El pensamiento de Derrida sobre el amor no suele ser estudiado porque, al parecer, el mismo autor no ha sido tan claro al respecto. Este artículo pretende aportar a este vacío usando como documento de estudio el libro Éperons del autor, que pretende ser una ponencia sobre Nietzsche. A partir de una interpretación de los pasajes en los que Derrida se refiere al amor, encontramos casi siempre se trata de una cita de Nietzsche. Esto parece caracterizar un acto de ventriloquia (...) que subyace a la estrategia del autor. El problema surge cuando nos percatamos de que Derrida no da cuenta de la intromisión del amor en las citas que usa. Derrida prefiere evadir el problema del amor porque está en el núcleo de su propuesta de deconstrucción. (shrink)

In 2004 Atserias, Kolaitis, and Vardi proposed $\text {OBDD}$ -based propositional proof systems that prove unsatisfiability of a CNF formula by deduction of an identically false $\text {OBDD}$ from $\text {OBDD}$ s representing clauses of the initial formula. All $\text {OBDD}$ s in such proofs have the same order of variables. We initiate the study of $\text {OBDD}$ based proof systems that additionally contain a rule that allows changing the order in $\text {OBDD}$ s. At first we consider a proof (...) system $\text {OBDD}$ that uses the conjunction rule and the rule that allows changing the order. We exponentially separate this proof system from $\text {OBDD}$ proof system that uses only the conjunction rule. We prove exponential lower bounds on the size of $\text {OBDD}$ refutations of Tseitin formulas and the pigeonhole principle. The first lower bound was previously unknown even for $\text {OBDD}$ proofs and the second one extends the result of Tveretina et al. from $\text {OBDD}$ to $\text {OBDD}$.In 2001 Aguirre and Vardi proposed an approach to the propositional satisfiability problem based on $\text {OBDD}$ s and symbolic quantifier elimination $ algorithms). We augment these algorithms with the operation of reordering of variables and call the new scheme $\text {OBDD}$ algorithms. We notice that there exists an $\text {OBDD}$ algorithm that solves satisfiable and unsatisfiable Tseitin formulas in polynomial time, but we show that there are formulas representing systems of linear equations over $\mathbb {F}_2$ that are hard for $\text {OBDD}$ algorithms. Our hard instances are satisfiable formulas representing systems of linear equations over $\mathbb {F}_2$ that correspond to checksum matrices of error correcting codes. (shrink)

Do the sciences aim to uncover the structure of nature, or are they ultimately a practical means of controlling our environment? In Instrumental Biology, or the Disunity of Science, Alexander Rosenberg argues that while physics and chemistry can develop laws that reveal the structure of natural phenomena, biology is fated to be a practical, instrumental discipline. Because of the complexity produced by natural selection, and because of the limits on human cognition, scientists are prevented from uncovering the basic structure (...) of biological phenomena. Consequently, biology and all of the disciplines that rest upon it--psychology and the other human sciences--must aim at most to provide practical tools for coping with the natural world rather than a complete theoretical understanding of it. (shrink)

This dissertation is about prejudice. In particular, it examines the theoretical and ethical questions raised by research on implicit social biases. Social biases are termed "implicit" when they are not reported, though they lie just beneath the surface of consciousness. Such biases are easy to adopt but very difficult to introspect and control. Despite this difficulty, I argue that we are personally responsible for our biases and obligated to overcome them if they can bring harm to ourselves or to others. (...) My dissertation addresses the terms of their removal. It is grounded in a comprehensive examination of empirical research and, as such, is a contribution to social psychology. Although implicit social biases significantly influence our judgment and action, they are not reducible to beliefs or desires. Rather, they constitute a class of their own. Understanding their particular character is vital to determining how to replace them with more preferable habits of mind. I argue for a model of interpersonal fluency, a kind of ethical expertise that requires transforming our underlying dispositions of thought, feeling, and action. (shrink)

A traditional interpretation holds that Kant's political theory simply constitutes an account of the constraints which reason places on the state's authority to regulate external action. Alexander Kaufman argues that this traditional interpretation succeeds neither as a faithful reading of Kant's texts nor as a plausible, philosophically sound reconstruction of a `Kantian' political theory. Rather, he argues that Kant's political theory articulates a positive conception of the state's role.

A lavishly decorated handbook of medicine was conceived for the lay public on topics such as human health, healing, medicine, and household management.

