Resumen: En Le courage de la vérité, justo antes del análisis en torno de la filosofía cínica, se hace referencia a una serie de textos que han abordado en alguna medida la cuestión del influjo del cinismo helenístico más allá de los márgenes de la Antigüedad. El único de los textos mencionados que no es alemán y que tiene como autor a alguien que pertenece al escenario intelectual de Foucault es Cynisme et passion de André Glucksmann, trabajo que ha sido (...) obviado por las diferentes investigaciones en torno a la filosofía cínica y por los estudios sobre la “vuelta” foucaultiana a los griegos. En el presente ensayo no procuraremos apenas dejar en evidencia la originalidad y pertinencia de la concepción glucksmanniana del cinismo, sino, además, mostraremos los elementos en los que se descubre un paralelismo entre dicha concepción y lo sostenido por Foucault en el último de sus seminarios impartidos en el Collège.: In Le courage de la vérité, just prior to his analysis of Cynicism, Foucault refers to a series of texts that have addressed, to some extent, the influence of Ancient Cynicism beyond the margins of ancient times. Among the texts mentioned, there is only one that is not German, whose author belongs to Foucault’s intellectual environment: André Glucksmann’s Cynisme et passion. This work has been ignored by both different pieces of research on Cynicism, and the studies regarding Foucault’s “return” to the Greeks. The present article will not merely highlight the originality and relevance of Glucksmann’s conception of Cynicism, but it will also reveal the elements in which parallelisms can be found between such conception and what Foucault claims in his last course at the Collège de France. (shrink)

In the second section of Foucault’s last course at the Collège de France, taught around four months before his death, emerges, apparently in an abrupt manner, an analysis exclusively devoted to Cynicism. Because of the time proximity between such analysis and his death, Foucault’s late interest in Cynic philosophy has been interpreted as a kind of philosophical well. Rather than drawing attention to biographical aspects, the present article will intend both to explain the theoretical framework in which the Foucauldian concern (...) for Cynicism is revealed and to show evidence of a continuity between Foucault’s study of this phenomenon and what he had been exploring, not only in The Courage of Truth, but also throughout his intellectual work during the eighties. (shrink)

Cuando en El coraje de la verdad se comienzan a trazar las primeras directrices para la realización de una transhistoria del cinismo, que implicaría un rastreo de las diferentes manifestaciones cínicas desde la era alejandrina hasta el presente, Foucault dice estar muy desprovisto de trabajos en los que haya sido planteado este proyecto, y que apenas tiene noticia de cuatro textos, todos de origen germánico y de la segunda mitad del siglo XX, que, al menos, abordan la relación entre el (...) cinismo clásico y un presunto cinismo moderno. De estos cuatro, el filósofo francés confiesa haber leído solo tres: El coraje de existir de Paul Tillich, Parmenides und Jona de Klaus Heinrich y Moral e hipermoral de Arnold Gehlen, obras que le hacen preguntarse sobre el especial interés de la filosofía alemana por el fenómeno cínico. En el presente ensayo, pretendemos adentrarnos en estos libros para esclarecer la forma en la que en ellos se entiende dicho fenómeno, y así dar cuenta de su influjo, por concordancia o confrontación, sobre la original concepción foucaultiana del cinismo. (shrink)

A lo largo de su producción intelectual, Nietzsche no dejó de abordar, aunque de forma más o menos satelital, el tema del cinismo, primero en su manifestación literaria grecorromana, sobre todo representada en la literatura menipea, y luego en tanto fenómeno ético y epistemológico. En este segundo momento el cinismo empezó a ser relacionado con una de las nociones fundamentales del corpus nietzscheano: la crítica fisiológica. El esclarecimiento de este vínculo es el objetivo principal del presente artículo.

O presente trabalho é uma tradução do espanhol para o português de três contos do livro "Cuentos de Amor de Locura y de Muerte" do escritor uruguaio Horacio Quiroga. Os contos selecionados são: "La Gallina Degollada", "El Almohadón de Plumas" e "A la Deriva". Os textos traduzidos ficaram com os seguintes nomes: "A Galinha Degolada" "O Travesseiro de Penas" e "À Deriva".

El objetivo fundamental del presente artículo es la configuración de una constelación de ficciones delirantes en la literatura latinoamericana contemporánea, a partir de la conceptualización del delirio literario y el análisis del proceso de construcción del relato delirante. Dado que, algunos narradores latinoamericanos despliegan ficciones delirantes en nuestros días, y existe un amplio número de casos, en donde el delirio se evidencia en la literatura de nuestro continente, autores como: Mario Bellatin, Roberto Bolaño, Rita Indiana Hernández, Horacio Castellanos Moya, (...) Cristina Rivera Garza, entre otros. Por consiguiente, se centrará la atención en la creación de una base crítica para la interpretación del delirio de algunos personajes de la literatura latinoamericana contemporánea, como un constructo cultural que transgrede el orden social, y es asumido como resistencia y articulación de una praxis creativa. (shrink)

Recent scientific research has settled on a purely descriptive definition of happiness that is focused solely on agents’ psychological states (high positive affect, low negative affect, high life satisfaction). In contrast to this understanding, recent research has suggested that the ordinary concept of happiness is also sensitive to the moral value of agents’ lives. Five studies systematically investigate and explain the impact of morality on ordinary assessments of happiness. Study 1 demonstrates that moral judgments influence assessments of happiness not only (...) for untrained participants, but also for academic researchers and even in those who study happiness specifically. Studies 2 and 3 then respectively ask whether this effect may be explained by general motivational biases or beliefs in a just world. In both cases, we find evidence against these explanations. Study 4 shows that the impact of moral judgments cannot be explained by changes in the perception of descriptive psychological states. Finally, Study 5 compares the impact of moral and non-moral value, and provides evidence that unlike non-moral value, moral value is part of the criteria that govern the ordinary concept of happiness. Taken together, these studies provide a specific explanation of how and why the ordinary concept of happiness deviates from the definition used by researchers studying happiness. (shrink)

