We call affective brainocentrism the tendency to privilege the brain over other parts of the organism when defining or explaining emotions. We distinguish two versions of this tendency. According to brain-sufficient, emotional states are entirely realized by brain processes. According to brain-master, emotional states are realized by both brain and bodily processes, but the latter are entirely driven by the brain: the brain is the master regulator of bodily processes. We argue that both these claims are problematic, and we draw (...) on physiological accounts of stress to make our main case. These accounts illustrate the existence of complex interactions between the brain and endocrine systems, the immune system, the enteric nervous system, and even gut microbiota. We argue that, because of these complex brain–body interactions, the brain cannot be isolated and identified as the basis of stress. We also mention recent evidence suggesting that complex brain–body interactions characterize the physiology of depression and anxiety. Finally, we call for an alternative dynamical, systemic, and embodied approach to the study of the physiology of emotions that does not privilege the brain, but rather aims at understanding how mutually regulating brain and bodily processes jointly realize a variety of emotional states. (shrink)

Temas aristotélicos en La determinación autoperceptiva de la Nada, de Nishida Kitarô Resumen: El texto que ahora presento es un examen del diálogo continuado de Nishida con Aristóteles según lo podemos ver en el volumen VI de las Obras completas de Nishida Kitarô. El resultado nos permite ver la especial atención que en 1932 Nishida presta a cinco temas básicos que se desarrollan en 16 puntos de la siguiente manera: la expresión, la autopercepción, la base del conocimiento, los universales y (...) dos importantes aspectos de la intuición. En este sentido, los contenidos del diálogo nishidiano con Aristóteles en el volumen VI de las Obras completas de Nishida Kitarô, nos remiten al tema del conocimiento. Palabras clave: Aristóteles. Nishida. Diálogo. Autopercepción. Conocimiento. Universal. Some aspects of Nishida’s dialogue with Aristotle: My present text is a study of the continuous dialogue of Nishida with Aristotle as can be seen in volume VI of his Complete Works. As a result, we can see the special attention that in 1932 Nishida gave to five basic themes. I have presented their content under sixteen headings as follows, expression, self-perception, the basis of knowledge, universals, and two important aspects of intuition.As a result, we can see that the contents of Nishida’s dialogue with Aristotle in volume VI of his Complete Works, primarily touches on the theme of knowledge. Keywords: Aristotle. Nishida. Dialogue. Self perception. Knowledge. Universal. Temas aristotélicos em A determinação autoperceptiva do nada, de Nishida Kitarô Resumo: O texto que apresento agora é um exame do diálogo contínuo de Nishida com Aristóteles, como podemos ver no Volume VI das Obras Completas de Nishida Kitarô. O resultado nos permite ver a atenção especial que em 1932 Nishida presta a cinco temas básicos que são desenvolvidos em 16 pontos da seguinte forma: expressão, autopercepção, base de conhecimento. -11), os universais e dois aspectos importantes da intuição. Nesse sentido, o conteúdo do diálogo nishidiano com Aristóteles, no volume VI das obras completas de Nishida Kitarô, remete-nos à questão do conhecimento. Palavras-chave: Aristótles. Nishida. Diálogo. Autopercepção. Conhecimento.Universal. Data de registro: 29/07/2020 Data de aceito: 21/10/2020. (shrink)

Enjoying great popularity in decision theory, epistemology, and philosophy of science, Bayesianism as understood here is fundamentally concerned with epistemically ideal rationality. It assumes a tight connection between evidential probability and ideally rational credence, and usually interprets evidential probability in terms of such credence. Timothy Williamson challenges Bayesianism by arguing that evidential probabilities cannot be adequately interpreted as the credences of an ideal agent. From this and his assumption that evidential probabilities cannot be interpreted as the actual credences of human (...) agents either, he concludes that no interpretation of evidential probabilities in terms of credence is adequate. I argue to the contrary. My overarching aim is to show on behalf of Bayesians how one can still interpret evidential probabilities in terms of ideally rational credence and how one can maintain a tight connection between evidential probabilities and ideally rational credence even if the former cannot be interpreted in terms of the latter. By achieving this aim I illuminate the limits and prospects of Bayesianism. (shrink)

