It is common to hear talk of the aim of belief and to find philosophers appealing to that aim for numerous explanatory purposes. What belief 's aim explains depends, of course, on what that aim is. Many hold that it is somehow related to truth, but there are various ways in which one might specify belief 's aim using the notion of truth. In this article, by considering whether they can account for belief 's standard of correctness and the epistemic (...) norms governing belief, I argue against certain prominent specifications of belief 's aim given in terms of truth, and advance a neglected alternative. (shrink)

The _Physics_ is a foundational work of western philosophy, and the crucial one for understanding Aristotle's views on matter, form, essence, causation, movement, space, and time. This richly annotated, scrupulously accurate, and consistent translation makes it available to a contemporary English reader as no other does—in part because it fits together seamlessly with other closely associated works in the New Hackett Aristotle series, such as the _Metaphysics_, _De Anima_, and forthcoming _De Caelo_ and _On Coming to Be and Passing Away_. (...) Eventually the series will include all of Aristotle's works. Sequentially numbered endnotes provide the information most needed at each juncture, while a detailed Index of Terms indicates places where focused discussion of key notions occurs. An illuminating general Introduction describes the book that lies ahead, explaining what sort of work it is and what sorts of evidence it relies on. (shrink)

Velaquí un libro que fala do home actual e do seu mundo. Da vida como camiño con encrucilladas. Encrucilladas que levan a filosofía actual a buscar na linguaxe unha nova forma de supervivencia. Unha modalidade de encontro no inestable conflito de interpretacións dos múltiples discursos sobre a realidade. Camiñantes aborda os problemas derivados da globalización, a violencia e a soidade do home contemporáneo.

Dos sentidos del término conciencia han convivido desde que tenemos constancia del uso del mismo: el psíquico y el moral. Un rasgo distintivo del pensamiento moderno consiste en considerar que el primero ha de prevalecer sobre el segundo. Sin embargo, la propia evolución del concepto parece exigir en nuestros días una apelación a lo social para completar su determinación.

La propuesta que nos hace Alfonso López Quintás, catedrático emérito de filosofía de la Universidad Complutense de Madrid y uno de los grandes pensadores españoles, en La ética o es transfiguración o no es nada, es la de emprender un camino de crecimiento personal. Forma parte esencial de nuestra existencia el crecimiento en una doble vertiente: biológica y espiritual. El crecimiento natural impone sus propios límites, a través de unas reglas que limitan nuestra vida. Sin embargo, los límites de nuestro (...) crecimiento personal están íntimamente relacionados con el proceso mismo, que podemos llamar camino de la vida. Los límites de nuestro crecimiento irán apareciendo en el camino, pero el modo en el que recorremos nuestra senda vital es capital a la hora de determinar cómo recorreremos el camino que nos es propio. Esto es lo que nos plantea López Quintás en esta obra, cómo crecer a través del conocimiento de la propia realidad y de nuestra capacidad para transformarla. (shrink)

Our concern is the completeness problem for spi-logics, that is, sets of implications between strictly positive formulas built from propositional variables, conjunction and modal diamond operators. Originated in logic, algebra and computer science, spi-logics have two natural semantics: meet-semilattices with monotone operators providing Birkhoff-style calculi and first-order relational structures (aka Kripke frames) often used as the intended structures in applications. Here we lay foundations for a completeness theory that aims to answer the question whether the two semantics define the same (...) consequence relations for a given spi-logic. (shrink)

Infallibilism is the view that a belief cannot be at once warranted and false. In this essay we assess three nonpartisan arguments for infallibilism, arguments that do not depend on a prior commitment to some substantive theory of warrant. Three premises, one from each argument, are most significant: if a belief can be at once warranted and false, then the Gettier Problem cannot be solved; if a belief can be at once warranted and false, then its warrant can be transferred (...) to an accidentally true belief; if a belief can be at once warranted and false, then it can be warranted and accidentally true. We argue that each of these is either false or no more plausible than its denial. Along the way, we offer a solution to the Gettier Problem that is compatible with fallibilism. (shrink)

