Pretendo mostrar como o tema da biopolítica pode se articular com o tema do niilismo. Para isso, concentrarei a atenção em expor esquematicamente alguns dos principais argumentos de Roberto Esposito que autorizam aquela articulação. Assim, primeiramente, considerarei os elementos constitutivos da comunidade que podem ser interpretados como niilistas. Tendo esse dado como ponto de partida, procurarei mostrar de que modo o paradigma imunitário, longe de resolver a deriva niilista que assombra a comunidade, acaba por acirrá-lo; o que leva a articulação (...) com a questão da biopolítica que, paradoxalmente, sendo uma política da vida se desvirtua numa política de morte e aniquilação do sujeito. Por fim, tomando a questão de uma política da negação, implicada na deriva tanatopolítica, apresento como Esposito crê poder solucionar esse perigo, isto é, por uma assunção da potência afirmativa da negação. (shrink)

O objetivo deste artigo é apresentar as principais ideias do filósofo político italiano Roberto Esposito, mostrando como ele relê a biopolítica moderna a partir das categorias conceituais de “comunidade” e “sistema imunitário”. Procuraremos demonstrar como Esposito concebe cada um desses conceitos e como os articula de modo a demonstrar os traços totalitários que podem apresentar, identificando uma aparente limitação de sua abordagem para, em seguida, esboçar uma possível resposta de Esposito, na medida em que retoma a urgência de se pensar (...) outro conceito de comunidade. (shrink)

pretende-se tensionar a tese, difundida no Brasil de que Foucault é um filósofo nietzschiano, mostrando que seu pensamento pode e deve ser visto sempre em confluência com outros pensadores, formando o que se pode chamar de uma comunidade de pensamento. Para isso, busca-se mostrar a singularidade do pensamento de Foucault, seja em relação àquele de Nietzsche, seja a de Husserl, acentuando alguns de seus pontos de convergência e divergência.

Resumo: O artigo tem por objetivo apresentar como, a partir da analítica foucaultiana da biopolítica, podem-se interpretar as práticas terapêuticas. Para isso, faremos uma apresentação de como Foucault concebe a biopolítica como uma política que inverte o princípio de soberania, buscando garantir a vida da população e, a partir daí, enfocar como as práticas terapêuticas são criadas e agenciadas no intuito de caucioná-la com um sentido muito mais preciso de doença em seu fundo biossocial do que de um ponto de (...) vista anátomo-individual. Palavras-chave: Foucault; biopolítica; saúde; doença; terapêutica. (shrink)

Considering Michel Foucault’s two main courses on the general theme of biopolitics, namely, Il faut défendre la société (1997; 1999), a course for the academic year of 1976, and La naissance de la biopolitique (2004; 2008), taught by his turn in 1978/1979, I intend to consider that we are experiencing a new form of racism, this time no longer a state type, as already considered by Foucault, but a type of racism provoked and economically fomented, therefore, a market racism. Racism (...) whose traces must be sought not exactly in economic theories, but among the historical agents par excellence of the market, that is, entrepreneurs in the exercise of their businesses. For this, I will focus, for the moment, on presenting market racism from the perspective of German business during the Third Reich, in Germany. (shrink)

O artigo tem por objetivo interpretar como Foucault concebe a possibilidade da cura nos discursos e práticas psicológicas, durante sua fase protoarqueológica. Para atingir tal fim, discorre sobre os dois textos mais importantes dessa fase ? Maladie!Mentale!et!Personnalité e a introdução à Le Rêve et l'?Existence ? evidenciando como nesses textos se desenha uma concepção psicopatológica que deve subsidiar uma prática psicoterápica. Constata-se, no entanto, que reina uma contradição inerente aos dois textos, em que ora se completam, ora conflitam no modo (...) de conceber a doença mental. Terminamos assim por demarcar toda a intensidade dessa contradição, sublinhando a indecisão teórica de Foucault sobre o estatuto da psicologia. (shrink)

O objetivo deste artigo consiste em inventariar de que modo Paul Ricœur lê e se apropria de elementos da filosofia husserliana em seu projeto hermenêutico. Assim, busca-se primeiramente caracterizar em linhas gerais a história da hermenêutica contemporânea. Num segundo momento, estabelece-se uma primeira delimitação da hermenêutica de Ricœur caracterizando alguns de seus problemas centrais. Por fim, num terceiro momento, procuramos observar como Ricœur retoma a filosofia husserliana para dar conta de suas próprias reflexões hermenêuticas.