People sometimes explain behavior by appealing to an essentialist concept of the self, often referred to as the true self. Existing studies suggest that people tend to believe that the true self is morally virtuous; that is deep inside, every person is motivated to behave in morally good ways. Is this belief particular to individuals with optimistic beliefs or people from Western cultures, or does it reflect a widely held cognitive bias in how people understand the self? To address this (...) question, we tested the good true self theory against two potential boundary conditions that are known to elicit different beliefs about the self as a whole. Study 1 tested whether individual differences in misanthropy—the tendency to view humans negatively—predict beliefs about the good true self in an American sample. The results indicate a consistent belief in a good true self, even among individuals who have an explicitly pessimistic view of others. Study 2 compared true self-attributions across cultural groups, by comparing samples from an independent country and a diverse set of interdependent countries. Results indicated that the direction and magnitude of the effect are comparable across all groups we tested. The belief in a good true self appears robust across groups varying in cultural orientation or misanthropy, suggesting a consistent psychological tendency to view the true self as morally good. (shrink)

A growing body of research has examined how people judge the persistence of identity over time—that is, how they decide that a particular individual is the same entity from one time to the next. While a great deal of progress has been made in understanding the types of features that people typically consider when making such judgments, to date, existing work has not explored how these judgments may be shaped by normative considerations. The present studies demonstrate that normative beliefs do (...) appear to play an important role in people's beliefs about persistence. Specifically, people are more likely to judge that the identity of a given entity remains the same when its features improve than when its features deteriorate. Study 1 provides a basic demonstration of this effect. Study 2 shows that this effect is moderated by individual differences in normative beliefs. Study 3 examines the underlying mechanism, which is the belief that, in general, various entities are essentially good. Study 4 directly manipulates beliefs about essence to show that the positivity bias regarding essences is causally responsible for the effect. (shrink)

Este libro presenta más de medio siglo de la historia de España a través de los ojos de un espectador lúcido y atento que nunca ha sido extraño a su propia época. Es un testimonio vital de un gran historiador de la filosofía y un documento valioso para entender algunos aspectos de la historia del pensamiento español y de la evolución de la enseñanza en la segunda mitad del siglo XX. Índice: Prólogo, por Horacio Capel.- Preámbulo.- Infancia y orígenes.- (...) Guerra y posguerra, universidad y milicia.- Segunda juventud y madurez.- En la monarquía de Juan Carlos.- Penúltimas reflexiones (aunque no nuevas).- Epílogo, por Laureano Bonet. (shrink)

O objetivo deste trabalho é rever criticamente algumas interpretações contemporâneas da noção kantiana de intuição sensível. Defendo uma interpretação alternativa segundo a qual a intuição sensível em Kant deva ser entendida nos termos do que McDowell denomina sentido de re cuja principal característica é a dependênciado objeto. Nesse sentido, a função da intuição sensível é introduzir entidades no discurso para que essas possam ser conceituadas em juízos. Por essa razão,as intuições sensíveis devem ser vistas como o modo de se dar (...) dos objetos e seus atributos e relações que a eles se refere apenas na medida em que eles nos aparecem de forma dependente e relativa. (shrink)

In his Art and Illusion, art historian Ernst Gombrich argues that the emergence and development of styles of pictorial representation depend on the availability of certain schemata, which can be documented. He himself documents the schemata responsible for the emergence and development of several styles. Nothing of this kind has been done as far as the growth of scientific knowledge is concerned. In this article we discuss whether is it possible to document something analogous to Gombrich's schemata that can be (...) of crucial relevance for the development of clinical research. (shrink)

Past research has identified a number of asymmetries based on moral judgments. Beliefs about what a person values, whether a person is happy, whether a person has shown weakness of will, and whether a person deserves praise or blame seem to depend critically on whether participants themselves find the agent's behavior to be morally good or bad. To date, however, the origins of these asymmetries remain unknown. The present studies examine whether beliefs about an agent's “true self” explain these observed (...) asymmetries based on moral judgment. Using the identical materials from previous studies in this area, a series of five experiments indicate that people show a general tendency to conclude that deep inside every individual there is a “true self” calling him or her to behave in ways that are morally virtuous. In turn, this belief causes people to hold different intuitions about what the agent values, whether the agent is happy, whether he or she has shown weakness of will, and whether he or she deserves praise or blame. These results not only help to answer important questions about how people attribute various mental states to others; they also contribute to important theoretical debates regarding how moral values may shape our beliefs about phenomena that, on the surface, appear to be decidedly non-moral in nature. (shrink)

