This paper starts with an analysis of the maker’s knowledge principle as one of the main characteristics of Modern epistemology. We start by showing that maker’s knowledge can be understood in two ways: 1) a negative sense, as a way of establishing limits to human knowledge: we can only know what we create; and 2) a positive sense, as legitimizing human knowledge: we effectively know what we create. We proceed then to examine the roots of the maker’s knowledge principle in (...) the context of the transition from Greek philosophy to early Christian thought, seeing Philo of Alexandria as perhaps the first to formulate an early version of the principle. We conclude that it is the Christian conception of God as creator that makes possible a redefinition of the relation between knowing and creating, opening the way to the Modern formulation of the principle. (shrink)

This paper starts with an analysis of the maker’s knowledge principle as one of the main characteristics of Modern epistemology. We start by showing that maker’s knowledge can be understood in two ways: 1) a negative sense, as a way of establishing limits to human knowledge: we can only know what we create; and 2) a positive sense, as legitimizing human knowledge: we effectively know what we create. We proceed then to examine the roots of the maker’s knowledge principle in (...) the context of the transition from Greek philosophy to early Christian thought, seeing Philo of Alexandria as perhaps the first to formulate an early version of the principle. We conclude that it is the Christian conception of God as creator that makes possible a redefinition of the relation between knowing and creating, opening the way to the Modern formulation of the principle. (shrink)

This book shows that at the beginning of modern thought the revival of ancient skepticism challenged the powers of the intellect in making knowledge possible, opening the way to the consideration of language as an alternative to mental representation, thus leading to an early linguistic turn.

Embora a noção de crença e sua relação com a ação sejam bastante discutidas na literatura sobre o ceticismo, a descrença e as mudanças de crenças são pouco examinadas, apesar de bastante relevantes para a análise das crenças. Em que condições mudamos de crenças, abandonamos crenças anteriores e adotamos novas crenças? Examinaremos dois exemplos significativos e muito influentes na tradição que podem nos esclarecer quanto a isso: Agostinho e Martinho Lutero.

The objective of this paper is to analyze the appeal to the notion of the light of the soul as a commonplace in theories of knowledge from the Renaissance to early 18th century philosophy, showing that language will only become a central subject for philosophy with the progressive criticism of the powers of the intellect, especially intuitive thought.

The objective of this paper is to analyze the appeal to the notion of the light of the soul as a commonplace in theories of knowledge from the Renaissance to early 18th century philosophy, showing that language will only become a central subject for philosophy with the progressive criticism of the powers of the intellect, especially intuitive thought.

O descobrimento do Novo Mundo é um dos fatores fundamentais de ruptura com a tradição, na inauguração do pensamento moderno. A descoberta de povos no novo continente com culturas radicalmente diferentes da europeia leva a um questionamento cético sobre a universalidade da natureza humana, o que denominamos "argumento antropológico". Montaigne é o mais importante pensador deste contexto a discutir esta questão nos Ensaios. Examinamos aqui alguns dos aspectos centrais de sua reflexão a este respeito. The Discovery of the New World (...) is one of the central causes of the breakdown with tradition that opens the way to modern thought. The first contact of the Europeans with the native peoples of the New World shows radically different cultures giving rise to doubts about the universality of human nature, what might be called an "anthropological argument" in a skeptic sense. Michel de Montaigne is the major philosopher in this context to discuss these issues in his Essays and I shall examine some of the more relevant aspects of this discussion. (shrink)

A interpretação da crítica de Peirce ao método da dúvida de Descartes tem sido objeto de grande interesse entre os especialistas na filosofia peirciana. Tentarei avaliar as críticas de Peirce ao método da dúvida de um ponto de vista da possibilidade de uma filosofia cética, tentando argumentar que esta não depende da dúvida cartesiana. Procurarei mostrar também que na filosofia de Peirce encontramos elementos que o aproximam mais do dúvida cartesiana do que pode inicialmente parecer.