The objective of this article consists of inventorying that way Paul Ricoeur reads and he appropriates of elements of the philosophy of Husserl in his hermeneutical project. Like this, it is looked for firstly to characterize in general lines the history of the contemporary hermeneutic. In a second moment, we established a first delimitation of the hermeneutic of Ricoeur characterizing some of their central problems. Finally, in a third moment, we tried to observe like Ricoeur retakes the husserlian philosophy to (...) give bill of their own hermeneutical reflections.O objetivo deste artigo consiste em inventariar de que modo Paul Ricoeur lê e se apropria de elementos da filosofia husserliana em seu projeto hermenêutico. Assim, busca-se primeiramente caracterizar em linhas gerais a história da hermenêutica contemporânea. Num segundo momento, estabelece-se uma primeira delimitação da hermenêutica de Ricoeur caracterizando alguns de seus problemas centrais. Por fim, num terceiro momento, procuramos observar como Ricoeur retoma a filosofia husserliana para dar conta de suas próprias reflexões hermenêuticas. (shrink)

Pretendo discorrer sobre a análise que Foucault fez da obediência no contexto da experiência da carne, tratado por ele no último volume então publicado de sua História da sexualidade, As confissões da carne, e buscar considerar se tal análise pode ser viável a fornecer elementos críticos para pensar a governamentalidade biopolítica neoliberal. Para tanto, considero inicialmente a relação entre soberania e liberdade de modo a mostrar que a estrutura da liberdade é sustentada desde a noção de soberania, quer em ruptura (...) ou em identificação a ela. Essa relação entre liberdade e soberania atravessa todo o liberalismo e reflete na noção neoliberal do indivíduo como empreendedor de si mesmo. A seguir, passo a apresentar como o tema da obediência asceta introduz uma experiência de si dessubjetivada que, por sua vez, pode ser um contraponto ao neoliberalismo e sua noção de liberdade. (shrink)

Nosso propósito é buscar apresentar algumas possibilidades de reflexão que permitam articular o homem, sua natureza, e o advento das novas tecnologias. Ora, as novas tecnologias – a biotecnologia, a genética, a nanotecnologia e as ciências informacionais – parecem convergir no sentido de forçar a se repensar a própria natureza humana tomando-a também como uma espécie de artefato. Procuraremos estabelecer, por fim, algumas pistas reflexivas sobre os objetos e artefatos tecnológicos, principalmente em função de sua natureza protética, como mediadores políticos (...) e éticos. (shrink)

As coletâneas não são concebidas para reunir pensadores diversos em torno de uma temática, mas fundamentalmente para, a partir dessa diversidade de autores em torno de uma unidade temática, fazer com que nós, leitores, exerçamos uma experiência de pensamento. A nosso ver, foi dessa forma que foi concebida a coletânea, publicada em 2012 (e que agora propomos apresentar aqui), pela revista francesa Rue Descartes, cujo tema versa sobre Kant, Foucault e a renovação da antropologia filosófica, e organizada por Diogo Sardinha, (...) do Collège International de Philosophie. (shrink)

The view that perceptual experience has representational content, or the content view, has recently been criticized by the defenders of the so-called object view. Part of the dispute, I claim here, is based on a lack of grasp of the notion of content. There is, however, a core of substantial disagreement. Once the substantial core is revealed, I aim to: (1) reject the arguments raised against the content view by Campbell (2002), Travis (2004), and Brewer (2006); (2) criticize Brewer’s (2006, (...) 2007, 2008, 2011) attempts to defend the object view; (3) refine Pautz’ (2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011) arguments against the object view, which mainly resort to the fact that it cannot account for the grounding role of hallucinatory experiences; (4) and finally adjudicate in favor of the content view and against the overestimation of the naïve intuition. (shrink)

The aim of this article is to outline a pragmatist image of science following Rorty’s discussions and critics of epistemology and to develop some consequences of it in the philosophical analysis and its relations to culture. I will deal with some aspects of how scientific practice is construed and understood, and also outline the shift in Philosophy of Science from epistemological to ethical-political concerns that are implied in his proposal. I will contend that this perspective suggests an interesting way of (...) analysing scientific practices, theories, and public policies of it. Furthermore, I will suggest that it successfully connects the most interesting proposals of contemporary scientific views in philosophy. Finally, I will use some examples in physics and biology to illustrate my assertions. (shrink)