Resumo: O artigo desdobra algumas implicações decorrentes de uma análise ficcional em torno das artes neoliberais de governo. Nessa direção, articula os pressupostos das teorias biopolíticas da formação humana agenciadas pela entrada no Antropoceno, a fim de pensar a desabilitação do que Elizabeth Povinelli chama de imaginário do carbono e seus processos de marcação, distinção e desqualificação ontológica. Trata-se, portanto, de um ensaio especulativo produzido em torno do diagnóstico de um desmoronamento catastrófico da distinção fundamental da episteme moderna, a distinção (...) entre as ordens cosmológica e antropológica, sugerindo uma cartografia precária dos corpos ingovernáveis ancorada em uma sutil arte política: a arte de segurar o céu pelas diferenças. Essa arte almeja atravessar o abismo que historicamente separou um povo com filosofia em oposição aos povos com mito, construindo pontes que incitem a Filosofia da educação e seus praticantes a se situarem na equivocidade dos mundos e aí habitar. Palavras-chave: Antropoceno. Geontologia. Cartografias da diferença. Formação humana. Altered bodies, ungovernable bodies: ethical-aesthetic cartographies to hold the sky through diferences: The article unfolds some implications arising from a fictional analysis around the neoliberal arts of government. In this sense, it articulates the presuppositions of the biopolitical theories of human formation that were introduced by the entry into the Anthropocene, in order to think about the disabling of what Elizabeth Povinelli calls the carbon imaginary and its processes of marking, distinction and ontological disqualification. The argument is a speculative essay produced around the diagnosis of a catastrophic collapse of the fundamental distinction of modern episteme, suggesting a precarious cartography of ungovernable bodies anchored in a subtle political art: art of holding the sky through the differences. This art aims to bridge the chasm that has historically separated a people with philosophy as opposed to people with myth, building bridges that incite the Philosophy of education and its practitioners to lie in the equivocity of worlds and dwell there. Keywords: Anthropocene. Geontology. Cartographies of the difference. Human formation. Cuerpos alterados, cuerpos ingobernables: cartografías ético-estéticas para sostener el cielo a través de las diferencias Resumen: El artículo desarrolla un análisis sobre las artes neoliberales del gobierno. En este sentido, refleja las presuposiciones de las teorías biopolíticas de la formación humana frente a la entrada al Antropoceno, a fin de pensar la desactivación de lo que Elizabeth Povinelli llama el imaginario del carbono y sus procesos de distinción y descalificación ontológica. Es, por lo tanto, un ensayo especulativo producido en torno al diagnóstico de un colapso catastrófico de la distinción fundamental de la episteme moderna, sugiriendo una cartografía de cuerpos ingobernables anclados en un sutil arte político: la arte de sostener el cielo a través de las diferencias. Esta arte tiene como objetivo cerrar el abismo que ha dividido un pueblo con filosofía y un pubelo con mitos, construyendo puentes que inciten a la Filosofía de la educación y a sus practicantes a pararse en la ambigüedad de los mundos y habitar allí. Palabras clave: Antropoceno. Geontología. Cartografías de la diferencia. Formación humana. (shrink)

In his struggle to constitute sociology as a natural science, Durkheim fought against finalism, Gabriel Tarde’s general project, efforts at theoretical synthesis unconnected to specific empirical problems, and ideological analysis. The article dwells on these four "epistemological battles," especially on Durkheim’s (unfortunately failed) effort toward purging the social sciences from ideological analysis.

This essay aims to expose the metaphysical underpinnings of enactivism. While enactivism relies heavily on rejecting the traditional mind-body problem by excluding the familiar thought experiments that favor phenomenal dualism, the crucial point that is overlooked is instead the brain-body problem, specifically the crucial interaction between the brain and the bodily limbs in their embodied activities of perception and cognition. If enactivism is correct, differences in sensory experience necessarily entail differences in embodied activity—this is the metaphysical core of enactivism, which (...) we think is entirely wrong. We will argue that a physical or biological body ("Körper") is configured or shaped into a perceptually living body ("Leib") by brain patterns and not by embodied activity or by the so-called sensorimotor contingencies. Undoubtedly, embodied actions influence sensory perception. However, since variations in embodied actions do not necessarily lead to variations in sensory experience, they are not metaphysically constitutive of these experiences (supervenience claim). (shrink)

Metaphors help us understand a concept by resorting to the imaginary because it is sometimes difficult to do so through the use of words alone. Thinkers have made use of metaphors to not only describe ‘falling in love’, ‘the pain of losing someone dear to us’, but also to describe particular concepts both in arts and sciences. In fact, the use of metaphors in some disciplines, particularly the sciences, is now regarded as something essential for the development of the field. (...) We note that influential philosophers of education, such as Martin Buber, Paulo Freire, Michael Apple, Gert Biesta and Ilan Gur-Ze’ev have also made use of metaphors to discuss education and specific issues in educational contexts. In this article, we do two things: we discuss the methodological importance of metaphors in helping us make better sense of concepts and particular problems; building on this methodological discussion, we critically discuss the problems posed by the current processes of ‘marketisation’ and ‘learnification’ in education. We conclude by arguing that metaphors do not provide us with ultimate answers to the problems we face; rather, they help us unveil a diversity of novel perspectives and a world of new possibilities. (shrink)

In this paper, I propose a new nonconceptual reading of the B-Deduction. As Hanna correctly remarks (Int J Philos Stud 19(3):399–415, 2011: 405), the word “cognition” (Erkenntnis/cognition) has, in both editions of the first Critique, a wide sense, meaning nonconceptual cognition, and a narrow meaning, in Kant’s own words “an objective perception” (A320/B377). To be sure, Kant assumes the first meaning to account for why the Deduction is unavoidable. If we take this meaning as a premise of the B-Deduction, then (...) there is a gap in the argument since the categories are certainly not conditions for non-conceptual cognition (Kantian nonconceptualism). Still, I believe it is not this wide meaning but rather the narrow one that figures in any premise of the B-Deduction. Thus, in the reading that I am proposing, categories are not conditions for representing something (I call this the intentionality thesis), or even conditions for representing something objectively (I call this the objectivity thesis). Instead, they are conditions for the recognition that what we represent through the senses exists mind-independently. In the first step of the B-Deduction, this cognition in the narrow sense takes the form of propositional thinking (transcendental apperception) that the nonconceptually represented object of the sensible intuition exists objectively. In contrast, in the second step of the B-Deduction, this cognition in the narrow sense takes the form of the apprehension (figurative synthesis) of what our human senses represent nonconceptually as existing objectively. (shrink)