Nietzsche est mort et c'est à nous à le faire vivre. Cet usage du texte n'est pas un retour à ce que Deleuze professait superbement : pour ce dernier, faire un enfant dans le dos (de Kant, de Bergson, voire de Nietzsche, même si Deleuze affirmait qu'avec ce dernier c'était l'inverse), c'était à la fois utiliser l'auteur pour lui faire dire ce qu'il n'avait explicitement pas dit, mais qui pouvait présenter un intérêt spéculatif, et, en même temps, dissimuler cet écart. (...) De fait, Deleuze disait "nous" ou "on", amalgamant ainsi sous le même pronom le commenté et le commentateur. Danilo Bilate, au contraire, revendique l'écart et le souligne tout au long de sa démonstration, rappelant ainsi sans cesse au lecteur que, s'il veut faire un enfant à Nietzsche, et si l'on nous permet de filer scabreusement la métaphore, c'est par-devant! Du même coup, là où Deleuze méprisait ouvertement toute philologie (jusqu'à ne pas même préciser les traductions utilisées), Danilo Bilate accorde à la terminologie nietzschéenne la plus grande attention. On interroge les textes pour ce qu'ils disent – car ils disent tout de même quelque chose par eux-mêmes si on veut bien les écouter. L'enfant qu'il s'agit de faire à Nietzsche en les écoutant est une éthique. Bertrand Binoche. (shrink)

This paper aims to institute that the folk song Pamulinawen is essentially a work of art descriptive of Ilokano cultural self-understanding. Specifically, it wants to elucidate that Pamulinanen, per se, is capable of self-assertion; it can usher itself to engage in a dialogue with the Ilokano beholder, and through the mediation of a common pagsasao, it embodies the individual and/or Nakem, the Ilokano collective identity. More than a popular song of courtship among the Ilokanos, the song Pamulinawen then attempts to (...) increase knowledge about Ilokano kananakem so that it serves not only as a piece of Ilokano cultural entertainment but as a medium to express “Ilokano-ness". Through the qualitative methodology, this study mainly employs maiyannatup a panagripirip, a hermeneutical approach to appropriately philosophize on the Ilokano metaphysics, epistemology, and axiology. This approach consists of, among others, palpaliiw and the “Agcaoilon PAR”. (shrink)

Este trabalho investiga a questão da verdade em Ludwig Wittgenstein. Buscar-se-á analisar o artigo _Wittgenstein on Truth_ de Paul Horwich, confrontando-o com o de Hans-Johann Glock, intitulado _Truth in the Tractatus_, tendo como objetivo compreender os pressupostos filosóficos centrais das teorias correspondencialista e deflacionária da verdade. Para tanto, na primeira parte, faremos uma caracterização geral dos elementos centrais das teorias substancialista e não-substancialista da verdade; na segunda parte, comentaremos as dificuldades apontadas por Horwich e Glock na identificação da concepção de (...) verdade do _Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus_ enquanto correspondencialista e caracterizaremos, conforme Horwich, os três defeitos da teoria da verdade do primeiro Wittgenstein; na terceira parte, mostraremos que Horwich também se baseia no que Glock denomina de teoria da verdade oficial do _Tractatus_, bem como as razões pelas quais Horwich considera ilegítima a introdução no deflacionismo no _Tractatus_ como tentativa de salvar a teoria da verdade tractatiana; na quarta parte, faremos uma breve caracterização da concepção de verdade nas _Philosophical Investigations - PI_, apontando a sua centralidade na reorientação do pensamento wittgensteiniano. E, por fim, como considerações finais, mostraremos as diferentes conclusões de Horwich e Glock, assinalando também um aspecto positivo e outro negativo do deflacionismo. (shrink)