This chapter uses feminist standpoint theory to investigate Diotima’s epistemic advantage in Plato’s Symposium. Scholars have wondered why Diotima – a woman speaking about the role of erōs in gestation, childbirth, and childrearing – voices the view that Plato privileges most among all the symposiasts (Halperin 1990, Evans 2006, Hobbs 2007). Feminist standpoint theory is useful in developing a novel answer to this question; it supposes that oppressed groups, because they occupy different social locations, often develop epistemic privileges over their (...) dominant counterparts, especially with respect to finding lacunae in dominant narratives (cf. Hartsock 1987, Collins 1990, Harding 1987 and 1993, and Intemann 2016). This chapter proposes that Diotima’s unique social location – she is an older, non-Athenian woman, well versed in gestation, childbirth, and childrearing – disposes her to know something about erōs that the dominant group, the Athenian pederasts, do not. What she knows is that having erōs for something does not merely inspire one to pursue or possess it; by attending to how erōs affects women, she argues that it also manifests as a desire to reproduce what is beloved and care for it. Diotima’s standpoint is epistemically revelatory, then, because it establishes that love is far more than the pursuit of beauty; it is a creative and laborious act. Moreover, her standpoint is ethically revelatory, since she argues that the highest form of love entails fostering and nourishing virtue in others. Understood in this way, Diotima is espousing something like a protofeminist ethics of care. (shrink)

This paper provides a novel response to Vlastos’s challenge that Platonic erōs in the Symposium, since it is for the form of beauty rather than any particular person, is impersonal and egotistical. Vlastos, in addition to generations of his readers and critics, badly misunderstands Diotima’s reproductive theory of love. In particular, it has been widely overlooked or diminished that the ideal erotic relationship set out in the ladder of love mirrors the reproductive labor of ancient Greek mothers and caregivers. The (...) lover of the highest mysteries undertakes the psychic equivalent of motherly care to rear virtuous ideas in the next generation. Thus, properly understanding Diotima’s gendered vision of psychic reproduction reveals that Platonic love is anything but impersonal and egotistical. (shrink)

I will relate some social and epistemic aspects involved in the conceptual development of the genetic model in the early Molecular Biology. I will use the link between Biology and Physics as a framework, which supports such assumptions, providing new methodologies, but mainly as a framework that provides a model of objectivity developed within Modern Tradition. Finally, I will interpret this relationship from the pragmatist perspective to embrace Rorty’s thesis on «the ontological priority of the social» which implies understanding biology (...) as a part of a general cultural politics. (shrink)

What is mathematics about? And if it is about some sort of mathematical reality, how can we have access to it? This is the problem raised by Plato, which still today is the subject of lively philosophical disputes. This book traces the history of the problem, from its origins to its contemporary treatment. It discusses the answers given by Aristotle, Proclus and Kant, through Frege's and Russell's versions of logicism, Hilbert's formalism, Gödel's platonism, up to the the current debate on (...) Benacerraf's dilemma and the indispensability argument. Through the considerations of themes in the philosophy of language, ontology, and the philosophy of science, the book aims at offering an historically-informed introduction to the philosophy of mathematics, approached through the lenses of its most fundamental problem. (shrink)

This paper aims to analyze and to compare the conception of science that Richard Rorty and Jean-François Lyotard contend in some of their main writings. First, I will point out some similarities and agreements in their philosophical perspectives, particularly, I will emphasize their epistemological coincidences. Then, I will highlight some important differences in his philosophical interpretation of scientific development and its social role. As a result, it will be possible to clarify and accurately qualify these two postmodern conceptions of science (...) that in several writings appear as indistinguishable or that, at least, are characterized with the same features. I will argue that these differences provide two essentially different viewpoints of science and culture. Finally, I will try to show that the Rortian perspective is more suitable facing contemporaneous problems in science, and to give a proper account of its historical development. (shrink)

