Este artículo presenta una reflexión sobre el lugar y la pertinencia de la filosofía del arte en un mundo del arte en el cual cualquier cosa puede ser una obra de arte, a partir de la propuesta teórica de Arthur Danto. Si la filosofía aún tiene algo que decir sobre el arte, sería desde una posición que reconozca la centralidad de la práctica artística sin delimitarla. La apertura en el arte no puede ser un motivo de negación o juicio, sino (...) un incentivo al pensamiento. Sin embargo, según Danto, ello exige aceptar puntos de partida y consecuencias que modifican la relación entre arte y filosofía. (shrink)

This paper presents a reflection on subjectivity in the context of consumer society, discussing two alternative approaches: on the one hand, the iden- tification between subject and commodity, traceable, among others, to Bauman, and, on the other hand, Žižek’s interpretation of subjectivity as an emerging surplus of the conflict within the symbolic order. The result- ing exchange between these alternatives shows the constitutive relations of the subject of consumption in the dimension of desire, in the margin of freedom, and in (...) the role of reflexivity. Finally, the understanding of the relationship between the subject and the material world is proposed as a constructive performativity of subjectivity. (shrink)

Este artículo corto reflexiona sobre la interesante relación que Michel Foucault plantea entre las formaciones de saber y las prácticas o dispositivos de poder, a través del caso particular de la clínica y la práctica médica. En efecto, este caso aporta elementos de relación en el propósito de hacer del hombre tanto un objeto de estudio como una variable para controlar. Es particular que el caso de la medicina aporte un concepto central para dilucidar la relación entre saber y poder, (...) a saber, el concepto de mirada, si bien ha de reconocerse la transformación del mismo conforme al modo de aplicación. (shrink)

This paper presents the results of a grounded analysis of an object organization case. The importance of clarifying the dynamics of the relationships of meaning contained in the modes of appropriation of the objects within the space of the living room is highlighted, since, as the analysis shows, a particular arrangement of objects cannot be isolated from the processes of identification of the individuals and from the construction and communication of a way of being or lifestyle. For this purpose, the (...) case study of object organization is presented in relation to contemporary culture theorists that have highlighted the importance of aesthetics in the production and reproduction of cultural practices and representations. The aim is to propose an alternative framework that enriches the analysis of the aesthetics of the object world in contemporary culture. (shrink)

El texto plantea una lectura de la obra de Michel Foucault según la cual en la época clásica –siglos XVII y XVIII– se construye una concepción del espacio que es correlativa a las prácticas discursivas que caracterizan la “episteme de la representación”. Esta concepción vincula los campos estético, social y epistémico a través de la idea del espacio como un ‘campo de visibilidad’ cuyas reglas de constitución comunican un tipo de representación pictórica, un modelo de distribución de las poblaciones y (...) una forma de discurso sobre la enfermedad. Dado que esas reglas, a su vez, se realizan a través de dispositivos concretos de producción de saber y de relaciones de poder, en su descripción espero dar cuenta de los límites históricos y epistémicos de la época clásica. (shrink)

Sydney Shoemaker has been arguing for more than a decade for an account of the mind–body problem in which the notion of realization takes centre stage. His aim is to provide a notion of realization that is consistent with the multiple realizability of mental properties or events, and which explains: how the physical grounds the mental; and why the causal work of mental events is not screened off by that of physical events. Shoemaker's proposal consists of individuating properties in terms (...) of causal powers, and defining realization as a relation of inclusion between sets of causal powers. Thus, as the causal powers that define a mental property are a subset of the causal powers that characterize a physical property, it can be said that physical properties realize mental properties. In this paper we examine the physicalist credentials of Shoemaker's mind–body theory in relation to three important issues: the direction of the relation of dependence that the theory is committed to; the possibility of mental properties existing without being anchored by physical properties; and the compatibility of the theory with the causal closure of the physical world. We argue that Shoemaker's theory is problematic in all three respects. After that we consider whether the theory should count as a mind–body theory at all, given that it seems to be committed to a distorted view of mental properties. (shrink)

En este artículo reconstruyo y analizo las respuestas de los escépticos académicos a la objeción de apraxia. Esta objeción afirma que el escepticismo es una doctrina imposible de practicar puesto que sus tesis conducen a la apraxia, esta es, un estado de privación o imposibilidad de acción. Las respuestas a la objeción se dividen en dos clases. La primera prueba que el asentimiento no es una condición necesaria para realizar acciones, por lo que la recomendación escéptica de suspender global y (...) permanentemente el asentimiento no conduciría a la apraxia. La segunda prueba que es posible deliberar y orientar racionalmente nuestras acciones sin impresiones aprehensivas, por lo que la tesis escéptica de que no existen impresiones aprehensivas tampoco conduciría a la apraxia. Tras unas breves consideraciones generales, en la primera parte de este artículo presento las respuestas de Arcesilao y en la segunda parte las repuestas de Carnéades. (shrink)