____Feminist Geneaologies, Colonial Legacies, Democratic__ ____Futures__ provides a feminist anaylsis of the questions of sexual and gender politics, economic and cultural marginality, and anti-racist and anti-colonial practices both in the "West" and in the "Third World." This collection, edited by Jacqui Alexander and Chandra Talpade Mohanty, charts the underlying theoretical perspectives and organization practices of the different varieties of feminism that take on questions of colonialism, imperialism, and the repressive rule of colonial, post-colonial and advanced capitalist nation-states. It provides (...) a comparative, relational, historically grounded conception of feminist praxis that differs markedly from the liberal pluralist, multicultural understanding that sheapes some of the dominant version of Euro-American feminism. As a whole, the collection poses a unique challenge to the naturalization of gender based in the experiences, histories and practices of Euro-American women. (shrink)

Platonism has played a central role in Christianity and is essential to a deep understanding of the Christian theological tradition. At times, Platonism has constituted an essential philosophical and theological resource, furnishing Christianity with an intellectual framework that has played a key role in its early development, and in subsequent periods of renewal. Alternatively, it has been considered a compromising influence, conflicting with the faith's revelatory foundations and distorting its inherent message. In both cases the fundamental importance of Platonism, as (...) a force which Christianity defined itself by and against, is clear. Written by an international team of scholars, this landmark volume examines the history of Christian Platonism from antiquity to the present day, covers key concepts, and engages issues such as the environment, natural science and materialism. (shrink)

Carl Menger’s Principles of Economics published in 1871 is usually regarded as the founding document of the Austrian School of economics. Many of the School’s prominent representatives, including Friedrich Wieser, Eugen Böhm-Bawerk, Ludwig Mises, Hans Mayer, Friedrich August Hayek, Fritz Machlup, Oskar Morgenstern, and Gottfried Haberler, as well as Israel Kirzner, Ludwig Lachmann, Murray Rothbard, and Don Lavoie, advanced and modified Menger’s research program in sometimes conflicting ways. Yet, some characteristics of the Austrian School remain (nearly) consensual from its foundation (...) through to contemporary neo-Austrian economists. In eight sections, we will briefly discuss some of the philosophical and methodological characteristics of Austrian economics: Austrian action theory and interpretative understanding, a relatively thoroughgoing subjectivism, methodological individualism, ontological individualism, apriorism, essentialism, an often overstated rejection of formal methods, and alertness to economic semantics. (shrink)

This book presents a concise introduction to the epistemology and methodology of the Austrian School of economics as defended by Ludwig von Mises. The author provides an innovative interpretation of Mises’ arguments in favour of the a priori truth of praxeology, the received view of which contributed to the academic marginalisation of the Austrian School. The study puts forward a unique argument that Mises – perhaps unintentionally – defends a form of conventionalism. Chapters in the book include detailed discussions of (...) individualism, historicism, epistemological positions, and essentialism. The author goes on to discuss Mises’ justification of the fundamental axiom and proposes a conventionalist interpretation. By presenting praxeology as a conventionalist research programme, the author aims to reinvigorate the interaction between the Austrian School, mainstream economics, and the philosophy of science. This comprehensive reconstruction is suitable for economists interested in the history and philosophy of their discipline, as well as for philosophers of science. (shrink)

It has been customary to see the Muslim theologian Abu Hamid al-Ghazali as a vehement critic of philosophy, who rejected it in favour of Islamic mysticism, a view which has come under increased scrutiny in recent years. This book argues that al-Ghazali was, instead, one of the greatest popularisers of philosophy in medieval Islam. The author supplies new evidence showing that al-Ghazali was indebted to philosophy in his theory of mystical cognition and his eschatology, and that, moreover, in these two (...) areas he accepted even those philosophical teachings which he ostensibly criticized. Through careful translation into English and detailed discussion of more than 80 key passages, the author shows how al-Ghazali’s understanding of "mystical cognition" is patterned after the philosophyof Avicenna. Arguing that despite overt criticism, al-Ghazali never rejected Avicennian philosophy and that his mysticism itself is grounded in Avicenna’s teachings, the book offers a clear and systematic presentation of al-Ghazali’s "philosophical mysticism." Challenging popular assumptions about one of the greatest Muslim theologians of all time, this is an important reference for scholars and laymen interested in Islamic theology and in the relations between philosophy and mysticism. (shrink)

Mark Johnston has recently attacked various versions of subjectivism and anti-realism, using what he calls the “missing-explanation argument”. In this paper I shall outline the MEA, and show how Johnston takes it to demolish some anti-realist views, both historical and contemporary. In particular, I shall outline how the argument would apply to the view about the origin of piety espoused by Euthyphro in Plato’s dialogue of that name, to the judgement-dependent conception of intentional states recently sketched by Crispin Wright, to (...) the “internal realism” that has been espoused by Hilary Putnam, and to the perceptual model of value that has been advocated by John McDowell. I shall then attempt to deflect the MEA by raising a set of nested dilemmas for the argument. The conclusion I hope to establish is that Johnston is still some distance from establishing the falsity of the versions of anti-realism that he considers. (shrink)