The classification of medical interventions as either invasive or non-invasive is commonly regarded to be morally important. On the most commonly endorsed account of invasiveness, a medical intervention is invasive if and only if it involves either breaking the skin (‘incision’) or inserting an object into the body (‘insertion’). Building on recent discussions of the concept of invasiveness, we show that this standard account fails to capture three aspects of existing usage of the concept of invasiveness in relation to medical (...) interventions—namely, (1) usage implying that invasiveness comes in degrees, (2) that the invasiveness of an intervention can depend on the characteristics of the salient alternative interventions, and (3) that medical interventions can be invasive in non-physical ways. We then offer the beginnings of a revised account that, we argue, is able to capture a wider range of existing usage. Central to our account is a distinction between two properties: basic invasiveness and threshold invasiveness. We end by assessing what the standard account gets right, and what more needs to be done to complete our schematic account. (shrink)

AI-based technologies are increasingly pervasive in a number of contexts. Our affective and emotional life makes no exception. In this article, we analyze one way in which AI-based technologies can affect them. In particular, our investigation will focus on affective artificial agents, namely AI-powered software or robotic agents designed to interact with us in affectively salient ways. We build upon the existing literature on affective artifacts with the aim of providing an original analysis of affective artificial agents and their distinctive (...) features. We argue that, unlike comparatively low-tech affective artifacts, affective artificial agents display a specific form of agency, which prevents them from being perceived by their users as extensions of their selves. In addition to this, we claim that their functioning crucially depends on the simulation of human-like emotion-driven behavior and requires a distinctive form of transparency—we call it emotional transparency—that might give rise to ethical and normative tensions. (shrink)

El siguiente trabajo pretende mostrar algunas conexiones ontológicas y epistemológicas entre los supuestos que subyacen en la conservación de la energía en física y la teoría del valor en economía clásica. Para ello, en primer lugar, haré una reconstrucción de ciertos supuestos metafísicos y hallazgos empíricos que guían la configuración de la conservación de la energía, desde la época de Descartes hasta su elaboración formal por parte de Helmholtz, como principio termodinámico. A continuación, describiré cómo encontramos supuestos equivalentes, con otra (...) elaboración, que guían las preocupaciones sobre el valor en los economistas clásicos en Smith, Ricardo y particularmente en Marx, y sus respectivas conexiones con la física. Finalmente conectaré estos paralelismos que se siguen de tales construcciones, que a su vez provienen de supuestos comunes e inmersos en la cultura y que interactúan en este caso en física y economía. Con ello argumentaré en favor de una perspectiva no autónoma de la ciencia, determinada por tales factores culturales de su tiempo. (shrink)

En el presente trabajo haré uso del cambio conceptual gestado en la primera parte del siglo XX con el nacimiento de la teoría cuántica y su interpretación basada en el principio de complementariedad e indeterminación, elaborados por Niels Bohr y Werner Heisenberg respectivamente, para argumentar a favor de la demarcación de la ciencia que defiende Richard Rorty. Con este propósito retomaré algunos elementos del desarrollo histórico y características de las nuevas explicaciones de la ciencia cuántica respecto de la física clásica (...) para diluir la diferencia entre búsqueda de la verdad y deliberación práctica. Con ello defenderé una relación causal entre el mundo y nuestras descripciones en oposición a una representacional, así como una concepción pragmatista del conocimiento, siguiendo la propuesta del!lósofo norteamericano. Como consecuencia, defenderé que no existe una distinción de tipo epistemológica entre la ciencia y otros discursos; no hay diferencia metodológica que marque una distinción ontológica o viceversa entre ciencia y otras cosas. Sosteniendo así, una indiferencia o pluralidad ontológica, es decir, que todos los discursos están en pie de igualdad.In this paper I will use the conceptual change between Quantum and Classical Mechanics to support the science demarcation proposed by Richard Rorty. I will rescue some characteristics of the historical development on Quantum Mechanics until the Prnciple of Complementarity´s formulation to dissolve the di"erence between the search of the truth and practical deliberation. #en I will to criticize a representational conception of knowledge to defend a pragmatist one, such as the american philospher does. As a conesequence, I will dissolve the epistemological distinction between science and other speeches, and so, the ontological one too. (shrink)