This book analyzes the uses of emotive language and redefinitions from pragmatic, dialectical, epistemic and rhetorical perspectives, investigating the relationship between emotions, persuasion and meaning, and focusing on the implicit dimension of the use of a word and its dialectical effects. It offers a method for evaluating the persuasive and manipulative uses of emotive language in ordinary and political discourse. Through the analysis of political speeches and legal arguments, the book offers a systematic study of emotive language in argumentation, rhetoric, (...) communication, political science and public speaking. (shrink)

Statements about the future are central in everyday conversation and reasoning. How should we understand their meaning? The received view among philosophers treats will as a tense: in ‘Cynthia will pass her exam’, will shifts the reference time forward. Linguists, however, have produced substantial evidence for the view that will is a modal, on a par with must and would. The different accounts are designed to satisfy different theoretical constraints, apparently pulling in opposite directions. We show that these constraints are (...) jointly satisfied by a novel modal account of will. On this account, will is a modal but doesn't work as a quantifier over worlds. Rather, the meaning of will involves a selection function similar to the one used by Stalnaker in his semantics for conditionals. The resulting theory yields a plausible semantics and logic for will and vindicates our intuitive views about the attitudes that rational agents should have towards future-directed contents. (shrink)

I motivate and characterize an intensional semantics for ‘ought’ on which it does not behave as a universal quantifier over possibilities. My motivational argument centers on taking at face value some standard challenges to the quantificational semantics, especially to the idea that ‘ought’-sentences satisfy the principle of Inheritance. I argue that standard pragmatic approaches to these puzzles are either not sufficiently detailed or unconvincing.

Every discipline poses its research questions in specific ways and thus uses concepts that are suited to find answers in its well defined disciplinary frameworks. Accordingly, the idea of cultural trait has been used and developed in several disciplines, often without any reference to each other. The result has often been non-communicability across different fields. We first show, by means of two examples, that the lack of deep interdisciplinary dialogue and reciprocal understanding has generated some harsh controversies. We argue that (...) our book Understanding Cultural Traits: A Multidisciplinary Perspective on Cultural Diversity tries to overcome not only the gap between cultural traits specialists and other scientists, but also the barriers among the researchers who are not specialists on cultural traits but that nevertheless directly or indirectly use cultural traits in their different disciplines. (shrink)

Argument from analogy is a common and formidable form of reasoning in law and in everyday conversation. Although there is substantial literature on the subject, according to a recent survey ( Juthe 2005) there is little fundamental agreement on what form the argument should take, or on how it should be evaluated. Th e lack of conformity, no doubt, stems from the complexity and multiplicity of forms taken by arguments that fall under the umbrella of analogical reasoning in argumentation, dialectical (...) studies, and law. Modeling arguments with argumentation schemes has proven useful in attempts to refine the analyst’s understanding of not only the logical structures that shape the backbone of the argument itself, but also the logical underpinning of strategies for evaluating it, strategies based on the semantic categories of genus and relevance. By clarifying the distinction between argument from example and argument from analogy, it is possible to advance a useful proposal for the treatment of argument from analogy in law. (shrink)

RESUMEN El artículo ingresa en la ontología del acontecer y recorre cuatro momentos. En primer lugar, distingue la visión del mundo en general, propia de la llamada “metafísica” de la visión del ser como acontecer, y busca un diálogo entre la perspectiva del ser en la metafísica y ontología de Hans-Georg Gadamer. En segundo lugar, analiza la estructura del acontecer o el modo como se despliega el movimiento del sentido, para determinar la lógica de la pregunta como estructura del acontecer. (...) En tercer lugar, entabla un diálogo entre la idea de acontecer y la categoría de finitud, para evidenciar que, cuando se piensa en una ontología del acontecer, esta remite a la determinación de la finitud. Y, finalmente, plantea algunas líneas de desarrollo para profundizar en esta investigación. ABSTRACT The articles discusses the ontology of the event and covers four moments. First, it identifies the general worldview typical of the “metaphysics” of being as event, and seeks to establish a dialogue between the perspective of being in Hans-Georg Gadamer’s metaphysics and his ontology. Secondly, it analyzes the structure of the event or the way in which the movement of meaning unfolds, in order to determine the logic of the question as structure of the event. Third, through a dialogue between the idea of event and the category of finitude, the article shows that thinking the ontology of the event leads to the determination of finitude. Finally, the article suggests a few lines of inquiry for further in-depth research of this topic. (shrink)

The evolution of boundedly rational rules for playing normal form games is studied within stationary environments of stochastically changing games. Rules are viewed as algorithms prescribing strategies for the different normal form games that arise. It is shown that many of the “folk results” of evolutionary game theory, typically obtained with a fixed game and fixed strategies, carry over to the present environments. The results are also related to some recent experiments on rules and games.