The desire for a meaningful life is ubiquitous, yet the ordinary concept of a meaningful life is poorly understood. Across six experiments (total N = 2,539), we investigated whether third-person attributions of meaning depend on the psychological states an agent experiences (feelings of interest, engagement, and fulfillment), or on the objective conditions of their life (e.g., their effects on others). Studies 1a–b found that laypeople think subjective and objective factors contribute independently to the meaningfulness of a person’s life. Studies 2a–b (...) found that positive mental states are thought to make a life more meaningful, even if derived from senseless activities (e.g., hand-copying the dictionary). Studies 3a–b found that agents engaged in morally bad activities are not thought to have meaningful lives, even if they feel fulfilled. In short, both an agents’ subjective mental states and objective impact on the world affect how meaningful their lives appear. (shrink)

Kant was never satisfied with the version of his “Refu- tation” published in 1787 (KrV, B 275-279). His dissatisfaction is already evident in the footnote added to the preface of the second edition of the Critique in 1787. As a matter of fact, Kant continued to rework his argument for at least six years after 1787. The main exegetical problem is to figure out who is the target of the “Refutation”: a non-skeptic idealist, a global skeptic of Cartesian provenance or (...) both. In this last case, the related problem is to know whether either of them is the Cartesian skeptic of the first Meditation, the idealist skeptic of the second Meditation and first part of the third Meditation, or some other non-skeptic idealist. I present and defend a new reconstruction of Kant’s “Refu- tation” as a successful argument against Mendelssohnian idealism of Cartesian provenance. This defense is based on a simple logical sketch of the proof provided by Dicker but essentially modified in light of Dyck’s insight about Kant’s opponent. How shall I support my reading? First, by appealing to overwhelming textual evidence according to which the proof is of the existence of mind-independent things, showing that Kant’s main opponent is Mendelssohn’s idealism of Cartesian provenance. Finally, I support my reading by showing that Kant’s “Refutation” is doomed to fail against all forms of global skepticism but is quite successful against Mendelssohn’s idealism. (shrink)

Recent developments of transcendental arguments reflect the struggle to accommodate Stroud’s devastating objection by giving up on failed expectations in providing proof of what the external-world skeptic calls into question: knowledge of the existence of the outside world. Since Strawson's capitulation in 1984, the truth-direct transcendental arguments have given way to modest belief-direct transcendental arguments that concede that truth-direct transcendental arguments are doomed to fail to establish ambitious conclusions about reality but at the same time hold that they can nonetheless (...) successfully establish modest conceptual connection between the major beliefs within our conceptual scheme. This article seeks the “reactionary” rehabilitation of the old hubris: a new defense of the truth-direct transcendental argument. I set forth a new reconstruction of Kant’s Refutation as a successful truth-directed transcendental argument that meets Stroud’s objection. As with several papers and books about the theme, this article is of a systematic and a historical nature by connecting the contemporary debate about transcendental argument with Kant’s philosophy. (shrink)

I argue that my non-dual epistemic-phenomenalist view is the one that best harmonises my interpretation of the Fourth Paralogism with the widely shared reading of the Refutation of Idealism that I sketched and defended above. The bottom line of my view is a clear distinction between the metaphysical and epistemological sides of Kantian idealism. Again, according to my non-dual-epistemic-phenomenalism, the mundus sensibilis and mundus intelligibilis are epistemologically distinct ways of considering the metaphysically identical outside world. Appearances are nothing but the (...) way the things in themselves appear or exist inside our sensible minds as mere representations. In this sense, I reject both the two-world view, the two-aspect view, and Allais’s deflationary anti- phenomenalist reading. (shrink)

This paper presents a new cognitivist account for the old puzzle of self-consciousness or knowing self-reference. Knowing self-reference does not rely on reflection on some putative pre-existent pre-reflexive self-consciousness, nor is it the result of a process of identification of oneself as the employer of the relevant token of “I” according to the token-reflexive rule of the first-person pronoun. Rather, it relies on the architecture of the cognitive system. By exploiting the acquaintance relation that every brain has to one’s own (...) body, a “mental file” is opened in a subliminal way to house information about oneself gained through the appropriate proprioceptors. Knowing self-reference based on self-files dispenses with self-identification because the opening of the file in the same brain/body is not a deed of the cognitive system but rather something that takes place sub-personally. (shrink)

The aim of this paper has been to present a new reconstruction of Kant’s Refutation of Idealism. I have considered several different targets of the Refutation, five of them mentioned by Kant himself. I believe that I have shown that the Refutation of Idealism is best considered only as a sound argument against Mendelssohnian subjectivist idealism, against Mendelssohnian immaterialism, and against Mendelssohnian realist idealism. First, Kant’s Refutation is a sound argument in favor of the claim that the outer things represented (...) in our minds are real rather than ideal; that is, they exist mind-independently as noumena. And second, Kant’s refutation is a sound argument for a fundamental ontology of noumena: the ultimate nature of reality and of our minds is neither material nor mental but made up of things in themselves. (shrink)