I discuss Clark’s predictive processing/extended mind hybrid, diagnosing a problem: Clark’s hybrid suggests that, when we use them, we pay attention to mind-extending external resources. This clashes with a commonly accepted necessary condition of cognitive extension; namely, that mind-extending resources must be phenomenally transparent when used. I then propose a solution to this problem claiming that the phenomenal transparency condition should be rejected. To do so, I put forth a parity argument to the effect that phenomenal transparency cannot be a (...) necessary condition on cognitive extension: roughly, since internal cognitive resources can fail to be transparent when used, by parity, external resources can fail to be phenomenally transparent too. Further, I argue that phenomenal transparency is not even a reliable indicator of cognitive extension; hence its absence should not be considered a problem for Clark’s extended mind-predictive processing hybrid. Lastly, I consider and allay a number of worries my proposal might raise, and conclude the paper. (shrink)

In the last decades it has become clear that medicine must find some way to combine its scientific and humanistic sides. In other words, an adequate notion of medicine requires an integrative position that mediates between the analytic-reductionist and the normative-holistic tendencies we find therein. This is especially important as these different styles of reasoning separate “illness” (something perceived and managed by the whole individual in concert with their environment) and “disease” (a “mechanical failure” of a biological element within the (...) body). While the demand for an integrative view has typically been motivated by ethical concerns, we claim that it is also motivated, perhaps even more fundamentally, by epistemological and methodological reasons. Evidence-based bio-medicine employs experimental and statistical techniques which eliminate important differences in the ways that conscious humans evaluate, live with, and react to disease and illness. However, it is precisely these experiences that underpin the concepts and norms of bio-medicine. Humanistic disciplines, on the other hand, have the resources to investigate these experiences in an intersubjectively testable way. Medicine, therefore, cannot afford to ignore its nature as a human science; it must be concerned not only with disease and illness, but also with the ways in which patients as persons respond to malady. Insofar as attitudes and expectations influence the criteria of illness and disease, they must be studied as part of the genuine subject matter of medicine as a human science. In general, we urge that this is a necessary step to overcome today's trend to split evidence-based and clinical medicine. (shrink)

We prove that the opposite of the category of coalgebras for the Vietoris endofunctor on the category of compact Hausdorff spaces is monadic over $\mathsf {Set}$. We deliver an analogous result for the upper, lower, and convex Vietoris endofunctors acting on the category of stably compact spaces. We provide axiomatizations of the associated (infinitary) varieties. This can be seen as a version of Jónsson–Tarski duality for modal algebras beyond the zero-dimensional setting.

The paper presents and discusses the Hubble tension with respect to recent results in cosmology. I shall argue that the measurements from the James Webb Space Telescope and TRGB stars calibrations allow us to infer that the estimates of H0 with late universe methods are robust. Building on from robustness analysis, I conclude that the resolution of the tension cannot be expected to come from new systematics, but rather from new physics.

Munch-Jurisic’s book thoroughly describes several cases of severe distresses reported and expressed by perpetrators of tremendous acts such as mass murders. Arguing against a simplistic reading according to which these signs of distress are straightforward manifestations of some innate moral nature, and against the optimistic reading according to which they will lead to prosocial behaviors, Munch-Jursic offers compelling reasons to adopt a more complex theory of emotion. In this commentary, I aim to stress the implications of her book for the (...) debate on moral enhancement and for emotion theory in general. However, while I concur with Munch-Jurisic that emotion theory must make room for complexity and indeterminacy, I challenge her claim that motivational theories of emotion are ill-equipped to face the challenges she poses. (shrink)

We investigated motor resonance in children using a priming paradigm. Participants were asked to judge the weight of an object shortly primed by a hand in an action-related posture or a non action-related one . The hand prime could belong to a child or to an adult. We found faster response times when the object was preceded by a grasp hand posture . More crucially, participants were faster when the prime was a child’s hand, suggesting that it could belong to (...) their body schema, particularly when the child’s hand was followed by a light object . A control experiment helped us to clarify the role of the hand prime. To our knowledge this is the first behavioral evidence of motor simulation and motor resonance in children. Implications of the results for the development of the sense of body ownership and for conceptual development are discussed. (shrink)

(2013). Distributed intentionality: A model of intentional behavior in humans. Philosophical Psychology: Vol. 26, No. 2, pp. 267-290. doi: 10.1080/09515089.2011.641743.