What exactly do social scientists and biologists say when they make causal claims? This question is one of the central puzzles in philosophy of science. Alexander Reutlinger sets out to answer this question. He aims to provide a theory of causation in the special sciences (that is, a theory causation in the social sciences, the biological sciences and other higher-level sciences). According one recent prominent view, causation is that causation is intimately tied to manipulability and the possibility of intervene. (...) Reutlinger's main negative target is to argue interventionist account of causation is not adequate. Where do interventionist accounts go wrong? Reutlinger argues that the central concept of the interventionist theories – that is, the very concept of an intervention – is tremendously problematic. Reutlinger's main positive claim consists in replacing the interventionist approach by an alternative explication of causation in the special sciences, the comparative variability theory of causation. This alternative preserves many insights of the interventionist account without a commitment to the claim that causation and interventions are intimately tied together. (shrink)

Nicholas Dixon’s Kantian argument for why mixed martial arts (MMA) is intrinsically immoral has received several critical responses. We offer an additional critical response. Unlike previous responses, ours does not rely on an interpretation of the categorical imperative that Dixon would find tendentious. Instead, we grant that Dixon’s views about what makes other sports consistent with the categorical imperative are correct and argue from this assumption that MMA is also consistent with the categorical imperative. Our argument focuses on Dixon’s claims (...) about certain cycling tactics, which we call ‘pain-leveraging cycling tactics’. We argue that MMA is consistent with the categorical imperative for the same sort of reasons that Dixon claims make pain-leveraging cycling tactics consistent with the categorical imperative. (shrink)

Writing a captivating book about a bureaucrat and his statistical modelling techniques is impossible? Erwin Dekker’s biography of Jan Tinbergen proves otherwise. As he has done before, Dekker tells the history of economic thought and methodology as part and parcel of general intellectual and cultural history. Nevertheless, he never downplays or neglects the analysis of inner-scientific problem situations. Drawing on rich archival material and conversations with Tinbergen’s family, students, and colleagues, Dekker vividly introduces us to an extraordinary personality and career. (...) Tinbergen of course was so much more than a Dutch bureaucrat and Nobel Prize winning econometrician. He became a key figure in transforming the discipline of economics. Perhaps even more sweeping – and reaching far beyond academia – is Tinbergen’s re-invention of the role played by economists in the modern nation state and in the international community. Ultimately, he spearheaded a shift in the public notion of how malleable “the economy” is by conscious policy efforts – or so Dekker convincingly exhibits and critically discusses. Anybody reflecting on the proper role of scientific experts in democratic societies, may want to pick up Dekker’s entertaining and thought-provoking study. (shrink)

In the insightful and searching paper of Mills and Beatty the following definition of ‘fitness’, as the term figures in the theory of natural selection, is offered:The [individual] fitness of an organism x in environment E equals n =dfn is the expected number of descendants which x will leave in E.

This is a new interpretation and analysis of John Rawls's leading theory of distributive justice, which also considers the responding egalitarian theories of scholars such as Richard Arneson, G. A. Cohen, Ronald Dworkin, Martha Nussbaum, John Roemer, and Amartya Sen. Rawls's theory, Kaufman argues, sets out a normative ideal of justice that incorporates an account of the structure and character of relations that are appropriate for members of society viewed as free and equal moral beings. Forging an approach distinct amongst (...) contemporary theories of equality, Rawls offers an alternative to egalitarian justice methodologies that aim primarily to compensate victims for undeserved bad luck. For Rawls, the values that ground the most plausible account of egalitarianism are real equality of economic opportunity combined with the guarantee of a fair distribution of social goods. Kaufman's analysis will be of interest to scholars and advanced students of political theory and political philosophy, particularly those working on justice, and on the work of John Rawls. (shrink)

According to J. L. Schellenberg, a perfectly loving God wouldn't permit the occurrence of non-resistant non-believers – that is, non-believers who are both capable of believing in and relating to God, but who fail to believe through no fault of their own. Since non-resistant non-believers exist, says Schellenberg, it follows that God doesn't. A popular response to this argument is some version or other of the greater good defence. God, it's argued, is justified in hiding himself when done for the (...) sake of some greater good. But proponents of this defence have overlooked or neglected an important sub-argument in Schellenberg's case – what I call the ‘pre-eminent good argument’. In this article, I identify the nature of the argument and offer a solution to it. (shrink)

