The paper begins by discussing the normative principles of the two main theoretical currents in public administration in our days: NewPublicManagement and NeoWeberianism. Both orientations are very influential, not only froma theoretical point of view, but also as blueprints for administrative reforms. The paper focuses on the differences between the two currents regarding normative principles: rational self-interest, in the case of New Public Management, and civic duty or altruism, in the case of NeoWeberianism. The paper discusses such normative principles or (...) normativemotivationswith some references to the history of political thought, particularly to Hegel’s criticism of Kant regarding the concept of the state and its relationships to the market. In a final section, the paper develops some proposals for institutional designs that could promote desinterested (altruistic) motivations among civil servants. The institutional designs materialize thus the idea of a positive ethics for public administration. (shrink)

El concepto de dificultad contramayoritaria, aplicado al control de constitucionalidad, describe el problema de justificar que un tribunal declare inválida (inconstitucional) una ley, votada por los representantes de una mayoría de los ciudadanos. ¿Es esto legítimo? En el presente trabajo, analizamos un problema similar respecto a las burocracias públicas, relativamente menos discutido hasta ahora: ¿puede la burocracia pública tomar decisiones que considera justificadas, o tiene que limitarse a implementar las directivas del poder político en todos los casos? El debate se (...) ha planteado con intensidad en México, durante los últimos años, pero afecta a la configuración institucional de otros países en América Latina. (shrink)

Este artículo investiga dos problemas principales en los conocidos argumentos de San Agustín en pro de la certeza, contra los escépticos. En realidad, son más bien dos niveles de una misma cuestión "metodológica": la interioridad del conocimiento y la reflexión, como vía de certeza. Conclusión principal de este estudio es que ambas dimensiones son correlativas: la reflexión supone interioridad, N la interioridad exige reflexión, como ría de certeza. La última parte del artículo examina la doctrina agustiniana de la reflexión, en (...) el contexto de su "filosofía del espíritu". La presente investigación intenta mostrar en este punto que, de hecho, San Agustín tematiza o supone, a lo largo de su obra tres grandes modos de reflexión, correspondientes a otros tantos modos de autoconocimiento del alma: el noticial, el cogitativo y el fenomenológico. (shrink)

I propose a way of thinking about content, and a related way of thinking about ontological commitment.

Domestic violence discourse challenges cultural acceptance of male violence against women, yet it is often constituted by gendered, racialized, and class-based hierarchies. Transformative efforts have not escaped traces of these hierarchies. Emancipatory ideals guiding 1970s feminist activism have collided with conservative impulses to maintain and strengthen family relationships. Crime control discourse undermines critiques of dominance through its focus on individual men. Domestic violence discourse exemplifies both resistance to and replication of hierarchies of power.

The purpose of this paper is to defend a conception of language that does not rely on linguistic meanings, and use it to address the Sorites and Liar paradoxes.

Autistic individuals are commonly said – and also consider themselves – to be excessively literalist, in the sense that they tend to prefer literal interpretations of words and utterances. This literalist bias seems to be fairly specific to autism and still lacks a convincing explanation. In this paper we explore a novel hypothesis that has the potential to account for the literalist bias in autism. We argue that literalism results from an atypical functioning of the predictive system: specifically, an atypical (...) balance between predictions and error signals in language processing may make individuals more uncertain about their own predictions. Such uncertainty is then often resolved by resorting to the safest interpretation, that is, the literal one. We start by reviewing existing explanations of other autistic traits that appeal to predictive processing. We then apply these insights to language, by showing that predictions play a key role in everyday comprehension and that a low level of confidence in one’s own predictions is likely to escalate comprehension difficulties. Finally, we take a deeper look at non-literal uses of language by discussing the case of metaphors, to illustrate how a predictive processing account offers a promising explanation of the literalist bias in autism. (shrink)

This paper is a reaction to the book “Science and the Pursuit of Wisdom”, whose central concern is the philosophy of Nicholas Maxwell. I distinguish and discuss three concerns in Maxwell’s philosophy. The first is his critique of standard empiricism (SE) in the philosophy of science, the second his defense of aim-oriented rationality (AOR), and the third his philosophy of mind. I point at some problematic aspects of Maxwell’s rebuttal of SE and of his philosophy of mind and argue in (...) favor of AOR. (shrink)

I propose a way of thinking aboout content, and a related way of thinking about ontological commitment. (This is part of a series of four closely related papers. The other three are ‘On Specifying Truth-Conditions’, ‘An Actualist’s Guide to Quantifying In’ and ‘An Account of Possibility’.).