We contend that it is possible to argue reasonably for and against arguments from classifications and definitions, provided they are seen as defeasible (subject to exceptions and critical questioning). Arguments from classification of the most common sorts are shown to be based on defeasible reasoning of various kinds represented by patterns of logical reasoning called defeasible argumentation schemes. We show how such schemes can be identified with heuristics, or short-cut solutions to a problem. We examine a variety of arguments of (...) this sort, including argument from abductive classification, argument from causal classification, argument from analogy-based classification and arguments from classification based on generalizations. (shrink)

El artículo ingresa en la ontología del acontecer y recorre cuatro momentos. En primer lugar, distingue la visión del mundo en general, propia de la llamada “metafísica” de la visión del ser como acontecer, y busca un diálogo entre la perspectiva del ser en la metafísica y ontología de Hans-Georg Gadamer. En segundo lugar, analiza la estructura del acontecer o el modo como se despliega el movimiento del sentido, para determinar la lógica de la pregunta como estructura del acontecer. En (...) tercer lugar, entabla un diálogo entre la idea de acontecer y la categoría de finitud, para evidenciar que, cuando se piensa en una ontología del acontecer, esta remite a la determinaciónde la finitud. Y, finalmente, plantea algunas líneas de desarrollo para profundizar en esta investigación. (shrink)

Provisional draft, pre-production copy of my book “The Modal Future” (forthcoming with Cambridge University Press).

This paper takes distances from two influential images of Wittgenstein's philosophy: the image of a primarily ethical philosopher defended by the so-called «resolute» interpreters and that of an ascetically "analytical" philosopher transmitted by the standard interpretation. Instead of contrasting images (that of Wittgenstein as an "aesthetic" philosopher and that of the "ethical" Wittgenstein), this paper focuses on the analysis of the fractures and tensions characterizing not only the relationship between Wittgenstein's philosophy and aesthetics, but also the very style of Wittgenstein's (...) thought. Addressing a specific issue from a conceptual and textual standpoint (the unity of Ethics and Aesthetics in the Tractatus) seems to the author to be a fruitful strategy that allows us not only to understand whether and how determinant and central the aesthetic problem is for Wittgenstein, but also to see how aesthetics itself can be radically reshaped through the filter offered by his thought. In the first place, then, it is clarified what the Tractatus claim that ethics and aesthetics «sind eins» might entail. Secondly, it is checked if and how the conceptual consistency of the «being one» of ethics and aesthetics is transformed during the 1930s, to the point that it requires a different configuration: the metamor¬phosis of the logical unity between the two conceptual fields into an analogical affinity. Analyzing this conceptual metamorphosis the paper considers also the idea of an asymmetry of the aesthetic over the ethical as already evident, despite appearances, in the 1929 Lecture on Ethics. This asymmetry is then developed focusing the image of grammatical mechanism with its degrees of freedom of which Wittgensteins writes from 1930. In connection with this image the author outlines finally the idea of an aesthetic mechanism arising from primitive reactions and strictly related with the genesis of language games. (shrink)

El cordobés Damián de Castro, gran exponente de la platería rococó española en la centuria dieciochesca, realizó junto a otros artífices diferentes piezas para el cardenal Delgado y Venegas, arzobispo hispalense entre 1776 y 1781. Hoy muchas de estas piezas las podemos contemplar en las vitrinas de nuestro museo catedralicio, sin embargo la existencia en su tiempo de diferentes piezas similares produjo cierta confusión en su posterior identificación. En este nuevo trabajo intentaremos desentrañar las dudas sobre dos de las más (...) vistosas piezas del tesoro de nuestro templo mayor: las dos bandejas de plata sobredorada que, ejecutadas en un exuberante y depurado rococó, deslumbran al visitante con sus fúlgidos destellos y atrevido diseño. (shrink)

Most philosophers of mind nowadays espouse two metaphysical views: Nonreductive Physicalism and the causal efficacy of the mental. Nevertheless, this position is threatened by a number of serious difficulties. In this paper, I propose a metaphysical account of functional properties and show how this proposal is able to overcome some of these difficulties, in particular, some recent arguments against the causal efficacy of multiply realized properties. However, in the second part of the paper an objection against this proposal is raised (...) and, after a detailed discussion of it, the conclusion reached is that the prospects for a functionalist nonreductive metaphysics of the mind which affords causal powers to the mental seem certainly dim. (shrink)

Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, EarlyView.