This paper is about the alethic aspect of epistemic rationality. The most common approaches to this aspect are either normative (what a reasoner ought to/may believe?) or evaluative (how rational is a reasoner?), where the evaluative approaches are usually comparative (one reasoner is assessed compared to another). These approaches often present problems with blindspots. For example, ought a reasoner to believe a currently true blindspot? Is she permitted to? Consequently, these approaches often fail in describing a situation of alethic maximality, (...) where a reasoner fulfills all the alethic norms and could be used as a standard of rationality (as they are, in fact, used in some of these approaches). I propose a function α, which accepts a set of beliefs as inputand returns a numeric alethic value. Then I use this function to define a notion of alethic maximality that is satisfiable by finite reasoners (reasoners with cognitive limitations) and does not present problems with blindspots. Function α may also be used in alethic norms and evaluation methods (comparative and non-comparative) that may be applied to finite reasoners and do not present problems with blindspots. A result of this investigation isthat the project of providing purely alethic norms is defective. The use of function α also sheds light on important epistemological issues, such as the lottery and the preface paradoxes, and the principles of clutter avoidance and reflection. (shrink)

Napoleon Bonaparte is a veritable “case” for Nietzsche: he does not reduce Napoleon to a single image, but he rather builds up an ambiguous image of Napoleon for years without trying to define a final result. This ongoing construction is due to Nietzsche’s deep admiration for Napoleon that, however great it may be, does not avoid a certain distancing. Defined as the synthesis of Unmensch and Übermensch, Nietzsche regards Napoleon as an extraordinary human being because of his immorality when he (...) exercised power. It is precisely this extraordinary nature that makes Napoleon a model for understanding the concept of the Übermensch. (shrink)

All reasoners described in the most widespread models of a rational reasoner exhibit logical omniscience, which is impossible for finite reasoners (real reasoners). The most common strategy for dealing with the problem of logical omniscience is to interpret the models using a notion of beliefs different from explicit beliefs. For example, the models could be interpreted as describing the beliefs that the reasoner would hold if the reasoner were able reason indefinitely (stable beliefs). Then the models would describe maximum rationality, (...) which a finite reasoner can only approach in the limit of a reasoning sequence. This strategy has important consequences for epistemology. If a finite reasoner can only approach maximum rationality in the limit of a reasoning sequence, then the efficiency of reasoning is epistemically (and not only pragmatically) relevant. In this paper, I present an argument to this conclusion and discuss its consequences, as, for example, the vindication of the principle 'no rationality through brute-force'. (shrink)

I propose the notion of ‘epistemic sanity’, a property of parsimony between the holding of true but not false beliefs and the consideration of our cognitive limitations. Where ‘alethic value’ is the epistemic value of holding true but not false beliefs, the ‘alethic potential’ of an agent is the amount of extra alethic value that she is expected to achieve, given her current environment, beliefs, and reasoning skills. Epistemic sanity would be related to the holding of (true or false) beliefs (...) that increase the agent's alethic potential (relevant beliefs) but not of beliefs that decrease it (this is related to cognitive parsimony). Suspension of judgment, forgetting, and clutter avoidance are the main contributors to an agent's epistemic sanity, where this paper focuses on suspension. I argue that rational suspension favors the holding of true and relevant beliefs, which is not the case for the extremes of opinionation (no suspension) and skepticism (general suspension). In the absence of evidence, opinionated agents are often forced to rely on principles such as the principle of indifference, but suspension dominates indifference in terms of alethic value in some conditions. A rational agent would only find it beneficial to adopt skepticism if she considers herself to be an anti-expert about her entire agenda, but then ‘flipping’ beliefs maximizes expected alethic value in relation to skepticism. The study of epistemic sanity results in an ‘impure’ veritism, which can deal with some limitations of veritism (e.g., explaining the existence of false but relevant beliefs). (shrink)