There is an ongoing debate about the meaning of lexical words, i.e., words that contribute with content to the meaning of sentences. This debate has coincided with a renewal in the study of polysemy, which has taken place in the psycholinguistics camp mainly. There is already a fruitful interbreeding between two lines of research: the theoretical study of lexical word meaning, on the one hand, and the models of polysemy psycholinguists present, on the other. In this paper I aim at (...) deepening on this ongoing interbreeding, examine what is said about polysemy, particularly in the psycholinguistics literature, and then show how what we seem to know about the representation and storage of polysemous senses affects the models that we have about lexical word meaning. (shrink)

The aim of this essay is to show that the subject-matter of ontology is richer than one might have thought. Our route will be indirect. We will argue that there are circumstances under which standard first-order regimentation is unacceptable, and that more appropriate varieties of regimentation lead to unexpected kinds of ontological commitment.

The question about life is inevitable. Our life is essentially what we are, what emerges within us at every moment. Our daily existence constantly leads us to think that our life is our circumstances, all the events that happen around us all the time. There is a dissonance and a sense of internal strangeness when we try to explain life rationally, mechanistically. But then, if life cannot be known by dissecting it, analyzing it, how can it be known? This question (...) is doubly important because knowing how to know life will allow us at the same time to know what life is. Many thinkers throughout history have faced the dilemma of how to know and define a living being. Many of them encountered the futility and evanescence of dissecting a living being and being left empty-handed, feeling that what they were looking for had already vanished, had already disappeared. Life is a path. In this article, we will investigate what this means and what consequences it has for the knowledge of life. (shrink)

According to an increasing number of authors, the best, if not the only, argument in favour of physicalism is the so-called 'overdetermination argument'. This argument, if sound, establishes that all the entities that enter into causal interactions with the physical world are physical. One key premise in the overdetermination argument is the principle of the causal closure of the physical world, said to be supported by contemporary physics. In this paper, I examine various ways in which physics may support the (...) principle, either as a methodological guide or as depending on some other laws and principles of physics. (shrink)

La Didáctica General es la disciplina pedagógica que estudia la enseñanza para el conocimiento y la formación, a través de la comunicación educativa. Los manuales y textos de referencia de la disciplina no suelen reparar en temáticas radicales, esto es, esenciales para la educación y no demandadas. Una de ellas es la dualidad en marcos didácticos, entendida en nuestro contexto como un hábito de la razón humana que, bien perjudica, bien dificulta la evolución personal, social y educativa. El objetivo es (...) triple: por un lado, avanzar en la definición de la dualidad como un problema formativo que incide directamente en la enseñanza, el aprendizaje y la formación o deformación relativa. Por otro, es indagar en fundamentos aplicables, prácticos, de una enseñanza educadora que lo afronte en el proceso evolutivo del ego a la conciencia. El tercero es contribuir al salto en el reconocimiento epistemológico de un problema desatendido o ignorado a un asunto de primera magnitud pedagógica. La metodología es el ensayo pedagógico, realizado desde el enfoque radical e inclusivo aplicado, en esta ocasión, a constructos claves de la Didáctica General. Los resultados se desprenden desde el principio y durante todo el proceso, desde contenidos organizados en epígrafes sucesivos que pueden ser centros de interés didácticos y educativos. La conclusión más importante es que la superación de dualidades puede ser un camino válido para una enseñanza orientada a una formación con base en la conciencia, en cualquier contexto didáctico, informal o formal. En un plano más amplio y aplicable, se constata que la Didáctica General con orientación radical se puede fortalecer epistemológica, investigativa y profesionalmente. (shrink)

Charles Travis has been forcefully arguing that meaning does not determine truth-conditions for more than two decades now. To this end, he has devised ingenious examples whereby different utterances of the same prima facie non-ambiguous and non-indexical expression type have different truth-conditions depending on the occasion on which they are delivered. However, Travis does not argue that meaning varies with circumstances; only that truth-conditions do. He assumes that meaning is a stable feature of both words and sentences. After surveying some (...) of the explanations that semanticists and pragmaticians have produced in order to account for Travis cases, I propose a view which differs substantially from all of them. I argue that the variability in the truth-conditions that an utterance type can have is due to meaning facts alone. To support my argument, I suggest that we think about the meanings of words (in particular, the meanings of nouns) as rich conceptual structures; so rich that the way in which a property concept applies to an object concept is not determined. (shrink)