Kant’s Refutation targets what he calls the problematic idealist. This is understood by the mainstream of Kantian scholarship as the global skeptic that Descartes briefly adumbrated in his first Meditation. The widespread view in the literature is that the fate of the Refutation is tied to its success as an argument against this Cartesian global skepticism. This consensus is what I want to question in this paper. I argue that Kant’s opponent – the problematic idealist – is not the Cartesian (...) global skeptic but rather what I prefer to call here the Cartesian problematic external-world idealist. According to Cartesian global skepticism, we cannot know whether our commonsensical beliefs are true until we rule out that the skeptical hypotheses are false. In contrast, the Cartesian external-world idealist sees as problematic the assumption that the underlying nature of outer things of which we have ideas is mind-independent rather than caused by our own thinking. My aim here is to disentangle Cartesian global skepticism from Cartesian problematic external-word idealism and show that, if measured against global skepticism, Kant’s Refutation is doomed to fail, while against problematic idealism, it is at least a promising argument. (shrink)

How does one know the phenomenal character of one’s own experience? I aim to present and defend a new view of the epistemology of qualia that addresses this issue. My view results from a reworking of Dretske’s displaced perception model. The guiding line is the key Wittgensteinian insight of his Private Language Argument, namely the claim that no inner perception of qualia can justify our corresponding qualia beliefs. My reworking of the original model starts with the rejection of Dretske’s representationalism, (...) as well as any other metaphysical views about the ultimate nature of qualia. The reworking of the displaced perception model I am proposing is supposed to be compatible with any available metaphysical view on qualia. The second step consists of rejecting the epistemological misgivings of the original model, namely the view that knowing qualia requires “connecting beliefs” along with “meta-representations.” Yet, Dretske’s crucial mistake has been to force knowledge of qualia into the “belief-box.” As a matter of fact, there is only one belief involved in introspecting qualia, namely the qualia-belief itself. The third final step is this. Assuming the key Wittgensteinian insight, I argue that introspection of qualia is a process that is both epis- temically reliable and automatic. It is reliable because it dispenses with justification of any beliefs whatsoever. Moreover, it is automatic because it also dispenses with reflexive connecting beliefs. For example, it takes nonconceptual awareness of the color blue as an input and automatically yields the belief that phenomenal blue is the conscious character of my experience of the sky as an output just by employing the concept BLUE. (shrink)

This paper is a new defense of type-B materialism against Jackson’s knowledge argument (1982) inspired by the Kantian main opposition between concepts and sensible intuitions. Like all materialists of type B, I argue that on her release from her black-and-white room, Mary makes cognitive progress. However, contrary to the so-called phenomenal concept strategy (henceforth PCS), I do not think that such progress can be accounted for in terms of the acquisition of new concepts. I also reject Tye’s recent account of (...) Mary’s cognitive progress as the acquisition of a “thing-knowledge.” What is crucial is not the Russellian opposition between knowing things and knowing truths but rather the Kantian opposition between conceptual and nonconceptual representations of the same thing (property). Mary’s phenomenal knowledge is here accounted for as the result of the cooperation of her newly acquired nonconceptual representation of the same phenomenal redness (the same thing) she had a conceptual representation before. As that new nonconceptual representation carries information about the same physical property she already represented but is now coded in analog rather than in digital form (Dretske, 1981), that nonconceptual representation can be accounted for in physical terms as Chalmers’s Master argument requires. Nevertheless, that representation can account for Mary’s cognitive progress since it carries information coded in analog form, something that the imprisoned she could never possess. (shrink)

The claim that ―concepts serve as rules for the synthesis of representations‖ is understood by the mainstream of Kant‘s scholarship as if categories and concepts, in general, are conditions for the constitution of objects out of the manifold of sensations devoid of reference. That is the claim that I wish to question here. The claim comes in different flavors and formulations. Still, none of them are relevant here. I aim to provide an alternative account for the claim that ―the representation (...) makes the object possible.‖ I argue that the traditional view represents a solution to what I call the pseudo-problem of intentionality, namely to account for how a representation of something emerges out of a manifold of sensations devoid of reference. Yet, the intentionality problem is a misunderstanding of what I call the recognition thesis: the role of concepts is to provide the rules for the (mind-dependent) recognition (Erkenntnis) of the mind-independent existence of transcendental objects (noumena). ―The representation makes the object possible in the relevant sense that only by means of concepts can we recognize that what is sense-dependently represented actually exists mind-independently as transcendental objects or noumena in the negative sense. My view is embedded in the framework of what today is called ―Kantian Nonceptualism‖. Still, my view is neither a simple re-statement of Kantian Nonconceptualism nor depends on it. It is independently grounded on what Kant calls ―Erkenntnis‖. (shrink)

This paper is both systematic and historical in nature. From a historical viewpoint, I aim to show that to establish Wittgenstein’s claim that “an ‘inner process’ stands in need of outward criteria” (PI §580) there is an enthymeme in Wittgenstein’s private language argument (henceforth PLA) overlooked in the literature, namely Wittgenstein’s suggestion that both perceptual and bodily experiences are transparent in the relevant sense that one cannot point to a mental state and wonder “What is that?” From a systematic viewpoint, (...) I aim to show that Wittgenstein’s PLA teaches us that the prevailing picture of the nature of phenomenal concepts (henceforth PCs) is upside down: we can only introspectively know what is going on inside our heads after we learn of what is going on outside (PI §580). In this regard, I aim to defend two associate claims against the prevailing view of PCs on the basis of PLA. First, by means of transparency, I aim to show that there is no de re awareness of our private sensation that could determine the meaning of sensation words; for example, I am never aware of the phenomenal blueness of my experience of something blue. The second associated claim is that introspective self-knowledge of our private sensations is always de dicto. We can only know introspectively that phenomenal blueness is the phenomenal character of the experience we are undergoing after we have learned that (de dicto knowledge) blue is the color that usually causes us that kind of experience. Likewise, we can only introspectively know that pain is the phenomenal character of the experience we are undergoing after we have learned that pain is what usually causes some typical pain behavior. (shrink)