How should an agent revise her epistemic state in the light of doxastic disagreement? The problems associated with answering this question arise under the assumption that an agent’s epistemic state is best represented by her degree of belief function alone. We argue that for modeling cases of doxastic disagreement an agent’s epistemic state is best represented by her confirmation commitments and the evidence available to her. Finally, we argue that given this position it is possible to provide an adequate answer (...) to the question of how to rationally revise one’s epistemic state in the light of disagreement. (shrink)

A characterization of epistemic rationality, or epistemic justification, is typically taken to require a process of conceptual clarification, and is seen as comprising the core of a theory of (epistemic) rationality. I propose to explicate the concept of rationality. -/- It is essential, I argue, that the normativity of rationality, and the purpose, or goal, for which the particular theory of rationality is being proposed, is taken into account when explicating the concept of rationality. My position thus amounts to an (...) instrumentalist position about theories of epistemic rationality. Since there are different purposes, or goals, for which theories of rationality are proposed, the method of explication leaves room for different characterizations of rationality. I focus on two such (kinds of) purposes: first, the purpose of guiding the formation (or maintenance) of doxastic states and, second, the purpose of assessing (the formation or maintenance of) doxastic states. I conclude by outlining a pluralistic picture concerning rationality. (shrink)

Scholars have debated the role that altruistic considerations play?and should play?in recruitment and decision-making processes for clinical trials. Little empirical data are available to support their various perspectives. We analyzed 140 audiotaped pediatric informed consent sessions, of which 95 (68%) included at least one discussion of how participation in a cancer clinical trial might benefit: 1) the pursuit of scientific knowledge generally; 2) other children with cancer specifically; and 3) ?the future? and other vaguely defined recipients. Clinicians initiated most (80%) (...) of these discussions of altruism. The enrollment rate of children in the clinical trial was high (83%) overall, but not higher among children whose parents were involved in an altruism-oriented discussion. These findings suggest that: (1) clinicians invoke a spectrum of altruistic considerations rather than a single monothematic notion of altruism, and (2) the effect of altruistic considerations on subsequent enrollment decisions is marginal. While further research on this topic is warranted, bioethical debate should strive to reflect the diversity of altruistic discourse in clinical research encounters and to place this discourse in the context of other, including nonaltruistic, considerations. (shrink)

Ésta es una contribución al debate originado por Guillermo Hurtado y proseguido por Manuel García-Carpintero y Horacio Luján Martínez, con relación al sentido y a los objetivos de la filosofía analítica, especialmente en Iberoamérica. En ella se defiende que las tesis de Hurtado también se pueden aplicar al cultivo de filosofías no analíticas, pues en realidad conciernen a la filosofía profesional que se practica dentro y fuera de Iberoamérica. Se sostiene, además, que si bien la profesionalización y la masificación de (...) la filosofía son fenómenos en sí mismos positivos, tienen consecuencias colaterales negativas respecto de la calidad de la filosofía que se produce. También se aduce que el que una propuesta filosófica no tenga una inmediata relevancia existencial o política no la hace menos importante, siempre que en algún sentido amplíe las fronteras del conocimiento. This is a commentary on a debate originated by Guillermo Hurtado and followed up by Manuel García-Carpintero and Horacio Luján Martínez, in regards to the meaning and objectives of analytic philosophy, especially in Latin America. This paper holds that Hurtado's theses are also true about non analytic philosophy, since they are about professional philosophy, as practiced both inside and outside Latin America. Professionalization and popularization of philosophy, while positive phenomena in themselves, have negative collateral consequences on the quality of philosophy produced in the present moment. it is also held that the fact that a given philosophical proposal has no immediate existential or political relevance doesn't make it less important, as long as in some sense it widens the frontiers of knowledge. (shrink)

The article investigates one of the key contributions to modern structural mathematics, namely Hilbert’sFoundations of Geometry and its mathematical roots in nineteenth-century projective geometry. A central innovation of Hilbert’s book was to provide semantically minded independence proofs for various fragments of Euclidean geometry, thereby contributing to the development of the model-theoretic point of view in logical theory. Though it is generally acknowledged that the development of model theory is intimately bound up with innovations in 19th century geometry, so far, little (...) has been said about how exactly model-theoretic concepts grew out of methodological investigations within projective geometry. This article is supposed to fill this lacuna and investigates this geometrical prehistory of modern model theory, eventually leading up to Hilbert’sFoundations. (shrink)