According to a well-established interpretive line, the Benthamic judge would be allowed no room for autonomous calculations of utility and his or her task would only be that of mechanically applying substantive law, which expresses the legislator's will. For Gerald Postema, in contrast, Bentham's judge would be granted ample power to decide cases by directly applying the principle of utility. This article criticizes both views, by showing that a adjudication was for Bentham utterly impossible, although this does not mean that (...) judges should be free to decide according to direct utility calculations. Judges must be the tutors of the citizens’ expectations, which, under a system of statute law, will focus on the code. However, they can avoid suboptimality in cases where applying a general rule would not maximize utility, without preponderant damage for law-induced expectations: Bentham's suggestion is that they do so by proposing amendments of the code to the legislature. (shrink)

It has been a long time since the concept of iconic signs was proposed by C. S. Peirce. From that time on, we have been increasingly realizing that semiotic systems are for the most part established just on some type of similarity. But the more we see the sphere of analogical signification expanding its realm, themore we become aware of how inadequate is the notion of a simple relationship connecting locally a physical object with a second object, or with a (...) mental entity.There is, on the other hand, the more refined theory of sign conceived by Ferdinand de Saussure, but this theory, by its very definition, addresses a restricted domain, and definitely does not include the field of those signs which rest on analogical associations.The main purpose of this article is then to show how the more polished Saussurean model can act as a starting point for a general restatement, primarily intended to embrace the signs that rest on an analogical basis. We may so speak of a “neoclassical”, innovative semiotic theory, able to join the latest “sociosemiotic” approach with the most precious foundations of our discipline. (shrink)

It has been a long time since the concept of iconic signs was proposed by C. S. Peirce. From that time on, we have been increasingly realizing that semiotic systems are for the most part established just on some type of similarity. But the more we see the sphere of analogical signification expanding its realm, themore we become aware of how inadequate is the notion of a simple relationship connecting locally a physical object with a second object, or with a (...) mental entity.There is, on the other hand, the more refined theory of sign conceived by Ferdinand de Saussure, but this theory, by its very definition, addresses a restricted domain, and definitely does not include the field of those signs which rest on analogical associations.The main purpose of this article is then to show how the more polished Saussurean model can act as a starting point for a general restatement, primarily intended to embrace the signs that rest on an analogical basis. We may so speak of a “neoclassical”, innovative semiotic theory, able to join the latest “sociosemiotic” approach with the most precious foundations of our discipline. (shrink)

It has been a long time since the concept of iconic signs was proposed by C. S. Peirce. From that time on, we have been increasingly realizing that semiotic systems are for the most part established just on some type of similarity. But the more we see the sphere of analogical signification expanding its realm, the more we become aware of how inadequate is the notion of a simple relationship connecting locally a physical object with a second object, or with (...) a mental entity. There is, on the other hand, the more refined theory of sign conceived by Ferdinand de Saussure, but this theory, by its very definition, addresses a restricted domain, and definitely does not include the field of those signs which rest on analogical associations. The main purpose of this article is then to show how the more polished Saussurean model can act as a starting point for a general restatement, primarily intended to embrace the signs that rest on an analogical basis. We may so speak of a “neoclassical”, innovative semiotic theory, able to join the latest “sociosemiotic” approach with the most precious foundations of our discipline. (shrink)

This paper proposes an interpretation of Nāgārjuna’s doctrine of the two truths that considers saṃvṛti and paramārtha-satya two visions of reality on which the Buddhas, for soteriological and pedagogical reasons, build teachings of two types: respectively in agreement with (for example, the teaching of the Four Noble Truths) or in contrast to (for example, the teaching of emptiness) the category of svabhāva. The early sections of the article show to what extent the various current interpretations of the Nāgārjunian doctrine of (...) the dve satye—despite their sometimes even macroscopic differences—have a common tendency to consider the notion of śūnyatā as a teaching not based on, but equivalent to supreme truth. This equivalence—philologically questionable—leads to interpretative paths that prove inevitably aporetic: indeed, according to whether the interpretation of śūnyatā is ‘metaphysical’ or ‘anti-metaphysical’, it gives rise to readings of Nāgārjuna’s thought incompatible, respectively, with anti-metaphysical and realistic types of verses traceable in the works of the author of the Mūla-madhyamaka-kārikā (MMK). On the contrary, by giving more emphasis to the expression samupāśritya (“based on”), which recurs in MMK.24.8, and therefore, by epistemologically separating the notion of śūnyatā from the notion of paramārtha-satya (and of some of its conceptual equivalents such as nirvāṇa, tattva and dharmatā), we may obtain an interpretation—at once realistic and anti-metaphysical—of the theory of the two truths compatible with the vast majority (or even totality) of Nāgārjuna’s verses. (shrink)