Dispositions are related to conditionals. Typically a fragile glass will break if struck with force. But possession of the disposition does not entail the corresponding simple (subjunctive or counterfactual) conditional. The phenomena of finks and antidotes show that an object may possess the disposition without the conditional being true. Finks and antidotes may be thought of as exceptions to the straightforward relation between disposition and conditional. The existence of these phenomena are easy to demonstrate at the macro-level. But do they (...) exist at the fundamental level also? While fundamental finkish dispositions may be excluded fairly straightforwardly, the existence of fundamental antidotes is more open. Nonetheless I conclude that the phenomenon is likely to be less widespread than at the macro level and that fundamental antidotes may be eliminable. According to the dispositional essentialist, the laws of nature can be explained by taking natural properties to be essentially dispositional. This account can be extended to show that the existence of finks and antidotes explains ceteris paribus laws. Consequently the existence or otherwise of fundamental finks and antidotes sheds some light on the question of whether fundamental laws may also be ceteris paribus laws. (shrink)

Climate change, nutrition, poverty and medical drugs are widely discussed and pressing issues in science, policy and society. Despite these issues being of great importance for the quality of our lives it remains unclear how well people understand them. Specifically, do particular demographic and socioeconomic factors explain variation in public understanding of these four concepts? To what extent are people’s changes in understanding associated with changes in their behaviour? Do people judge scientific practices relying on the more descriptive concepts of (...) climate change and effective medical drugs to be more objective (less controversial) than practices relying on the more value-laden concepts of poverty and healthy nutrition? To address these questions, an experimental survey and regression analyses are conducted using data collected from about one thousand participants across different continents. The study finds that public understanding of science is generally low. A smaller proportion of people were able to correctly identify the common explanation accepted internationally among the scientific community for climate change and effectiveness of medical drugs (42% and 43% of participants in the study, respectively) than for poverty and healthy nutrition (61% and 65% of participants, respectively). Older age and political non-conservativeness were the strongest predictors of correctly understanding these four concepts. Greater levels of education and political non-conservativeness were in turn the strongest predictors of people’s reported changes in their behaviour based on their improved understanding of these concepts. Because climate change is among the least understood scientific concepts but is arguably the greatest challenge of our time, better efforts are needed to improve how media, awareness campaigns and education systems mediate information on the topic in order to tackle the large knowledge deficits that constrain behavioural change. (shrink)

Although the first ‘pragmatist aesthetics’ was devised by John Dewey in his Art as Experience, Richard Shusterman has been the only scholar to use the notion of “pragmatist aesthetics” in his Pragmatist Aesthetics. In this paper, I show that Dewey already refuses the gap between the practices of the ‘artworld’ and that of everyday life. In Art as Experience, he criticizes the ‘museum conception’ of art to argue that some aesthetic experiences in our daily life have the same essential structure (...) as the experience of art. While Rorty has revised Dewey’s basic premises, Shusterman has rather restated them. Since the end of the 1980s, he has started developing his own philosophical project, named ‘somaesthetics’. Shusterman’s somaesthetics does not simply incorporate many Deweyan views, but also develops them further. Accepting a Deweyan framework, Shusterman rejects the sharp dualism of the so-called “lower and higher levels of art”. What is more, he considers philosophy as an art of the living, embracing in somaesthetics the ancient Greek and Asian traditions. (shrink)

According to the traditional inferential theory of perception, percepts of object motion or stationarity stem from an evaluation of afferent retinal signals (which encode image motion) with the help of extraretinal signals (which encode eye movements). According to direct perception theory, on the other hand, the percepts derive from retinally conveyed information only. Neither view is compatible with a perceptual phenomenon that occurs during visually induced sensations of ego motion (vection). A modified version of inferential theory yields a model in (...) which the concept of extraretinal signals is replaced by that of reference signals, which do not encode how the eyes move in their orbits but how they move in space. Hence reference signals are produced not only during eye movements but also during ego motion (i.e., in response to vestibular stimulation and to retinal image flow, which may induce vection). The present theory describes the interface between self-motion and object-motion percepts. An experimental paradigm that allows quantitative measurement of the magnitude and gain of reference signals and the size of the just noticeable difference (JND) between retinal and reference signals reveals that the distinction between direct and inferential theories largely depends on: (1) a mistaken belief that perceptual veridicality is evidence that extraretinal information is not involved, and (2) a failure to distinguish between (the perception of) absolute object motion in space and relative motion of objects with respect to each other. The model corrects these errors, and provides a new, unified framework for interpreting many phenomena in the field of motion perception. (shrink)