The article aims to revisit the relationship between inequality and education, a theme that accompanies education in modern societies. Despite access to data on inequality in society and education, as well as many analyzes of the origins and trends that provoke real social apartheids one has the impression that the metaphor of the labyrinth, common in Latin American literature, applies to education. The article is divided in two parts. The first seeks to situate the theme of inequality as a problem (...) of education and for education, with a brief reference to classic works and the identification of some pedagogical places that can serve to perpetuate inequality or resist it. The second part, based on thoughts from the beginning of the second half of the last century, revolves around the question of whether we are facing yet another unfinished revolution in Latin America. Two themes are discussed: updating the notion of awareness and the pedagogical nuances of concepts such as liberation, social exclusion and coloniality. In the conclusion, Paulo Freire’s centrality is emphasized to understand the relationship between inequality and education, and to create untested feasibilities in education and through education to promote a less unequal and more just society. Keywords: Inequality. Democracy. Awareness. Liberation. coloniality. (shrink)

Sortition, i.e. random appointment for public duty, has been employed by societies throughout the years as a firewall designated to prevent illegitimate interference between parties in a legal case and agents of the legal system. In judicial systems of modern western countries, random procedures are mainly employed to select the jury, the court and/or the judge in charge of judging a legal case. Therefore, these random procedures play an important role in the course of a case, and should comply with (...) some principles, such as transparency and complete auditability. Nevertheless, these principles are neglected by random procedures in some judicial systems, which are performed in secrecy and are not auditable by the involved parties. The assignment of cases in the Brazilian Supreme Court is an example of such a procedure, for it is performed using procedures unknown to the parties involved in the judicial cases. This article presents a review of how sortition has been historically employed by societies and discusses how Mathematical Statistics may be applied to random procedures of the judicial system, as it has been applied for almost a century on clinical trials, for example. A statistical model for assessing randomness in case assignment is proposed and applied to the Brazilian Supreme Court. As final remarks, guidelines for the development of good randomization procedures are outlined. (shrink)

Making a history of the principle of inertia, as of any other principle or concept, is a complex but still possible operation. In this work it has been chosen to make a back story which seemed the most natural way for a reconstruction. On the way back, it has been decided to stop at the 6th century CE with the contribution of Ioannes Philoponus. The principle he stated, although very different from the modern one, is certainly associated with it. Going (...) back in time it is still possible and of course one could proceed to the origins of the homo sapiens who perhaps posed the problem of why a club thrown with his hand could go so far from him. But the similarities that one can find with the modern principle are very vague, too perhaps. Without going so far one could see an embryonic idea of the principle of inertia in the atomistic theory of Democritus in the 5th century BCE. The motion of atoms whirling with no apparent reason can suggest the idea that a body can also move with no reason. But the transition from the atom, a metaphysical being, to the body, an empirical being, is far from immediate. (shrink)

A obra aborda dois específicos temas - a ética e a utopia em sua relação com a educação. Os textos aqui apresentados sinalizam temas novos a serem explorados e outros nem tão novos a serem revisitados para que possa haver novos avanços, para além de Paulo Freire.

Il libro scava nel profondo dell' umanitā per mostrare la pericolositā della paura, i notevoli rischi e le sofferenze che la paura individuale e la paura collettiva comportano, senza dimenticare il rapporto fra potere e paura.

Since Aristotle there are two main approaches in the explanation of begging the question (petitio): a dialectical mistake (an improper move in an argumentative dialogue) and an epistemic mistake. According to the latter begging the question is committed when the premises of an argument cannot be known independently of knowing the conclusion of the argument. Dialectical approaches use the notion of a commitment (acceptance, standpoint) and rules of dialogue as their basis. I propose a hybrid model, inspired by Jackson: the (...) rationale for introducing commitments and rules is epistemic. (shrink)

The causal and simulation theories are often presented as very distinct views about declarative memory, their major difference lying on the causal condition. The causal theory states that remembering involves an accurate representation causally connected to an earlier experience. In the simulation theory, remembering involves an accurate representation generated by a reliable memory process. I investigate how to construe detailed versions of these theories that correctly classify memory errors as misremembering or confabulation. Neither causalists nor simulationists have paid attention to (...) memory-conjunction errors, which is unfortunate because both theories have problems with these cases. The source of the difficulty is the background assumption that an act of remembering has one target. I fix these theories for those cases. The resulting versions are closely related when implemented using tools of information theory, differing only on how memory transmits information about the past. The implementation provides us with insights about the distinction between confabulatory and non-confabulatory memory, where memory-conjunction errors have a privileged position. (shrink)

