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)

Expressions of the form 'S is aware of the fact that p' are commonplace. This book provides a systematic exploration of the relation between knowledge and factual awareness, arguing that knowledge is but one species of factual awareness and that we can understand the possession of objective reasons, the normativity of knowledge, and the nature of knowledge in terms of factual awareness. In this way, the state of factual awareness is, structurally and substantively, a more basic type of state than (...) knowledge. If correct, this undermines a number of ways in which knowledge has been regarded as ‘first’ in recent epistemology. (shrink)

In this article I attempt to systematically reconstruct Theodor Adorno’s account of the relationship between the processes of authoritarian subject formation and the processes of political formation of the democratic common will. Undertaking a reading that brings Adorno into dialogue with contemporary philosophical perspectives, the paper asks the question of whether it is possible to think of a “democratic We” in nihilistic times. In order to achieve this aim, I will analyze in reverse the modifications that the concept of narcissism (...) has undergone, from Adorno’s use of it to account for the symbolic obstacles to the formation of democratic subjectivities after the Holocaust, to the initial formulations of Freudian psychoanalysis. Finally, I will attempt to outline an affirmative answer to the initial question, formulating the potentials and merits of what I will call a politics of negativity. (shrink)

In this paper, we argue for an objectivist pluralist interpretation of Hume’s moral philosophy. We begin by approaching the pluralist/relativist distinction in aesthetics. Then we move to ethics, and present some reasons which justify considering Hume a normative pluralist, and, in particular, an objectivist pluralist. Our argument will make use of Hume’s idea that there are foru sources of value, and of his notion of artificial lives/moralities.

The philosophical implication that guides the issue addressed here is the following: how does the principle of the common constitute a frontal apophasis to the principle of property in contemporary democracies? I do not pretend to offer an exhaustive answer to this problem. However, I use the argumentative strategy of dividing this paper into three sections: (i) theoretically investigate the dialectical tension between the principle of the common and the principle of property; (ii) analytically observe the premise that the behavioral (...) practices of exacerbated individualism contribute as an act of aversion to the principle of the common and (iii) dwell on the articulation of the notion of the principle of the common as a factor that is present on the threshold between the philosophical vulgar and philosophical universal. Finally, I form some considerations that problematize the naturalized notion of the principle of property in current democracies, in view of the constituent power that the principle of the common holds in the perspective of achieving the well-being of human agents in contemporary community life. (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)

Distensión de la finitud y belleza son paralelas en Agustín, su deducción y su calificación estética. Ontología de lo finito es, por ello, a la vez, discurso estético en tres grandes dimensiones: a) fundación y estructura de lo finito; b) sucesión temporal ; c) devenir histórico . Podríamos, sin reduccionismo alguno, interpretar su doctrina estética como >?.Distension of the finiteness and beauty are parallel in St. Augustine, its deduction and its aesthetic qualification. Ontology of finiteness is therefore, at the (...) same time, aesthetic thought in three dimensions: a) foundation and structure of the finetenesss; b) temporal succession ; c) historic becoming . Could we, with no reduction, interpret his aesthetic doctrine as >? (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’.).

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.

Con Giordano Bruno asistimos a la recuperación de doctrinas neoplatónicas y herméticas que conducen a una comprensión animista y dinámica de la naturaleza, así como a una exaltación del hombre en tanto conoce y actúa sobre el mundo. En el contexto de un universo vivo y animado, Bruno necesita mediaciones en el espacio que hay entre, por un lado, la naturaleza finita del hombre y, por el otro, la divinidad infinita explicada en la naturaleza para fundamentar la teoría mágica de (...) sus obras latinas. Precisamente, la existencia de los demonios en los sistemas neoplatónicos viene a cumplir con este propósito. Sostenemos que existe una continuidad entre la doctrina demonológica que Bruno presenta en su obra latina y la metafísica y cosmología de sus diálogos italianos. Esta continuidad se verifica en la presencia de dos categorías filosóficas importantes del pensamiento bruniano presente en la demonología del De magia naturali : imaginación y vínculos. Así pues, en primer lugar, indagaremos la recepción de la doctrina neoplatónica en la demonología de los siglos XV y XVI, a partir de la cual Bruno desarrolla el marco teórico y filosófico de su doctrina demonológica. En segundo lugar, estudiaremos la naturaleza y función de los demonios en el De magia naturali y su relación con la imaginación y los vínculos en la filosofía del Nolano. (shrink)