From the second half of the last century, there has been a widespread view in the Anglophone world that Kant’s transcendental deduction (aka TD) aims to vindicate our common-sense view of the world as composed of public and objective particulars against some unqualified forms of skepticism. This widespread assumption has raised serious doubt not only about the success of TD but also about the very nature of its argument in both editions of the Critique. Yet, if there is a connection (...) between TD and global skepticism, the intriguing question is: Who is this skeptic? According to Strawson, “the skeptic” is a hypothesis of a purely sense-datum experience. In contrast, the fact that TD turns on the key notion of self-consciousness has induced several other scholars to assume that the skeptic is no none but a Cartesian external-world skeptic. None of those readings find textual support or are compatible with the very structure of the first Critique. The question is: Does this mean that TD aims only to undermine empiricism, as Guyer suggests? I do not believe so. I am pretty convinced that TD addresses a peculiar form of global skepticism, namely “Hume’s challenge to reason.” Assuming that we cognize (erkennen) and experience (erfahren) appearances as objects as a requirement of Newtonian physics, TD aims to provide a justification of the principle that nature is uniform that is superior to Hume’s justification. (shrink)

Este artículo pretende ofrecer una visión alternativa tanto de la lectura conceptualista tradicional de Kant como de la nueva lectura no conceptualista. En contra de las lecturas conceptualistas tradicionales sostengo que confunden las condiciones para la representación sensible de los objetos (tesis de la intencionalidad) con las condiciones para el reconocimiento (Erkenntnis) de que representamos objetos mediante intuiciones sensibles (tesis del reconocimiento). En contra de las lecturas no conceptualistas sostengo que no distinguen el no conceptualismo -propio de la filosofía contemporánea (...) de la mente- de las tesis antiintelectualistas de Kant. Tales lecturas fracasan porque se equivocan al atribuir un contenido representacional a las intuiciones sensibles de Kant. Las intuiciones sensibles, según Kant, no presentan el mundo según ciertas condiciones de satisfacción que podrían o no ser satisfechas por el mundo. Por lo tanto, no son ni verídicas ni non verídicas. Se limitan a presentar el mundo de una manera directa, independiente de los conceptos, lo que llamaré aquí la presentación de re de los objetos. En mi lectura, la oposición entre intuiciones y conceptos es la oposición entre la presentación de re de um objeto y el reconocimento proposicional de dicto de que representamos algo como um objeto. (shrink)

This paper is a defense of the so-called phenomenal-concept strategy, based on a new view of phenomenal concepts as special de re modes of presentation of the phenomenal character of experience. Phenomenal concepts can be explained in physical terms as mental particulars (as phenomenal files) created in the individual’s mind to pick out the phenomenal character of experience by representing certain physical properties as those represented by the experiences themselves (metarepresentation). They are individuated by two fundamental relations: the perceptual (acquaintance) (...) relation the creature bears to the physical properties represented by its own experience and the relation the creature bears to itself (self-acquaintance) as the subject undergoing those experiences. Mary’s newly acquired phenomenal file presents the phenomenal character of her new experience of red by means of the new relation she bears to herself as the creature standing in the experiential relation to the color red. (shrink)

I argue for a new reading of Pyrrhonian beliefs inspired by representationalism (the content view) in recent philosophy of mind. I shall argue that there are two senses of acceptance or “acquiescence in something” (eudokein tini pragmati) rather than two senses of belief (doxa). For this reason, we can maintain along with Sextus that the Pyrrhonian skeptic behaves intentionally and can live his life in society adoxastôs without any proper beliefs whatsoever. However, the skeptical sense of acceptance is not the (...) mere avowal of a feeling or a mere report or register of the way things appear to me. I want to suggest the following reading. Acceptance without belief is an anti-predicative passive and involuntary acceptance of content by means of an indicator function (pathos or phainomenon) in virtue of the past regular connection between the representational content and the indicator function. The pathos (as a present state of mind) or the phainomenon “means” (that is, indicates) passively and involuntarily a content in virtue of its regular connection with this content through time. For example, the Pyrrhonian’s acceptance of the content of the sentence “there is fire” is based on the fact that he here and now perceives smoke and that pathos passively and involuntarily means (represents) the content that there is fire. There is no judgment involved at all: even when the skeptic suspends his judgment (epochê) about whether there is fire, his pathos makes him involuntarily accept that there is fire. That is what Sextus, following the Stoic tradition, calls “commemorative signs” (hupomnêstikon) in opposition to the so-called “indicative signs” (endeiktikon), namely the “internal assertion” of the content as a belief (as a propositional attitude). As I do not believe that any reasonable reading of the skeptical acceptance may be defended only by means of philological analysis and by the research of the huge doxography, my arguments deliberately mix historical evidence with reasons of a systematic nature. In this way, the defense of my alternative reading is abductive, namely as the inference to the best explanation. (shrink)

This brief paper is devoted to criticizing the widespread reading of Kant’s first Critique, according to which reference to subject-independent objects is “constituted” by higher-order cognitive abilities (concepts). Let us call this the “constitutional view.” In this paper, I argue that the constitutional reading confuses the un-Kantian problem of how we come to represent objects (which I call the intentionality thesis), with the quite different problem of how we cognize (erkennen) (which I call the “cognition thesis”) that we do represent (...) objects, that is, things that exist independently of the subject. (shrink)