Many approaches to quantum gravity -the theory that should account for quantum and gravitational phenomena under the same theoretical umbrella- seem to point at some form of spacetime emergence, i.e., the fact that spacetime is not a fundamental entity of our physical world. This tenet has sparked many philosophical discussions: from the so-called empirical incoherence problem to different accounts of emergence and mechanisms thereof. In this contribution, I focus on the partial order relation of causal set theory and argue that (...) causation can be characterized as an a-temporal constraint over the kinematic space defined by the theory. The relation constrains the growth of a new element/event with respect to the other elements/events of a given set. Therefrom, the flow of time emerges from the collection of the possible growths of the given set, where each possibility is characterized by a classical probability assigned by the dynamics of the theory. (shrink)

Der profilierte Marx-Forscher Marco Iorio liefert eine kundige Einführung für jeden, der unvoreingenommen wissen will, was Karl Marx denn nun wirklich zu sagen hat. In dieser kritischen und konstruktiven Gesamtinterpretation kommen alle wichtigen Themen zur Sprache: von Geschichtsphilosophie und Gesellschaftstheorie über ökonomischer und politischer Theorie bis hin zu revolutionstheoretischen und moralphilosophischen Problemstellungen. Die berücksichtigte Sekundärliteratur deckt sämtliche aktuell relevanten Strömungen ab, darunter analytischer Marxismus, Postkolonialismus, Poststrukturalismus, Post- bzw. Neomarxismus. Damit eignet sich die Einführung auch hervorragend als Kursbuch für Lehrveranstaltungen und (...) als studienbegleitende Lektüre. (shrink)

The modern world was in part born as a reaction against Aristotelianism. However, the image of Aristotle to which modern philosophers reacted was partial, to say the least. Paradoxical though it may seem, today, more than twenty-three centuries on, we may now be in the most advantageous position for understanding the Stagirite's philosophy and applying it to contemporary problems. The present book contributes to the forming of an idea of Post-modern reason inspired by a constellation of Aristotelian concepts, such as (...) prudence (phronesis), practical truth (aletheia praktike), science in act (episteme en energeiai), metaphor (metaphora), similarity (homoiosis) and the imitation-creation pair (mimesis-poiesis). They all form an interconnected network and together they make up an idea of reason that may prove suitable for the present. These concepts offer the most promising basis for undertaking a series of urgent reconciliations: of facts and values, of means and ends, of theoretical and practical reason, of intelligence and emotion. Aristotle's notions could help solve many dualisms of modern times. He offers a third way between identity and difference in ontology and politics, between algorithm and anarchism in methodology, between naïve realism and plain relativism in epistemology, between equivocity and univocity in language, between Enlightenment and Romanticism in culture... On the way, this shift facilitates the relationships between science, arts and ethics - the three parts of the sphere of culture which Modernity had separated - as well as the integration of the sphere of culture itself with the world of life. (shrink)

Sartre maintains that “all consciousness is consciousness of something.” Idiosyncratically, he also understands this “intentionality principle” to entail that what consciousness is “of” is necessarily distinct from it (or “outside of” it, or “transcendent to” it). Nonetheless, he also maintains that all consciousness is necessarily conscious of—or rather, “(of)”—itself in a non‐intentional (in his terms: “non‐positional/non‐thetic”) manner. Given that this non‐positional/thetic self‐consciousness is not intentional, it is evidently immune to the “difference” principle, but this is less clear with respect to (...) self‐reflection (which Sartre simply calls “reflection”). It seems impossible for reflection to be “intentional” because intentionality entails difference—yet it also seems problematic to consider reflection “non‐intentional” because it then becomes difficult to distinguish reflection from non‐positional/thetic self‐consciousness as such (which is inherently “unreflective”). This can be called Sartre's “dilemma of reflection.” While Sartre seems to alternate between portraying reflection as intentional and as non‐intentional (it generally appears like the former), this paper argues that it should be conceived as both according to different respects. By piecing together various passages of Sartre's texts and drawing out their implications, Sartre can be shown to have the resources for an answer to his own dilemma. (shrink)

Most of the arguments usually appealed to in order to support the view that some abstraction principles are analytic depend on ascribing to them some sort of existential parsimony or ontological neutrality, whereas the opposite arguments, aiming to deny this view, contend this ascription. As a result, other virtues that these principles might have are often overlooked. Among them, there is an epistemic virtue which I take these principles to have, when regarded in the appropriate settings, and which I suggest (...) to call ‘epistemic economy’. My purpose is to isolate and clarify this notion by appealing to some examples concerning the definition of natural and real numbers. (shrink)