgment, which in his view is based on a certain model of production of scientific (...) knowledge. Then, I analyse Lyotard’s turn to Kant’s judgment of the sublime as an alternative to a consensus-based conception of universal judgments. In the judgment of the sublime, universality stems from the disagreement between the faculties, which arouses respect for universal ideas. Analogously, political judgments stem from the disagreement between heterogeneous discourses, which produces a universal call to invent new languages that make communication possible. (shrink)

The paper reads Kant’s notion of radical evil as anticipating and clarifying problematic aspects of what Arendt called ‘the banality of evil’. By reconstructing Arendt’s varied analyses of this notion throughout her later writings, I show that the main theoretical challenge posed by it concerns the adjudication of responsibility for evil deeds that seem to lack recognisable evil intentions. In order to clarify this issue, I turn to a canonical text in which the relationship between evil and responsibility plays a (...) central role: Kant’s Religion within the Boundaries of Mere Reason. Relying on an interpretation of this writing by Arendt’s mentor Karl Jaspers published in 1935, in evident connection to National Socialism, I challenge Arendt’s own interpretation of Kant’s notion of radical evil, which, I argue, represents an antecedent, rather than a contrast, to ‘the banality of evil’. For Kant, radical evil consists in the destruction of the person’s sense of responsibility, thus producing a self-exculpatory mentality such as the one that characterised Eichmann during his trial. (shrink)

This work explores issues with the eliminativist formulation of ontic structural realism. An ontology that totally eliminates objects is found lacking by arguing, first, that the theoretical frameworks used to support the best arguments against an object-oriented ontology (quantum mechanics, relativity theory, quantum field theory) can be seen in every case as physical models of empty worlds, and therefore do not represent all the information that comes from science, and in particular from fundamental physics, which also includes information about local (...) interactions between objects. Secondly, by giving a critical assessment of the role of symmetries in these fundamental physical theories; and, lastly, by warning about unfounded metaphysical assumptions. An argument is made for a moderate form of structural realism instead, one in which objects play the fundamental role of representing symmetries and bearing their conserved charges, and of participating in the network of interactions observed in the world. (shrink)

In recent years, democratic theorists have inquired into the aesthetic dimension of contemporary politics. Influenced by Hannah Arendt and Jacques Rancière, these scholars claim that there is an analogy between democratic politics and aesthetic experiences, since both involve the confrontation of an indeterminacy that cannot be overcome by means of rational argumentation. Contributing to this perspective, but challenging some of Rancière’s insights, this article shows the importance of Jean-François Lyotard’s writings on aesthetics for understanding what I call ‘democratic aesthetics’. This (...) aesthetics, I argue, consists in works of art that bring representation to its limits, thus arousing an experience of the unpresentable. Influenced by Immanuel Kant’s analysis of the sublime, Lyotard claims that avant-garde art, by disrupting the rules of representational art, put representation as such into question. This experience of the unpresentable contributes to cultivating a readiness to listening to voices that are not yet heard, because they lack a discourse by which to express themselves. Given that politics in postmodernity, following Lyotard, consists in shifting the dividing line between the sayable and the unsayable, avant-garde art is conductive to a postmodern politics – which, I argue, is analogous to democratic politics. (shrink)

The paper reads Kant’s notion of radical evil as anticipating and clarifying problematic aspects of what Arendt called ‘the banality of evil’. By reconstructing Arendt’s varied analyses of this notion throughout her later writings, I show that the main theoretical challenge posed by it concerns the adjudication of responsibility for evil deeds that seem to lack recognisable evil intentions. In order to clarify this issue, I turn to a canonical text in which the relationship between evil and responsibility plays a (...) central role: Kant’s Religion within the Boundaries of Mere Reason. Relying on an interpretation of this writing by Arendt’s mentor Karl Jaspers published in 1935, in evident connection to National Socialism, I challenge Arendt’s own interpretation of Kant’s notion of radical evil, which, I argue, represents an antecedent, rather than a contrast, to ‘the banality of evil’. For Kant, radical evil consists in the destruction of the person’s sense of responsibility, thus producing a self-exculpatory... (shrink)