" Qualia " is an unfamiliar term for something that could not be more familiar to each of us: the ways things seem to us. As is so often the case with philosophical jargon, it is easier to give examples than to give a definition of the term. Look at a glass of milk at sunset; the way it looks to you--the particular, personal, subjective visual quality of the glass of milk is the quale of your visual experience at the (...) moment. The way the milk tastes to you then is another, gustatory quale, and how it sounds to you as you swallow is an auditory quale; These various "properties of conscious experience" are prime examples of qualia. Nothing, it seems, could you know more intimately than your own qualia ; let the entire universe be some vast illusion, some mere figment of Descartes' evil demon, and yet what the figment is made of will be the qualia of your hallucinatory experiences. Descartes claimed to doubt everything that could be doubted, but he never doubted that his conscious experiences had qualia, the properties by which he knew or apprehended them. (shrink)

We solve a major open problem concerning algorithmic properties of products of ‘transitive’ modal logics by showing that products and commutators of such standard logics as K4, S4, S4.1, K4.3, GL, or Grz are undecidable and do not have the finite model property. More generally, we prove that no Kripke complete extension of the commutator [K4,K4] with product frames of arbitrary finite or infinite depth (with respect to both accessibility relations) can be decidable. In particular, if.

Supererogatory acts—good deeds “beyond the call of duty”—are a part of moral common sense, but conceptually puzzling. I propose a unified solution to three of the most infamous puzzles: the classic Paradox of Supererogation (if it’s so good, why isn’t it just obligatory?), Horton’s All or Nothing Problem, and Kamm’s Intransitivity Paradox. I conclude that supererogation makes sense if, and only if, the grounds of rightness are multi-dimensional and comparative.

The social sciences playa variety of multifaceted roles in the policymaking process. So varied are these roles, indeed, that it is futile to talk in the singular about the use of social science in policymaking, as if there were one constant relationship between two fixed and stable entities. Instead, to address this issue sensibly one must talk in the plural about uses of dif ferent modes of social scientific inquiry for different kinds of policies under various circumstances. In some cases, (...) the influence of social scientific research is direct and tangible, and the connection between the find ings and the policy is easy to see. In other cases, perhaps most, its influence is indirect-one small piece in a larger mosaic of politics, bargaining, and compromise. Occasionally the findings of social scientific studies are explicitly drawn upon by policymakers in the formation, implementation, or evaluation of particular policies. More often, the categories and theoretical models of social science provide a general background orientation within which policymakers concep tualize problems and frame policy options. At times, the in fluence of social scientific work is cognitive and informational in nature; in other instances, policymakers use social science primarily for symbolic and political purposes in order to le gitimate preestablished goals and strategies. Nonetheless, amid this diversity and variety, troubling general questions persistently arise. (shrink)

1. Happiness, then and now -- Happiness, eudaimonia, and practical reasoning -- Happiness as eudaimonia -- Happiness and virtuous activity -- New directions from old debates -- 2. Happiness then: the sufficiency debate -- Aristotle's case against the sufficiency thesis -- 3. Happiness now: rethinking the self -- Socrates' case for the sufficiency thesis -- Epictetus and the stoic self -- The Stoics' case for the sufficiency thesis -- The embodied conception of the self -- The embodied conception and psychological (...) well-being -- The Stoics' case against the embodied conception. (shrink)

We prove that the two-variable fragment of first-order intuitionistic logic is undecidable, even without constants and equality. We also show that the two-variable fragment of a quantified modal logic L with expanding first-order domains is undecidable whenever there is a Kripke frame for L with a point having infinitely many successors (such are, in particular, the first-order extensions of practically all standard modal logics like K, K4, GL, S4, S5, K4.1, S4.2, GL.3, etc.). For many quantified modal logics, including those (...) in the standard nomenclature above, even the monadic two-variable fragments turn out to be undecidable. (shrink)

We show the first examples of recursively enumerable (even decidable) two-dimensional products of finitely axiomatisable modal logics that are not finitely axiomatisable. In particular, we show that any axiomatisation of some bimodal logics that are determined by classes of product frames with linearly ordered first components must be infinite in two senses: It should contain infinitely many propositional variables, and formulas of arbitrarily large modal nesting-depth.

Sometimes it takes years of debate for philosophers to discover what it is they really disagree about. Sometimes they talk past each other in long series of books and articles, never guessing at the root disagreement that divides them. But occasionally a day comes when something happens to coax the cat out of the bag. "Aha!" one philosopher exclaims to another, "so that's why you've been disagreeing with me, misunderstanding me, resisting my conclusions, puzzling me all these years!".