Recently, many philosophers and psychologists have claimed that the explanation that grounds both passivity phenomena in the cognitive domain and passivity phenomena that occur with respect to overt actions is, along broad lines, the same. Furthermore, they claim that the best account we have of such phenomena in both scenarios is the “comparator” account. However, there are reasons to doubt whether the comparator model can be exported from the realm of overt actions to the cognitive domain in general. There is (...) a lingering worry concerning such explanations of thought insertion: the "What is compared to what?" problem. Here I examine two ways to tackle this problem. First: thought insertion consists of the misattribution of strings of inner speech which are not attenuated (thought insertion is thus another name for auditory verbal hallucinations). Second: thought insertion is misattributed inner speech which exhibits the same phenomenological characteristics as normal inner speech. After explaining the types of problem that each of these potential solutions faces, I conclude with a set of open questions that the comparator theorist has to tackle. (shrink)

Whether or not we achieve absolute generality in philosophical inquiry, most philosophers would agree that ordinary inquiry is rarely, if ever, absolutely general. Even if the quantifiers involved in an ordinary assertion are not explicitly restricted, we generally take the assertion’s domain of discourse to be implicitly restricted by context.1 Suppose someone asserts (2) while waiting for a plane to take off.

The goal of this paper is to develop a theory of content for vague language. My proposal is based on the following three theses: (1) language-mastery is not rulebased— it involves a certain kind of decision-making; (2) a theory of content is to be thought of instrumentally—it is a tool for making sense of our linguistic practice; and (3) linguistic contents are only locally defined—they are only defined relative to suitably constrained sets of possibilities. CiteULike Connotea Del.icio.us What's this?

Resumo A entrada dos cristãos e cristãs na luta política de libertação dos pobres e excluídos é a grande novidade da(s) Igreja(s) na América Latina e no Caribe. Com base em Medellín (1968), por meio de uma recepção criativa do Concílio Vaticano II, a vivência e a compreensão da fé cristã têm experimentado uma nova dinâmica. As comunidades eclesiais de base (CEBs) e a Teologia da Libertação favorecem um novo modo de se assumir o compromisso social visando à construção de (...) uma sociedade diferente, pautada na justiça e na solidariedade. Compreende-se que entre evangelização e libertação há laços muito fortes. A obra de evangelização não pode negligenciar os graves problemas que afetam a vida das pessoas e da natureza: desemprego, exclusão social, violência, devastação da natureza. Os cristãos e cristãs são chamados para contribuir na transformação da sociedade, a partir de sua fé e de sua prática pastoral. Essa contribuição visa colaborar na construção de um projeto de nação que se aproxime dos valores explicitados nas lutas populares. Isso requer o uso de instrumentos capazes de proporcionar a participação cidadã na busca de uma sociedade justa, fraterna, solidária e respeitadora da vida das pessoas e da natureza. Palavras-chave: Evangelização; Libertação; Democracia; Movimentos populares; Prática social; Projeto de nação.The participation of Christian men and women in the political fight to free the poor and excluded is the great news in the Church(es) in Latin America and the Caribbean. After Medellín (1968), with a creative reception from Vatican Council II, the experience and understanding of Christian faith has acquired a new dynamics. Basic ecclesial communities (BECs) and the Theology of Liberation favor a new way of being socially committed to the construction of a different society, inspired by justice and solidarity. It is clear that solid bonds connect evangelization and liberation. The work of evangelization cannot neglect serious problems that affect people's life and nature: unemployment, social exclusion, violence, devastation of the environment. Christian men and women are invited to offer their contribution to the transformation of society based on faith and pastoral practice. It will contribute to the construction of a nation project in harmony with the values of popular fights, which requires the use of instruments capable of fostering the citizens' participation in search of a just and fraternal society that respects people's life and nature. Key words: Evangelization; Liberation; Democracy; Popular movements; Social practice; Project of a nation. (shrink)