Societies change; and sociology has, since its inception, described and evaluated these changes. This article proposes a revised theory of collective learning processes, a conceptual framework which addresses ways in which people make sense of and cope with change. Drawing on Habermas’ classic proposal, but shifting the focus from argumentation towards storytelling, it explains how certain articulations allow for collective learning processes, while others block learning processes. More specifically, the article points to narrative genres which organize feelings and shape the (...) social bond, proposing that ironic and tragic stories have the potential to trigger collective learning processes, while romantic and comic stories tend to block them. (shrink)

In everyday life and in science we acquire evidence of evidence and based on this new evidence we often change our epistemic states. An assumption underlying such practice is that the following EEE Slogan is correct: 'evidence of evidence is evidence' (Feldman 2007, p. 208). We suggest that evidence of evidence is best understood as higher-order evidence about the epistemic state of agents. In order to model evidence of evidence we introduce a new powerful framework for modelling epistemic states, Dyadic (...) Bayesianism. Based on this framework, we then discuss characterizations of evidence of evidence and argue for one of them. Finally, we show that whether the EEE Slogan holds, depends on the specific kind of evidence of evidence. (shrink)

Não apenas uma vez Nietzsche escreve que o mundo, junto com tudo que nele há, é tão somente vontade de poder. Por meio dessa teoria ele pensa os diversos níveis da existência, indo desde elementos ínfimos e simples até estruturas complexas, com elevado grau de refinamento. Tudo não passa, segundo esse filósofo, do desenrolar de forças em jogo agonístico por um algo a mais de poder. Neste artigo nós analisamos alguns aspectos da teoria da vontade de poder para mostrar como (...) Nietzsche faz uso de um mesmo arranjo conceitual para qualificar toda a existência. Assim, tanto o microscópico quanto o macroscópico, tanto o orgânico quanto o inorgânico, são tomados como exemplos de entes que, não obstante suas diferenças, são todos vontades de poder. (shrink)

Four experiments demonstrate category congruency priming by subliminal prime words that were never seen as targets in a valence-classification task and a gender-classification task . In Experiment 1, overlap in terms of word fragments of one or more letters between primes and targets of different valences was larger than between primes and targets of the same valence. In Experiments 2 and 3, the sets of prime words and target words were completely disjoint in terms of used letters. In Experiment 4, (...) pictures served as targets. The observed subliminal priming effects for novel primes cannot be driven by partial analysis of primes at the word-fragment level; they suggest instead that primes were processed semantically as whole words contingent upon prime duration. (shrink)

This article deals with the concepts, processes, and antagonisms that are associated with the notion of postsecularity. In light of this article’s expanded interpretation of José Casanova on the secular and secularization, as well as thoughts on James A. Beckford’s take on public religions, five rubrics on the postsecular derived from critical theory and an understanding of ‘reflexive secularization’ are presented. This term focuses on secularization processes and how these practices unleash complementary as well as antagonistic tendencies, a confrontation of (...) normativities and specific social-empirical challenges. From this basis it is argued that social-empirical analysis should focus on non-naturalistic relations between individuals occupying structurally equivalent positions in narrative networks. A plurality of normativities are seriously considered as ideas circulating through social relations where the critical competence of the participants of such communication processes are provoked to subvert anything – including any normative positionality – as taken for granted. Moves towards the decolonization of the secular/postsecular dyad are emphasized, with ramifications for thinking about the urban, which point to the universal and authentic foundations of the human condition that are brought into play. (shrink)

This article reviews evidence suggesting that the cause of approach and avoidance behavior lies not so much in the presence (i.e., the stimulus) but, rather, in the behavior’s anticipated future consequences (i.e., the goal): Approach is motivated by the goal to produce a desired consequence or end-state, while avoidance is motivated by the goal to prevent an undesired consequence or end-state. However, even though approach and avoidance are controlled by goals rather than stimuli, affective stimuli can influence action control by (...) priming associated goals. An integrative ideomotor model of approach and avoidance is presented and discussed. (shrink)

In the literature, one finds two accounts of the normative status of rational belief: the ought account and the permissibility account. Both accounts have their advantages and shortcomings, making it difficult to favour one over the other. Imagine that there were two principles of rational belief or rational degrees of belief commonly considered plausible, but which, however, yielded a paradox together with one account, but not with the other. One of the accounts therefore requires us to give up one of (...) the plausible principles; whereas the other allows us to save them both. The fact that it allows us to save both of the plausible principles might well be considered a strong reason in favour of the relevant account. The permissibility-account-based resolution of the lottery paradox suggests that the permissibility account is a candidate for being supported in this way, since the account seems to save two plausible principles of rational belief and rational degrees of belief. I argue that even if the permissibility account were supported in this way the support would be defeated, since one cannot provide an analogous resolution of the preface paradox. The principles remain unsaved by the permissibility account. (shrink)