We propose a new interpretation of the equation E=mc² in special relativity by generalizing ideas of ontological emergence to fundamental physics. This allows us to propose that mass, as a property, can be considered to emerge from energy, using a well-known definition of weak ontological emergence. Einstein’s famous equation gains in this way a clearer philosophical interpretation, one that avoids the problems of previous attempts, and is fully consistent with the kinematic properties of special relativity, while yielding fresh insights concerning (...) the nature of mass. (shrink)

Degrowth is the literal translation of 'decroissance', a French word meaning reduction. Launched by activists in 2001 as a challenge to growth, it became a missile word that sparks a contentious debate on the diagnosis and prognosis of our society. 'Degrowth' became an interpretative frame for a new (and old) social movement where numerous streams of critical ideas and political actions converge. It is an attempt to re-politicise debates about desired socio-environmental futures and an example of an activist-led science now (...) consolidating into a concept in academic literature. This article discusses the definition, origins, evolution, practices and construction of degrowth. The main objective is to explain degrowth's multiple sources and strategies in order to improve its basic definition and avoid reductionist criticisms and misconceptions. To this end, the article presents degrowth's main intellectual sources as well as its diverse strategies (oppositional activism, building of alternatives and political proposals) and actors (practitioners, activists and scientists). Finally, the article argues that the movement's diversity does not detract from the existence of a common path. (shrink)

In previous works, an ontology of properties for quantum mechanics has been proposed, according to which quantum systems are bundles of properties with no principle of individuality. The aim of the present article is to show that, since quasi-set theory is particularly suited for dealing with aggregates of items that do not belong to the traditional category of individual, it supplies an adequate meta-language to speak of the proposed ontology of properties and its structure.

Following the proposal of a new kind of selective structural realism that uses as a basis the distinction between framework and interaction theories, this work discusses relevant applications in fundamental physics. An ontology for the different entities and properties of well-known theories is thus consistently built. The case of classical field theories—including general relativity as a classical theory of gravitation—is examined in detail, as well as the implications of the classification scheme for issues of realism in quantum mechanics. These applications (...) also shed light on the different range of applicability of the ontic and epistemic versions of structural realism. (shrink)

Plato's political thought gave rise to a number of concepts and issues - such as the idea of a normative theory, the philosophical foundation of politics, the philosopher-kings, the standard of utopian theory - which have played a significant role on Western political and philosophical thought. -/- This volume aspires to bring out Plato's concept of efficacy in a normative theory. -/- By efficacy, the author means the way in which the theory conceives of its practical realization. If in the (...) Republic this issue is particularly problematic, in the Laws, instead, the claim of realizability becomes the main concern. -/- By defining the concept of efficacy and going through the main works of Plato, this conceptual and textual analysis aims to shed a new light on Plato's political thought, which is neither a utopia, nor a short term political program, but the first normative theory encompassing a theory of efficacy. (shrink)

La obra del cantautor vallenato Máximo Jiménez se mantiene más vigente que nunca. Sus canciones poseen un valor testimonial y literario que aporta a la construcción de un relato plural de Colombia y que, por lo mismo, también permite cuestionar las narrativas hegemónicas de nuestra mitología nacional en torno al conflicto político, en la medida en que concreta la voluntad colectiva del campesinado por recordar y hacer memoria de sus procesos organizativos como agremiación, así como también de hacer frente a (...) problemáticas tales como la reforma agraria, la violencia política, el gamonalismo, la inercia y el abandono estatal y la desigual tenencia de tierras, especialmente en los departamentos de Córdoba y Sucre, a partir de finales de la década del sesenta, en el marco de las reivindicaciones de la agremiación conocida como la Asociación Nacional de Usuarios Campesinos (ANUC). De forma contraria a lo que aseguran algunos pensadores, como Walter Ong sobre las culturas orales, la música de Máximo Jiménez se sitúa de forma crítica y con honda sensibilidad histórica frente a la política colombiana y sus prácticas de poder, así como también frente al panorama geopolítico e internacional de la época. En esa medida, el presente trabajo realiza un análisis sociocrítico de las canciones de Máximo Jiménez, particularmente, focalizando su manera de comprender la noción de ‘Pueblo’ y en la manera en que sus canciones establecen una relación entre sus textos y los hechos sociales que le circundan. (shrink)