This book shows how research in linguistic pragmatics, philosophy of language, and rhetoric can be connected through argumentation to analyze a recognizably common strategy used in political and everyday conversation, namely the distortion of another’s words in an argumentative exchange. Straw man argumentation refers to the modification of a position by misquoting, misreporting or wrenching the original speaker’s statements from their context in order to attack them more easily or more effectively. Through 63 examples taken from different contexts (including political (...) and forensic discourses and dialogs) and 20 legal cases, the book analyzes the explicit and implicit types of straw man, shows how to assess the correctness of a quote or a report, and illustrates the arguments that can be used for supporting an interpretation and defending against a distortion. The tools of argumentation theory, a discipline aimed at investigating the uses of arguments by combining insights from pragmatics, logic, and communication, are applied to provide an original account of interpretation and reporting, and to describe and illustrate tactics and procedures that can be used and implemented for practical purposes.. This book will appeal to scholars in the fields of political communication, communication in general, argumentation theory, rhetoric and pragmatics, as well as to people working in public speech, speech writing, and discourse analysis. (shrink)

In this paper, we use concepts, structure and tools from argumentation theory to show how conversational implicatures are triggered by conflicts of presumptions. Presumptive implicatures are shown to be based on defeasible forms of inference used in conditions of lack of knowledge, including analogical reasoning, inference to the best explanation, practical reasoning, appeal to pity, and argument from cause. Such inferences are modelled as communicative strategies to knowledge gaps that shift the burden of providing the missing contrary evidence to the (...) other party in a dialogue. Through a series of illustrative examples, we show how such principles of inference are based on common knowledge about the ordinary course of events shared by participants in a structured dialogue setting in which they take turns putting forward and responding to speech acts. (shrink)

In a series of influential articles (Kim 1989b, 1992b, 1993a and 1998), Jaegwon Kim has developed a strong argument against nonreductive physicalism as a plausible solution to mental causation. The argument is commonly called the ’causal exclusion argument’, and it has become, over the years, one of the most serious threats to the nonreductivist point of view. In the first part of this paper I offer a careful reconstruction and detailed discussion of the exclusion argument. In the second part I (...) show why some important objections to it actually fail. (shrink)

This paper shows how reasoning from best explanation combines with linguistic and factual presumptions during the process of retrieving a speaker’s intention. It is shown how differences between presumptions need to be used to pick the best explanation of a pragmatic manifestation of a dialogical intention. It is shown why we cannot simply jump to an interpretative conclusion based on what we presume to be the most common purpose of a speech act, and why, in cases of indirect speech acts, (...) we need to depend on an abductive process of interpretation. (shrink)

The relationship between teaching and argumentation is becoming a crucial issue in the field of education and, in particular, science education. Teaching has been analyzed as a dialogue aimed at persuading the interlocutors, introducing a conceptual change that needs to be grounded on the audience’s background knowledge. This paper addresses this issue from a perspective of argumentation studies. Our claim is that argumentation schemes, namely abstract patterns of argument, can be an instrument for reconstructing the tacit premises in students’ argumentative (...) reasoning and retrieving the background beliefs that are the basis of their arguments. On this perspective, the process of premise reconstruction is followed by a heuristic reasoning process aimed at discovering the students’ previous intuitions that can explain the premises and concepts that are left unexpressed in their arguments. The theoretical insights advanced in this paper are illustrated through selected examples taken from activities concerning predictive claims on scientific issues. (shrink)

Comunicación sobre la reciente edición / Communication about this recent edition: Giambattista Vico, PRINCIPJ D'UNA SCIENZA NUOVA D'INTORNO ALLA COMUNE NATURA DELLE NAZIONI , a cura di Fabrizio Lomonaco e Fulvio Tessitore con una Nota di Manuela Sanna, Liguori Editore, Napoli, 2002, pp. 528.

Some causal explanations are non-committal in that mention of a property in the explanans conveys information about the causal origin of the explanandum even if the property in question plays no causal role for the explanandum . Programme explanations are a variety of non-committal causal (NCC) explanations. Yet their interest is very limited since, as I will argue in this paper, their range of applicability is in fact quite narrow. However there is at least another variety of NCC explanations, causal (...) orientation explanations, which offer a plausible model for many explanations in the special sciences. (shrink)