The paper is concerned with Quine's substitutional account of logical truth. The critique of Quine's definition tends to focus on miscellaneous odds and ends, such as problems with identity. However, in an appendix to his influential article On Second Order Logic, George Boolos offered an ingenious argument that seems to diminish Quine's account of logical truth on a deeper level. In the article he shows that Quine's substitutional account of logical truth cannot be generalized properly to the general concept of (...) logical consequence. The purpose of this paper is threefold: first, to introduce the reader to the metamathematics of Quine's substitutional definition of logical truth; second, to make Boolos' result accessible to a broader audience by giving a detailed and self-contained presentation of his proof; and, finally, to discuss some of the possible implications and how a defender of the Quinean concepts might react to the challenge posed by Boolos' result. (shrink)

El presente artículo tiene como objetivo invitar a reflexionar sobre la obra de una filósofa que representa uno de los pensamientos más originales del quehacer filosófico español: María Zambrano. Sus planteamientos en torno a la crítica cultural y género, la crítica al pensamiento moderno, son en sí, una clara crítica a la razón patriarcal. Repensar el quehacer político-práctico de María Zambrano como una figura de la emancipación nos permitirá entender nuestro propio presente.

When members of a group doxastically disagree with each other, decisions in the group are often hard to make. The members are supposed to find an epistemic compromise. How do members of a group reach a rational epistemic compromise on a proposition when they have different (rational) credences in the proposition? I answer the question by suggesting the Fine-Grained Method of Aggregation, which is introduced in Brössel and Eder 2014 and is further developed here. I show how this method (...) faces challenges of the standard method of aggregation, Weighted Straight Averaging, in a successful way. One of the challenges concerns the fact that Weighted Straight Averaging does not respect the evidential states of agents. Another challenge arises because Weighted Straight Averaging does not account for synergetic effects. (shrink)

Resumo Estabelecida em Assim falava Zaratustra, a associação dos conceitos de vida, valor e vontade de potência se revela rica em consequências para o pensamento de Nietzsche. Nosso objetivo é investigar como essas noções operam na sintomatologia nietzschiana, procedimento que consiste em avaliar o valor dos valores, tomando-os como sinais de vida ascendente ou decadente. Esperamos mostrar que um modo de estimar valores só é considerado superior se traduz uma afirmação da concepção nietzschiana de vida ascendente. Por fim, contamos sustentar (...) que esse critério para avaliar o valor dos valores implica, ele mesmo, valores, o que o torna injusto.The association of notions of life, value and will to power established in Nietzsche’s Thus Spoke Zarathustra reveals a great amount of consequences to the author’s philosophy. In this paper we propose to investigate how these concepts constitute a necessary condition for the Nietzschean symptomatology, which is a procedure that evaluates the value of the values, considering them as signs of an ascending or declining life. Furthermore, we attempt to demonstrate that the values may solely be regarded as superior and ascending if they translate an affirmation of the Nietzschean conception of ascending life. Finally, this study will support the idea that the criterion to evaluate the values itself implies other values, which renders it unjust. (shrink)

RESUMO: Partindo de avaliações retrospectivas de Horkheimer sobre seu percurso intelectual, procuramos mostrar que tanto Schopenhauer quanto Marx constituem uma influência permanente na obra do fundador da teoria crítica: com efeito, a maior evidência de um dos dois autores em certo momento da trajetória de Horkheimer não implica o desaparecimento do outro, mas antes o pressupõe como fundamento, ainda que latente. É que, embora estabeleça uma interlocução com cada um deles considerado isoladamente, o determinante, a nosso ver, é a leitura (...) conjugada que Horkheimer realiza de ambos: por incompatíveis que pareçam, as esperanças de racionalização e emancipação sociais inspiradas em Marx e o pessimismo de Schopenhauer relacionam-se intrinsecamente, donde resultam um materialismo necessariamente pessimista e um pessimismo necessariamente materialista. Pretendemos evidenciar, porém, que, em virtude do modo pelo qual Horkheimer dialoga com a tradição filosófica, bem como em razão de mudanças de configuração histórica e, por conseguinte, teórica, a relação entre o pessimismo de Schopenhauer e o anseio emancipatório animado por Marx assume aspectos diversos e nuançados no decurso de sua obra. ABSTRACT: Starting from Horkheimer's retrospective evaluations on his intellectual trajectory, we try to show that both Schopenhauer and Marx are a permanent influence in his work: indeed, the major evidence of one of the two authors at one point in Horkheimer's trajectory does not imply the disappearance of the other one, but rather presupposes him as a basis, even though latent. For although Horkheimer dialogues with each of them separately, what is determining, in our view, is the combined reading that he performs of both: the social rationalization and the emancipation hopes inspired by Marx and the Schopenhauer's pessimism, even though they may seem incompatible, are intrinsically connected, so that there are a necessarily pessimistic materialism and a necessarily materialist pessimism. We intend to evidence, however, that because of the way Horkheimer dialogues with the philosophical tradition and because of the historical and therefore theoretical changes, the relationship between Schopenhauer's pessimism and the aspiration to emancipation inspired by Marx takes on different aspects and nuances in the course of his work. (shrink)