Artificial intelligence (AI) is becoming part of the everyday. During this transition, people’s intention to use AI technologies is still unclear and emotions such as fear are influencing it. In this paper, we focus on autonomous cars to first verify empirically the extent to which people fear AI and then examine the impact that fear has on their intention to use AI-driven vehicles. Our research is based on a systematic survey and it reveals that while individuals are largely afraid of (...) cars that are driven by AI, they are nonetheless willing to adopt this technology as soon as possible. To explain this tension, we extend our analysis beyond just fear and show that people also believe that AI-driven cars will generate many individual, urban and global benefits. Subsequently, we employ our empirical findings as the foundations of a theoretical framework meant to illustrate the main factors that people ponder when they consider the use of AI tech. In addition to offering a comprehensive theoretical framework for the study of AI technology acceptance, this paper provides a nuanced understanding of the tension that exists between the fear and adoption of AI, capturing what exactly people fear and intend to do. (shrink)

Human cerebral organoids are three-dimensional biological cultures grown in the laboratory to mimic as closely as possible the cellular composition, structure, and function of the corresponding organ, the brain. For now, cerebral organoids lack blood vessels and other characteristics of the human brain, but are also capable of having coordinated electrical activity. They have been usefully employed for the study of several diseases and the development of the nervous system in unprecedented ways. Research on human cerebral organoids is proceeding at (...) a very fast pace and their complexity is bound to improve. This raises the question of whether cerebral organoids will also be able to develop the unique feature of the human brain, consciousness. If this is the case, some ethical issues would arise. In this article, we discuss the necessary neural correlates and constraints for the emergence of consciousness according to some of the most debated neuroscientific theories. Based on this, we consider what the moral status of a potentially conscious brain organoid might be, in light of ethical and ontological arguments. We conclude by proposing a precautionary principle and some leads for further investigation. In particular, we consider the outcomes of some very recent experiments as entities of a potential new kind. (shrink)

Resumen: En el presente artículo se busca describir el rol fundamental que juega la experiencia estética en los procesos de significación de lo que se suele denominar “religión popular”. Para esta labor, tomamos como objeto de estudio la fiesta religiosa que, junto con hacer referencia a una determinada realidad empírica, nos provee de dos mediaciones conceptuales para el desarrollo de nuestro análisis: la fiesta y la imagen. De este modo, después de contextualizar nuestra reflexión en el marco de los estudios (...) culturales y la estética, procedemos a definir la lógica estético-sacramental de la fiesta religiosa a partir de los conceptos de “fiesta” e “imagen”, abordados desde el enfoque de la New Material Culture.: The aim of this article is to describe the fundamental role of the aesthetic experience in the processes of signification of what is usually called “popular religion”. In order to achieve this, we define as the object of our study the religious feast, which, apart from referring to a concrete empirical reality, provides us with two conceptual mediations for our analysis: feast and image. Thus, following a contextualization of our reflection on the field of cultural studies and aesthetics, we proceed to define the aesthetic-sacramental logic of the religious feast on the basis of the concepts “feast” and “image”, from the perspective of the New Material Culture approach. (shrink)