This paper aims to present a novel reading of Kantian idealism. In want of a better name, I call my interpretation “one-object-plus-epistemic phenomenalism.” I partially endorse Allison’s celebrated position, namely his rejection of metaphysical world-dualism. Yet, I reject Allison’s deflationary two-aspect view. I argue that Kantian idealism is also metaphysically committed to an ontological noumenalism (one-object), namely the claim that the ultimate nature of reality is made up of unknown things in themselves (substantia noumena). Natural sciences can only reveal the (...) relational/structural properties of things as they appear rather than the intrinsic properties of substantia noumena in the negative sense. My anti-deflationary reading is similar to Allais’s, and my agnostic monism to Hanna’s. However, against both, I hold that appearances are not the accusative objects of our sensible representations but rather, as Kant repeatedly states: “mere representations.” The accusative objects of our senses are substantia noumena in the negative sense. Moreover, my view is also similar to Langton’s. Again, against Langton, I hold that appearances are not merely relational properties of substantia noumena but the way that such substantia noumena exist inside our mind as “mere representations.” In this regard, I also partially endorse Guyer’s and Van Cleve’s phenomenalist reading because these substantia noumena in the negative sense can only be cognized mind-dependently, namely as appearances. However, against Guyer and Van Cleve, I hold that the phenomenalist side of Kantian idealism is purely epistemological rather than ontological: what Kant calls the necessary unity of representations according to categories is not a logical construction of objects out of representations, that is, an ontological reduction of noumena to appearances, but rather the way we sense-independently cognize mind-independent noumena. (shrink)

This article presents a dual purpose: to carefully consider objections against the existentialist conception of the content of visual experience and to develop and defend a version of it that avoids such objections, specifically addressing the so-called "problem of particularity." The main thesis is that the existential content of visual experience should be understood as relativized, being incomplete content (rather than classical, complete propositions), modeled as a function of the sextuple of the object, agent, time, place, causal relation, and world (...) to absolute values. (shrink)

My account of the causal role of consciousness in a physical world is modeled on Dretske’s celebrated explanation of the causal role of beliefs (something that Dretske himself never offered). First, behavior must be understood as a (broadly individuated) process that begins with some external stimulus causing some neurological event C, and ends with causing a bodily movement M (e.g., the Kennedy assassination is a process that begins with Oswald pulling the trigger at 12:30pm CST on November 23 in 1963 (...) in Dallas, Texas, but only ends half an hour later when Kennedy is pronounced dead at 1 pm CST). The internal neurological event C causes bodily movement M, but only by virtue of being recruited by natural selection to represent the instantiation of some external property F when properly stimulated under normal circumstances. But the reason why C causes M lies in the fact that C represents the instantiation of the external property F. I withdraw my hand from a hot surface because the activation of nociceptive specific neurons in my parietal lobe (together with the activation of neuronal patterns in my motor cortices) was recruited by natural selection to represent the tissue damage in my hand. The activation of nociceptive specific neurons causes my hand to withdraw but for the reason that it represents tissue data at the time that I felt pain in my hand. (shrink)

This paper has two aims. First, it aims to provide an adverbial account of the idea of intransitive self-consciousness and second, it aims to argue in favor of this account. These aims both require a new framework that emerges from a critical review of Perry’s famous notion of the “unarticulated constituents” of propositional content (1986). First, I aim to show that the idea of intransitive self-consciousness can be phenomenologically described in an analogy with the adverbial theory of perception. In an (...) adverbial theory of perception, we do not see a blue sense-data, but we see something blue-ly, whereas in intransitive self-consciousness, we are not conscious of ourselves when we undergo a conscious experience—instead, we experience something self-consciously. But what does this mean precisely? First, I take intransitive self-consciousness to be the first-person operator that prefixes the content of any experience that the subject undergoes, regardless of whether or not the subject is self-referred. Further, I argue that this first-person adverbial way of entertaining the content of any experience in Perry’s revised framework fixes the subject as part of the circumstance of the evaluation of the content of her own experience. We can only evaluate whether the content is veridical or falsidical relative to the subject undergoing the experience. This is referred to here as “self-concernment without self-reference.” When I am absorbed in reading a book, I do not self-represent my own experience of reading a book, let alone see myself as a constituent of the content of this experience. Even so, I experience that reading self-consciously in the precise sense that I do belong to the circumstance of the evaluation of the selfless content of my experience of reading the book. The content of the experience of reading a book is simply a propositional function, true or false of myself. (shrink)

This paper has two aims. First, it aims to provide an adverbial account of the idea of intransitive self-consciousness and second, it aims to argue in favor of this account. These aims both require a new framework that emerges from a critical review of Perry’s famous notion of the “unarticulated constituents” of propositional content (1986). First, I aim to show that the idea of intransitive self-consciousness can be phenomenologically described in an analogy with the adverbial theory of perception. In an (...) adverbial theory of perception, we do not see a blue sense-data, but we see something blue-ly, whereas in intransitive self-consciousness, we are not conscious of ourselves when we undergo a conscious experience—instead, we experience something self-consciously. But what does this mean precisely? First, I take intransitive self-consciousness to be the first-person operator that prefixes the content of any experience that the subject undergoes, regardless of whether or not the subject is self-referred. Further, I argue that this first-person adverbial way of entertaining the content of any experience in Perry’s revised framework fixes the subject as part of the circumstance of the evaluation of the content of her own experience. We can only evaluate whether the content is veridical or falsidical relative to the subject undergoing the experience. This is referred to here as “self-concernment without self-reference.” When I am absorbed in reading a book, I do not self-represent my own experience of reading a book, let alone see myself as a constituent of the content of this experience. Even so, I experience that reading self-consciously in the precise sense that I do belong to the circumstance of the evaluation of the selfless content of my experience of reading the book. The content of the experience of reading a book is simply a propositional function, true or false of myself. (shrink)