Built on the foundations laid by Peirce, Schröder, and others in the 19th century, the modern development of relation algebras started with the work of Tarski and his colleagues [21, 22]. They showed that relation algebras can capture strong first‐order theories like ZFC, and so their equational theory is undecidable. The less expressive class WA of weakly associative relation algebras was introduced by Maddux [7]. Németi [16] showed that WA's have a decidable universal theory. There has been extensive research on (...) increasing the expressive power of WA by adding new operations [1, 4, 11, 13, 20]. Extensions of this kind usually also have decidable universal theories. Here we give an example – extending WA's with set‐theoretic projection elements – where this is not the case. These “logical” connectives are set‐theoretic counterparts of the axiomatic quasi‐projections that have been investigated in the representation theory of relation algebras [22, 6, 19]. We prove that the quasi‐equational theory of the extended class PWA is not recursively enumerable. By adding the difference operator D one can turn WA and PWA to discriminator classes where each universal formula is equivalent to some equation. Hence our result implies that the projections turn the decidable equational theory of “WA + D ” to non‐recursively enumerable (© 2009 WILEY‐VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim). (shrink)

It has become customary to conceptualize the living cell as an intricate piece of machinery, different to a man-made machine only in terms of its superior complexity. This familiar understanding grounds the conviction that a cell's organization can be explained reductionistically, as well as the idea that its molecular pathways can be construed as deterministic circuits. The machine conception of the cell owes a great deal of its success to the methods traditionally used in molecular biology. However, the recent introduction (...) of novel experimental techniques capable of tracking individual molecules within cells in real time is leading to the rapid accumulation of data that are inconsistent with an engineering view of the cell. This paper examines four major domains of current research in which the challenges to the machine conception of the cell are particularly pronounced: cellular architecture, protein complexes, intracellular transport, and cellular behaviour. It argues that a new theoretical understanding of the cell is emerging from the study of these phenomena which emphasizes the dynamic, self-organizing nature of its constitution, the fluidity and plasticity of its components, and the stochasticity and non-linearity of its underlying processes. (shrink)

Realists about possible worlds typically identify possible worlds with abstract objects, such as propositions or properties. However, they face a significant objection due to Lewis (1986), to the effect that there is no way to explain how possible worlds-as-abstract objects represent possibilities. In this paper, I describe a response to this objection on behalf of realists. The response is to identify possible worlds with propositions, but to deny that propositions are abstract objects, or indeed objects at all. Instead, I argue (...) that realists should follow Prior (1971) and others in treating higher-order quantification (e.g. quantification into predicate or sentence position) as a genuine form of quantification in its own right, and so in particular, not to be analysed in terms of first-order quantification over abstract objects. I argue that from this ‘higher-orderist’ perspective, there is a relatively straightforward answer to the question of how possible worlds-as-propositions succeed in representing possibilities. (shrink)

Public discussions of political and social issues are often characterized by deep and persistent polarization. In social psychology, it’s standard to treat belief polarization as the product of epistemic irrationality. In contrast, we argue that the persistent disagreement that grounds political and social polarization can be produced by epistemically rational agents, when those agents have limited cognitive resources. Using an agent-based model of group deliberation, we show that groups of deliberating agents using coherence-based strategies for managing their limited resources tend (...) to polarize into different subgroups. We argue that using that strategy is epistemically rational for limited agents. So even though group polarization looks like it must be the product of human irrationality, polarization can be the result of fully rational deliberation with natural human limitations. (shrink)

From an early age, humans know a surprising amount about basic physical principles, such as gravity, force, mass, and shape. We can see this in the way that young children play, and manipulate objects around them. The same behaviour has long been observed in primates - chimpanzees have been shown to possess a remarkable ability to make and use simple tools. But what does this tell us about their inner mental state - do they therefore share the same understanding to (...) that of a young child? Do they understand the simple, underlying physical principles involved? Though some people would say that they do, this book reports groundbreaking research that questions whether this really is the case. -/- Folk Physics for Apes challenges the assumptions so often made about apes. It offers us a rare glimpse into the workings of another mind, examining how apes perceive and understand the physical world - an understanding that appears to be both similar to, and yet profoundly different from our own. The book will have broad appeal to evolutionary psychologists, developmental psychologists, and those interested in the sub-disciplines of cognitive science (philosophy, anthropology). The book additionally offers for developmental psychologists some valuable new non-verbal techniques for assessing causal understanding in young children. (shrink)