The paper argues for a decompositionalist account of lexical concepts. In particular, it presents and argues for a cluster decompositionalism, a view that claims that the complexes a token of a word corresponds to on a given occasion are typically built out of a determinate set of basic concepts, most of which are present on most other occasions of use of the word. The first part of the paper discusses some explanatory virtues of decompositionalism in general. The second singles out (...) cluster decompositionalism as the best explanation of the variability of meaning. The third part is devoted to responding to some problems. (shrink)

We reconstruct essential features of Lagrange’s theory of analytical functions by exhibiting its structure and basic assumptions, as well as its main shortcomings. We explain Lagrange’s notions of function and algebraic quantity, and we concentrate on power-series expansions, on the algorithm for derivative functions, and the remainder theorem—especially on the role this theorem has in solving geometric and mechanical problems. We thus aim to provide a better understanding of Enlightenment mathematics and to show that the foundations of mathematics did not, (...) for Lagrange, concern the solidity of its ultimate bases, but rather purity of method—the generality and internal organization of the discipline. (shrink)

Forthcoming in Philosophical Compass. I explain why plural quantifiers and predicates have been thought to be philosophically significant.

I show that any sentence of nth-order (pure or applied) arithmetic can be expressed with no loss of compositionality as a second-order sentence containing no arithmetical vocabulary, and use this result to prove a completeness theorem for applied arithmetic. More specifically, I set forth an enriched second-order language L, a sentence A of L (which is true on the intended interpretation of L), and a compositionally recursive transformation Tr defined on formulas of L, and show that they have the following (...) two properties: (a) in a universe with at least [HEBREW LETTER BET] $_{n-2}$ objects, any formula of nth-order (pure or applied) arithmetic can be expressed as a formula of L, and (b) for any sentence $\ulcorner \phi \urcorner$ of L, $\ulcorner \phi^{Tr} \urcorner$ is a second-order sentence containing no arithmetical vocabulary, and nth $\mathcal{A} \vdash \ulcorner \phi \longleftrightarrow \phi^{Tr} \urcorner$. (shrink)

This article deals with the relationship between language and thought, focusing on the question of whether language can be a vehicle of thought, as, for example, Peter Carruthers has claimed. We develop and examine a powerful argument—the "argument from explicitness"—against this cognitive role of language. The premises of the argument are just two: (1) the vehicle of thought has to be explicit, and (2) natural languages are not explicit. We explain what these simple premises mean and why we should believe (...) they are true. Finally, we argue that even though the argument from explicitness shows that natural language cannot be a vehicle of thought, there is a cognitive function for language. (shrink)

Here is an account of logical consequence inspired by Bolzano and Tarski. Logical validity is a property of arguments. An argument is a pair of a set of interpreted sentences (the premises) and an interpreted sentence (the conclusion). Whether an argument is logically valid depends only on its logical form. The logical form of an argument is fixed by the syntax of its constituent sentences, the meanings of their logical constituents and the syntactic differences between their non-logical constituents, treated as (...) variables. A constituent of a sentence is logical just if it is formal in meaning, in the sense roughly that its application is invariant under permutations of individuals.1 Thus ‘=’ is a logical constant because no permutation maps two individuals to one or one to two; ‘∈’ is not a logical constant because some permutations interchange the null set and its singleton. Truth functions, the usual quantifiers and bound variables also count as logical constants. An argument is logically valid if and only if the conclusion is true under every assignment of semantic values to variables (including all non-logical expressions) under which all its premises are true. A sentence is logically true if and only if the argument with no premises of which it is the conclusion is logically valid, that is, if and only if the sentence is true under every assignment of semantic values to variables. An interpretation assigns values to all variables. (shrink)

The problem this paper deals with is the problem of how dispositional properties can have causal relevance. In particular, the paper is focused on the question of how dispositions can have causal relevance given that the categorial bases that realise them seem to be sufficient to bring about the effects that dispositions explain. I show first that this problem of exclusion has no general solution. Then, I discuss some particular cases in which dispositions are causally relevant, despite of this exclusion (...) problem. My claim is that dispositions have causal relevance in selection or recruitment processes, when they are converted into teleological functions. (shrink)