Fihteova teorija drzave, koja cini integralni deo njegove prakticke filozofije, izgradjena je na kljucnim postavkama njegove metafizike. Stoga, osvetljavanje ovog problema u Fihteovoj poznoj filozofiji treba da podseti s jedne strane na jedan reprezentativan metafizicki projekat drzave velike spekulativne snage, a s druge strane na jedan nacin misljenja o drzavi koji se danas smatra anahronim, nenaucnim, prevazidjenim, te stoga vrednim da bude pominjan kao "negativan primer". Iako pomenute kvalifikacije ne treba sasvim odbaciti ili ih pak, unapred dovesti u pitanje, ipak (...) vracanje Fihteovoj poznoj metafizici drzave ne moze ni u nasem vremenu biti filozofski neproduktivno. Ono danas moze biti od sustinske pomoci svakome ko jos nije pregazen pohodom scjentisticke politologije, svakome ciji je saznajni interes jos uvek dovoljno otvoren za izrazito filozofsko razmatranje drzave, svakome ko zeli da filozofski obogati ili izostri pogled na drzavu. Iako je Fihteova teorija drzave jedinstvena i koherentna, ona je, narocito u svojoj poslednjoj fazi dozivela znacajan preobrazaj. Taj preobrazaj je bio toliko vidljiv da se drzava i u terminoloskom smislu pomera u pozadinu. U Fihteovoj poznoj filozofiji kljucna rec nije vise drzava, vec "carstvo slobode". O drzavi se sada govori, takoreci, intencionalno, svagda s pogledom na to carstvo, na mogucnost i izglede njegovog uspostavljanja. Bez obzira sto je ovaj terminoloski i saznajni primat carstva slobode potisnuo drzavu u drugi plan, on joj, ipak, nije porekao svaki znacaj. Naprotiv. Na putu ka carstvu slobode drzava za Fihtea predstavlja vaznu tacku razvoja preko koje se mora proci. Bas u toj njenoj prolaznosti lezi njena nezaobilaznost. (shrink)

This paper aims to show the centrality of the Ilokano indigenous term Nakem (will) as a hermeneutical key to ontological and ethnoreligious musing. It probes the echoes of the sacred in indigenous belief systems and practices as appropriating Christian religiosity. It attempts to rediscover the inherent echoes of the transcendent Nakem (Divine Will) in day-to-day Ilokano life as its epiphany. This paper focuses on the Christian religion but is mindful of the other indigenous expressions of believing in a transcendent God. (...) It interprets the binding force that keeps the phrase “thy will be done” (matungpal koma ti nakemmo) as a fitting description of faith in Ilokano contemporary life. (shrink)

Nesse artigo, investigo três casos de erros de memória obtidos em laboratório como forma de avaliar as principais teorias da memória : teoria causal e simulacionismo. De maneira geral, a teoria causal afirma que alguém lembra de algo somente se sua lembrança está numa relação causal adequada com uma experiência anterior daquilo que é lembrado. No simulacionismo, essa relação não é necessária. Os casos de erros de memória investigados são DRM, “perdido no shopping” e erro de conjunção de conteúdo. Esses (...) casos são difíceis para a teoria causal, especialmente em sua versão direta, mas não para o simulacionismo. Minha hipótese é a de que essa dificuldade se deve especificamente ao critério causal adotado. ENGLISH: I investigate three lab cases of memory error and test their consequences to the main theories of (declarative) memory: causal theory and simulationism. Roughly, the causal theory states that a subject remembers something only if her remembering is in a causal relation with a past experience of that thing. In simulationism, this relation is not necessary. The cases of memory error are DRM, “lost in the mall”, and memory -conjunction error. These are problem cases for the causal theory, but not for simulationism. My hypothesis is that this difficulty is because of the causal requirement. (shrink)