Sometimes, learning about the origins of a belief can make it irrational to continue to hold that belief—a phenomenon we call ‘genealogical defeat’. According to explanationist accounts, genealogical defeat occurs when one learns that there is no appropriate explanatory connection between one’s belief and the truth. Flatfooted versions of explanationism have been widely and rightly rejected on the grounds that they would disallow beliefs about the future and other inductively-formed beliefs. After motivating the need for some explanationist account, we raise (...) some problems for recent versions of explanationism. Learning from their failures, we then produce and defend a more resilient explanationism. (shrink)

Realists about possible worlds typically identify possible worlds with abstract objects, such as propositions or properties. However, they face a significant objection due to Lewis (1986), to the effect that there is no way to explain how possible worlds-as-abstract objects represent possibilities. In this paper, I describe a response to this objection on behalf of realists. The response is to identify possible worlds with propositions, but to deny that propositions are abstract objects, or indeed objects at all. Instead, I argue (...) that realists should follow Prior (1971) and others in treating higher-order quantification (e.g. quantification into predicate or sentence position) as a genuine form of quantification in its own right, and so in particular, not to be analysed in terms of first-order quantification over abstract objects. I argue that from this ‘higher-orderist’ perspective, there is a relatively straightforward answer to the question of how possible worlds-as-propositions succeed in representing possibilities. (shrink)

In this groundbreaking book, Daniel D. Novotny explores one of the most controversial topics of Suarez's philosophy: "beings of reason." Beings of reason are impossible intentional objects, such as blindness and square-circle.

This paper will attempt to assess the primary differences between what I take to be the two primary philosophical "traditions" in contemporary French philosophy, using Derrida (transcendence) and Deleuze (immanence) as exemplary representatives. The body of the paper will examine the use of these terms in three different areas of philosophy on which Derrida and Deleuze have both written: subjectivity, ontology, and epistemology. (1) In the field of subjectivity, the notion of the subject has been critiqued in two manners, either (...) by appealing either to the transcendence of the other (Levinas, Derrida) or to the immanent jlux of experience itself, in relation to which the Ego itself is trancendent (Deleuze, Foucault, Sartre, James). (2) In the field of ontology, a purely "immanent" ontology would be an ontology in which there is neither a "beyond" or an "otherwise" Being, nor "interruptions" in Being, both of which would require an appeal to a formal element of transcendence (Deleuze). Such a "transcendent" and aporetic structure, which can never appear or be present as such within Being, is what lies at the basis of the project of deconstruction, with its attendant aporias (Derrida). (3) This distinction, finally, finds parallels in Kant's epistemology, for whom the possible experience is conditioned by purely immanent criteria (Deleuze), whereas what goes beyond the limits of possible experience is transcendent (Derrida). Drawing on these three thread of analysis, the paper concludes with an assessment of what is at stake in the ethical differences between the two traditions. The question of "transcendence" is "What mast I do?", which is the question of morality (a duty or obligation that is beyond being, an "ought" beyond the "is"). The question of "immanence" is "What can I do?" (my power or capacity as an existing individual within being). For Levinas and Derrida, ethics precedes ontology because it is derived from an element of transcendence (the Other); for Deleuze, ethics is ontology because it is derived from the immanent relation of beings to Being at the level of their existence (Spinoza). (shrink)

Philosophers have found postulating possible worlds to be very useful in a number of areas, including philosophy of language and mind, logic, and metaphysics. Impossible worlds are a natural extension to this use of possible worlds, and can help resolve a number of difficulties thrown up by possible‐worlds frameworks.