In a series of articles dating from 1903 to 1906, Frege criticizes Hilbert’s methodology of proving the independence and consistency of various fragments of Euclidean geometry in his Foundations of Geometry. In the final part of the last article, Frege makes his own proposal as to how the independence of genuine axioms should be proved. Frege contends that independence proofs require the development of a ‘new science’ with its own basic truths. This paper aims to provide a reconstruction of this (...) New Science that meets modern standards and to examine possible problems surrounding Frege’s original proposal. The paper is organized as follows: the first two sections summarize the main points of the Frege–Hilbert controversy and discuss some issues surrounding the problem of independence proofs. Section 3 contains an informal presentation of Frege’s proposal. In section 4 a more detailed reconstruction of Frege’s New Science is set out while section 5 examines what is left out. The concluding section is devoted to a discussion of Frege’s strategy and its significance from a broader perspective. (shrink)

Pretende-se mostrar, a partir do pensamento de Keiji Nishitani, os pressupostos para a discussão sobre o “vazio-saber” e que passa pela questão do niilismo e da vacuidade em sua filosofia. O problema do niilismo em Nishitani, diferente da perspectiva adotada pelos filósofos ocidentais, não está ligada à ideia de que o Eu frente ao Nada perde seus fundamentos e sua existência, deixando de ter sentido. Pelo contrário, é no encontro com o Nada que o homem pode descobrir e entrar em (...) contato com sua verdadeira essência, uma vez que, é nesse encontro que sua existência se revela. Isso só seria possível caso o Eu realizasse um processo de auto abertura, um salto para dentro da Vacuidade, para que aí sua verdadeira face se revele e ele possa encontrar seu verdadeiro ser. Pretende-se desenvolver esses desdobramentos ao longo do artigo. (shrink)

There is consensus among emotion scientists that emotions can be powerful motivators of actions. However, little progress has been made so far in the scientific study of that relation. The main reason for this disappointing state of affairs lies, in my view, in an overly simplistic “boxology” that treats actions as outputs of emotional stimulations. A promising way out of this situation is an interdisciplinary approach that connects emotion sciences with theories in motivation and action sciences—an emerging field that I (...) call “emotional action sciences.”. (shrink)

Resumo: Este artigo tem por intenção mostrar que o conceito de angústia da psicanálise de Freud consegue avançar apenas na investigação de uma angústia do ser, ou seja, trata da angústia do homem enquanto um ente do mundo. Em contrapartida, procuraremos mostrar que o estudo das angústias impensáveis por parte de Winnicott se preocupa com a questão de como o homem chega a ser um ente no mundo. O resultado da distinção paradigmática entre as duas teorias psicanalíticas para a angústia (...) pode ser iluminada quando se toma como apoio a fenomenologia existencial de Martin Heidegger. Palavras-chaves: Angústia, castração, fenomenologia existencial, Winnicott: This article is intended to show that the concept of anxiety by Freud's psychoanalysis can only be developed in the investigation of an anxiety of being, i.e., it deals with the anxiety of man as a being in the world. In contrast, we aim to demonstrate that the study of unthinkable anxiety by Winnicott is concerned with the question of how man comes to be a being in the world. The result of the pragmatic distinction between the two psychoanalytic theories of anxiety may be elucidated by taking Martin Heidegger's existential phenomenology as a support. Keywords: Anxiety, castration, existential phenomenology, Winnicott. (shrink)