In this paper, I intend to show that it’s a serious mistake to construe the role of sensible representation in Kant’s work as a nonconceptual content (in the contemporary and technical sense of “content”), which, like a mental indexical would refer to what appears in space and time in the so-called de re form. The interpretation I advance and further support is this: without possessing a representational content, sensible representation must be understood as the basic epistemic relation between the subject (...) and the physical entities in space and time she is acquainted with. Immediate reference of sensible intuition to their respective objects is to be understood as a form of knowledge by acquaintance. I call my own interpretation relationalism. (shrink)

We set forth what one may call a “constitutional reading” in opposition to the traditional widespread “constructivist reading” of the object of cognition. In the light of the so-called one-object view reading of Transcendental idealism, the object of cognition is nothing but the object that exists in itself insofar as it appears to our cognitive apparatus. The object exists mind-independently, while our cognition of the same object must be mind-independent. The constructivist reading mistakes the epistemological problem of how we come (...) to cognize mind-dependently that what we represent (“the constitutional view”) are mind-independent objects with the Berkelian ontological problem of how we construct objects out of an undifferentiated, unstructured manifold (the constructivist view) My diagnosis is as follows. The first reason is the traditional “two-worlds view” reading of Kant’s idealism. If we take what exists in itself and the object of cognition as distinct things, then we must conclude that the object of cognition is a mind-dependent construction. Constructivist readers mistake the mind-dependent nature of our human cognition of objects for the putative mind-dependent nature of the known object. The second reason is overintellectualization. Constructivist readers mistake the objectifying syntheses of the imagination, below the threshold of self-consciousness, for cognitive conceptual operations by means of which we cognize (erkennen) the objects of cognition, or so I shall argue. (shrink)

The idea that what we perceive are tropes (abstract particulars) is anything but new. In fact, it was one of the reasons why the ontology of tropes was postulated in the first place. Still, the claim that we perceive tropes is invariably and purely based on pre-philosophical intuitions or, indirectly, as a supporting argument for the advantages of the content view when compared to the relational view of experience. In this paper, I take the content view for granted and argue (...) in favor of what is herein referred to as the trope-content view of experience. My defense is a case of inference to the best explanation. The trope-content view can meet all reasonable desiderata on the experience and its content without assuming gaps or making the ad hoc assumption that there are different layers of content, or so shall I argue. (shrink)

I aim to develop an alternative theoretical model for the direct cognition of the elementary states of others called the theory of interaction (henceforth TI), also known as the “second person” approach. The model I propose emerges from a critical reformulation of the displaced perception model proposed by FRED DRETSKE (1995) for the introspective knowledge of our own mental states. Moreover, against Dretske, I argue that no meta-representation (second-order representation of a first-order representation as a representation) is involved in the (...) process, but only concepts, rudimentary enough, of others’ emotions: contentment and discontentment. Strictly speaking, all the empirical data and findings in developmental psychology only support the hypothesis that children in the pre-linguistic phase understand perceptual facial expressions of contentment and discontentment. My proposal consists of the following thesis: The direct perception of others' elementary mental states is not a perception in the usual sense of the word according to which we just perceive things, but rather a “perception of facts.” But how to understand that? It is nothing more than an epistemological process that is automatic and reliable at the same time. It is reliable in the epistemological-externalist sense of not involving any inference, reflection, theorizing or epistemic justification: a baby’s perception of her mom’s facial expression of discontentment (in the usual sense of “per- ception”) does not constitute a reason supporting the belief that mommy is discontent. The very word “belief” should not be understood in the usual sense but rather in the sense of a natural inclination for truth. But at the same time, it is automatic because the belief is a result or output of a process entirely subliminal and computational in nature. Thus, for instance, a child perceives that her mom is discontent (fact-awareness) by perceiving consciously (“perception” in the usual sense) a facial expression of discontentment (sensorial input) but recognizes that her mother is discontent as a result (output) of an entirely subliminal process. (shrink)

In this paper, I argue against the phenomenal concept strategy (henceforth PCS) and in favor of what Chalmers has called type-A materialism ([2006], [2010] p. 111). On her release, Mary makes no cognitive discovery at all, not even a thin, non-possibility-eliminating discovery, as Tye has recently claimed [2012]. When she is imprisoned, Mary already knows everything that is to be known about the phenomenal character of her experiences. What Mary acquires is a new non-cognitive and nonconceptual representation.

In this critical review of Robert Hanna's ingenious book (2006), I aim to support Hanna‟s main insightful reading of Kant, namely what he calls “a priori truth with a human face," without appealing to Kant's divide between a priori and a posteriori and analytic and synthetic truths. My suggestion is that transcendental propositions are necessary neither in the usual epistemological sense that analytic propositions are, let alone in the metaphysical sense that some empirical propositions are. Instead, they are necessary in (...) the theoretical domain in the weak alternative sense that they make possible the empirical recognition of appearances as an object as an indispensable condition of our self-consciousness experience, and they are a priori in the practical domain in the sense that their truth is vital for our self-comprehension as human beings. (shrink)

This paper is a new non-descriptivist defense of non- conceptualism, based on a new interpretation of Kant’s metaphysics of concepts. We advance the following claim: What distinguishes non-conceptual from conceptual singular representations is the way partial representations of the object’s features are integrated into the whole representation of the object: while at the non-conceptual level this integration takes the form of images of the object’s features that are stored and projected, at the conceptual level this integration takes the form of (...) the recognition that those features are properties of a same object, what Kant calls “synthetic unity of Aperception”. (shrink)