According to a shared functionalist view in philosophy of mind, a cognitive system, and cognitive function thereof, is based on the components of the organism it is realized by which, indeed, play a causal role in regulating our cognitive processes. This led philosophers to suggest also that, thus, cognition could be seen as an extended process, whose vehicle can extend not only outside the brain but also beyond bodily boundaries, on different kinds of devices. This is what we call the (...) ‘Externally Extended Cognition Thesis.’ This notion has generated a lively debate. Here, we offer a novel notion of extended cognition, according to which cognition can be seen as being realized outside the brain, but still inside the body. This is what we call the ‘Internally Extended Cognition Thesis’. Not only our thesis but also our approach while defending it is innovative. The argument we offer is supported by recent empirical findings in the life sciences and biomedicine, which suggest that the gut microbiota’s activity has a functional role in regulating our cognitive processes and behaviors. In doing so, we embrace the holobiont-perspective, according to which it is possible to claim that what we call biological individuals are not autonomous entities with clear boundaries, but should rather be seen as networks of multiple interactions among species. Thus, by analyzing different sets of evidence in light of the holobiont-perspective, we argue that the gut microbiota could be seen as a component of our organism. On the basis of the philosophical interpretation of this evidence, however, we also suggest that there are no impediments standing the way of considering the gut microbiota also as a functional extension of our cognitive system. If so, this amounts to extending cognition out of ‘our skull’, though still confining it within ‘our body’: to ‘our gut’. This is an instance of the ‘Internally Extended Cognition Thesis,’ whose benefits for an original theory of extended cognition are discussed. (shrink)

We discuss the mathematical structures that underlie quantum probabilities. More specifically, we explore possible connections between logic, geometry and probability theory. We propose an interpretation that generalizes the method developed by R. T. Cox to the quantum logical approach to physical theories. We stress the relevance of developing a geometrical interpretation of quantum mechanics.

Intuitively, we can conceive of the existence of a conscious state as a pure activity that does not necessarily require a body (or even a brain). This idea has found new support in certain recent theories that present the possibility of a totally disconnected and disembodied consciousness. Against this hypothesis, I argue that human experience is intrinsically embodied and embedded, though in a specific way. Using Sartre’s phenomenology of the body, I first analyze the concept of consciousness as intentionality and (...) a world-disclosing activity, thus explaining how conscious activity can only be expressed through a body that is spatiotemporally related to the world. Then, I argue that bodily consciousness does not necessarily imply the actual presence of an anatomical body but, rather, a process of spatialization and temporalization (hodological space and temporal synthesis) through the “spatiotemporal body”. Finally, I test my thesis by critiquing some cases of apparent disembodied/disconnected consciousness, i.e., dreams, out-of-body experiences, and the brain-in-a-vat scenario. (shrink)

En este trabajo reconstruyo la estructura argumentativa del asociacionismo coercionista defendido por Michael Blake, que consta de dos premisas, una normativa y otra empírica. Sostengo que ambas premisas pueden ser rechazadas, de manera indirecta (en el caso de la premisa empírica) o directa (en el caso de la premisa normativa). La conclusión es que el asociacionismo coercionista no prueba la existencia de una discontinuidad normativa entre el plano doméstico y el plano global.

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

RESUMEN Las redes sociales han tenido un papel importante en el desarrollo de reclamos cívicos recientes. Internet presenta rasgos favorables para un libre intercambio de razones entre ciudadanos y ofrece un espacio nuevo para la circulación de información. En el presente trabajo me propongo indagar sobre el alcance de los recursos electrónicos y su vinculación con las concepciones deliberativas de la democracia.PALABRAS CLAVE DEMOCRACIA DELIBERATIVA – REDES SOCIALES - RECURSOS ELECTRÓNICOS - LEGITIMIDADABSTRACT Social networks have played an important role in (...) the development of recent civic complaints. Internet has favorable features for a free exchange of reasons between citizens and provides a new space for the circulation of information. This paper investigates the scope of electronic resources and its relationship to deliberative conceptions of democracy.KEYWORDS DELIBERATIVE DEMOCRACY - SOCIAL NETWORKS – ELECTRONIC RESOURCES - LEGITIMACY. (shrink)

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