En este trabajo abordo el problema de la herencia nietzscheana en el pensamiento de Jacques Derrida como base para plantear la cuestión de la huella de éste último en la filosofía actual. Para ello, me aproximo a la relación entre vida e ideal de vida, tal como la pensaron ambos. Partiendo de este aspecto, planteo el problema de la relación entre vida y obra, la cuestión de la identidad personal, la valoración del pensamiento como actividad crítica y la cuestión de (...) la posibilidad de lo imposible, que resulta central en el pensamiento derridiano. A través de todo ello, pretendo poner de manifiesto la enorme proyección de futuro que a mi juicio tiene la obra de Derrida. (shrink)

Según plantea Heidegger en Ser y tiempo, la pregunta por el ser no es fruto de la espontaneidad de la llamada conciencia natural, aunque tampoco en la racionalidad científica pueda encontrar los elementos adecuados para su formulación. Sabemos, en todo caso, que la ciencia puede contribuir a la respuesta, aunque no ayude a comprender lo que el hecho mismo de esa enunciación implica. La tesis que se defiende en este trabajo es que la correlación entre la pregunta por el ser (...) y la pregunta por el tiempo, posee unas dimensiones objetiva, subjetiva e histórica, estas tres dimensiones todavía no han sido, a mi entender, suficientemente exploradas. La conclusión a que se llega puede resumirse afirmando que en cada una de ellas acaba implicado el problema de la autenticidad, un problema que no puede ser tratado de forma adecuada desde la concepción heideggeriana del tiempo desarrollada en Ser y tiempo. According to what Heidegger exposed in Being and Time, the question of being is not the result of the spontaneity of what we call natural consciousness, although we cannot find in scientific rationality the right items for its formulation. We know, in any case, that science can contribute to the answer, but does not help us understand what the fact of this statement implies. The thesis defended in this work is that the correlation between the question of being and the question of the time has an objective, subjective and historical dimension, not yet fully explored. The conclusion reached is that in all of them is involved the problem of authenticity, that can’t be addressed adequately from Heidegger's conception of time exposed in Being and Time. (shrink)

La experiencia de la finitud no otorga, en sí misma, un sentido a la vida, pero sí introduce en ella algo que la hace intensamente humana. La finitud de la existencia queda marcada por la certeza de la presencia ineludible de la muerte. La angustia que produce la certeza de la inevitabilidad de la propia muerte es la forma más radical en que se nos manifiesta la naturaleza del Ser, no la ausencia de éste. La referencia a las ideas de (...) Derrida, Heidegger y Jankélévitch, nos permite perfilar en este trabajo una línea de reflexión relevante sobre un eterno problema filosófico: la significación de la muerte y su relación con el sentido de la vida. El modesto objetivo que persigo con este trabajo es mostrar, no sólo que sigue teniendo sentido reflexionar sobre uno de los temas ineludibles en la historia de la filosofía, sino también poner de manifiesto la pertinencia de la reflexión filosófica, aun cuando abordamos a través de ella asuntos que de antemano sabemos que jamás se podrán resolver de forma definitiva. (shrink)

El objetivo primordial de este artículo es poner en valor las contribuciones de Jacques Derrida a la filosofía del derecho. En esa línea, una de las tareas más importantes que se abordan en él es mostrar que la labor de deconstrucción, se refiera ésta a cualquier ámbito filosófico o jurídico, es ante todo poner en evidencia los límites, carencias e incoherencias internas que se dan en dicho ámbito. Además de ello, se expone en este trabajo cómo Jacques Derrida, el creador (...) de este método de análisis, al aclarar el sentido y operatividad de la deconstrucción nos explica que ésta se plantea la tarea de desmontar lo que se presenta como construido con una inconmovible solidez. Se pone asimismo de manifiesto en este artículo que la deconstrucción puede contribuir a la concreción de la justicia, en diversos contextos, que van desde el mismo proceso judicial a la dimensión colectiva de las acciones que conducen a la materialización de un orden justo. (shrink)

El objetivo de este trabajo es ofrecer al lector un recorrido por las más signifi cativas interpretaciones del mito de Prometeo, intentando, a la luz del contenido de las mismas, contribuir al esclarecimiento de la relación entre ley moral y ley política. En particular, se trata de poner de relieve cómo hay en la actitud de Prometeo algo que delata la presencia de una conciencia, fuertemente individualizada, cuyo dictado le conduce a asumir el choque con el poder en su máxima (...) expresión. Por otro lado, se analizan las diferentes interpretaciones del concepto griego de Ley, estudiando cómo la máxima expresión de la misma es deudora de la idea de destino. En base a la Ley, se establece un orden común, que enlaza a dioses y hombres, si bien no con los mismos grados de sujeción. (shrink)