Damn Great Empires! offers a new perspective on the works of William James by placing his encounter with American imperialism at the center of his philosophical vision. This book reconstructs James's overlooked political thought by treating his anti-imperialist Nachlass -- his speeches, essays, notes, and correspondence on the United States' annexation of the Philippines -- as the key to unlocking the political significance of his celebrated writings on psychology, religion, and philosophy. It shows how James located a craving for authority (...) at the heart of empire as a way of life, a craving he diagnosed and unsettled through his insistence on a modern world without ultimate foundations. Livingston explores the persistence of political questions in James's major works, from his writings on the self in The Principles of Psychology to the method of Pragmatism, the study of faith and conversion in The Varieties of Religious Experience, and the metaphysical inquiries in A Pluralistic Universe. Against the conventional view of James as a thinker who remained silent on questions of politics, this book places him in dialogue with a transatlantic critique of modernity, as well as with champions and critics of American imperialism, from Theodore Roosevelt to W. E. B. Du Bois, in order to excavate James's anarchistic political vision. Bringing the history of political thought into conversation with contemporary debates in political theory, Damn Great Empires! offers a fresh and original reexamination of the political consequences of pragmatism as a public philosophy. (shrink)

William James’s religious writing displays a therapeutic concern for two key social problems: an epidemic of suicide among educated Victorians who worried that a scientific worldview left no room for God; and material poverty and bleak employment prospects for others. James sought a conception of God that would therapeutically comfort his melancholic peers while also girding them to fight for better social conditions—a fight he associated with political anarchism. What is perhaps most unique about James’s approach to religion emerges when (...) we consider the relationship of his therapeutic project to his treatment of religious epistemology. For James took his suicidal peers to need more than tea and sympathy. They needed to be convinced, through rational argument, that religious faith is epistemically permissible in light of their methodological naturalism. That is to say that theoretic success in James’s treatment of religion is to be measured by therapeutic success. His argument for epistemic permissibility began by treating religious faith as a “hypothesis.” He took naturalism to permit entertaining a hypothesis just in case it is testable, and not contravened by available evidence. So he developed a distinctive conception of God—what he called the “pluralistic hypothesis”—that proposed a plurality of independent entities in the universe, only one of which is God. In contrast to the monistic hypothesis, pluralism is empirically testable in principle. But crucially, the hypothesis is underdetermined by any evidence available now. This purported, in-principle testability would make religious pluralism epistemically permissible to entertain. And since salvation is possible on this view without being guaranteed, the pluralistic hypothesis stands to discourage social and political quietism. (shrink)

This thesis concerns the relation between the fundamental properties and the powers they confer. The views considered are introduced in terms of their acceptance or rejection of the quiddistic thesis. Essentially the quiddistic thesis claims that properties confer the powers they do neither necessarily nor sufficiently. Quidditism is the view that accepts the quiddistic thesis. The other two views to be considered, the pure powers view and the grounded view reject the quiddistic thesis. The pure powers view supports its denial (...) of the quiddistic thesis with the claim that properties consist in conferring the powers they do; the possession of a property just is the possession of a power. The grounded view, the positive view of this thesis, rejects the idea that properties are constituted by conferring the causal powers they do. Rather on the grounded view, it is the natures of the fundamental properties that metaphysically explain why they confer the powers they do. (shrink)

A collection of essays by Alexander Rosenberg, the distinguished philosopher of science. The essays cover three broad areas related to Darwinian thought and naturalism: the first deals with the solution of philosophical problems such as reductionism, the second with the development of social theories, and the third with the intersection of evolutionary biology with economics, political philosophy, and public policy. Specific papers deal with naturalistic epistemology, the limits of reductionism, the biological justification of ethics, the so-called 'trolley problem' in (...) moral philosophy, the political philosophy of biological endowments, and the Human Genome Project and its implications for policy. Rosenberg's important writings on a variety of issues are here organized into a coherent philosophical framework which promises to be a significant and controversial contribution to scholarship in many areas. (shrink)

Semantic realism, as I shall understand it it in this paper, is the combination of the views that sentential understanding is constituted by grasp of truth conditions and that the notion of truth which figures therein is essentially epistemically unconstrained. In a single slogan, understanding a sentence consists in some cases in grasp of potentially recognition-transcendent truth conditions. For example, a semantic realist about the past holds that our understanding of 'Caesar sneezed fifteen times on his 19th birthday' consists in (...) grasp of its truth condition, where this is capable of obtaining even though there is no guarantee that we shall be able, even in principle, to recognize that that is so. (shrink)