The Parmenidean Ascent is a full-throated and wide-ranging defense of an extreme form of monism or the denial of all distinctions, a form of monism rarely seen since the time of the pre-Socratic philosopher, Parmenides. At once historically sensitive and deeply engaged with trends in recent and contemporary metaphysics, philosophy of action, epistemology, and philosophy of language, The Parmenidean Ascent aims, on rationalist grounds and in a skeptical spirit, to challenge the content of-and to overturn the methods of much of (...) contemporary philosophy. (shrink)

Gregory Rocca's nuanced discussion prevents Aquinas's thought from being capsulized in familiar slogans and is an antidote to unilateralist or monochrome views about God-talk.

This paper critically examines a prominent and perennial strategy—found in thinkers as diverse as Kant and Shamik Dasgupta—of simultaneously embracing the Principle of Sufficient Reason and also limiting it so as to avoid certain apparently negative consequences of an unrestricted PSR. I will argue that this strategy of taming the PSR faces significant challenges and may even be incoherent. And for my purposes, I will enlist a generally derided argument by Leibniz for the PSR which will help us to see (...) the connections between the PSR and a radical form of monism. (shrink)

This first extensive study of Spinoza's philosophy of mind concentrates on two problems crucial to the philosopher's thoughts on the matter: the requirements for having a thought about a particular object, and the problem of the mind's relation to the body. Della Rocca contends that Spinoza's positions are systematically connected with each other and with a principle at the heart of his metaphysical system: his denial of causal or explanatory relations between the mental and the physical. In this way, (...) Della Rocca's exploration of these two problems provides a new and illuminating perspective on Spinoza's philosophy as a system. (shrink)

This study assessed whether real-life stimulus material can elicit conscious and unconscious priming. A typical masked priming paradigm was used, with brand logo primes. We used a rigorous method to assess participants’ awareness of the subliminal information. Our results show that shortly presented and masked brand logos have the power to prime their brand names and, remarkably, words associated to the brand . However, this only occurred when the logos could be categorized clearly above the consciousness threshold. Once the primes (...) were presented close to the consciousness threshold, no subliminal influences on behavior were observed. (shrink)

En Italie, bien que le secteur masculin se soit continuellement développé (en atteignant son point d’orgue avec le fascisme), l’éducation physique féminine a rencontré des difficultés à être mise en œuvre dans un pays profondément pénétré de traditionalisme, de religiosité et de misogynie. Jusqu’à l’évènement de la révolution fasciste, a plupart des Italiens croyaient à l’infériorité physique et mentale des femmes et les pionnières du sport féminin étaient ridiculisées ou perçues avec suspicion. Le régime mussolinien a promu l’émancipation sociale des (...) Italiennes à contrecœur grâce à un programme d’activités physiques extensif et fortement organisé. Dans ces années, un corps féminin bien entraîné n’était pas seulement une forme d’expression de la modernité fasciste, mais aussi un moyen essentiel d’accroître aussi bien la démographie que la santé de la population. Les initiatives sportives féminines étaient également considérées comme une bonne manière d’afficher aux yeux du monde l’image d’une nation forte peuplée de citoyens physiquement et moralement robustes. Alors que l’esthétique du corps mâle idéal était clairement incarnée par Mussolini – l’exemple vivant de la virilité athlétique fasciste – le modèle idéal de féminité fasciste était moins figé dans la mesure où il a connu plusieurs transformations résultant de conceptions contradictoires et d’options politiques différentes. (shrink)

A pandemia da covid-19 talvez tenha se tornado o principal desafio global da atualidade – e não mais uma especulação ou expectativa. Na Itália, onde atualmente realizo estágio doutoral, a crise sanitária superou as piores previsões, vitimando mais civis que na Segunda Guerra. Como mulher e estrangeira experienciando outra cultura e seus códigos, proponho pensar sobre a crise italiana do coronavírus, guiando-me por epistemologias feministas que permitem compreender esta experiência e suas implicações – como a perspectiva da filósofa Chiara Zamboni (...) (2009) do pensar em presença, convidando as mulheres a tecer suas reflexões por suas próprias experiências, e a da feminista negra Patricia Hill Collins (2016), seu conceito de outsider within e sua “ética do cuidar”. Reflito, assim, sobre as oportunidades que os desafios atuais nos oferecem, tanto para enxergarmos as diferentes situações de vulnerabilidade social na crise, como para disseminarmos a importância revolucionária de cuidar verdadeiramente de todas e todos nós. (shrink)

El presente ensayo se ocupa de una de las obras capitales de Rorty –Contingencia, ironía y solidaridad– en la que es posible encontrar las claves de su pensamiento ético y político. El sujeto de Rorty es “el ironista”, los ciudadanos de su sociedad liberal son quienes perciben la contingencia de su lenguaje de deliberación moral, aquella serie de palabras que le permiten justificar sus acciones, creencias y vida. Estas son las palabras con las que narramos prospectiva o retrospectivamente nuestras vidas, (...) un léxico último. Desde el neo-pragmatismo de Rorty se muestran las condiciones que han hecho posible que las sociedades se consideren a sí mismas como contingencias históricas antes que como expresiones de una subyacente naturaleza ahistórica o, si se quiere, realizaciones de metas suprahistóricas. Rorty sostiene que es en realidad la literatura, y no la filosofía, la que puede promover un sentido genuino de la solidaridad humana; esto a partir de la lectura de novelistas como Orwell y Nabokov. Se busca la descripción ya no de formulaciones abstractas, sino de experiencias humanas concretas, como el dolor o la traición, las que al ser compartidas, generen la necesaria empatía desde la cual se geste la solidaridad y la compasión. (shrink)

This paper defends an interpretation of Descartes according to which he sees us as having normative (and not merely psychological) certainty of all clear and distinct ideas during the period in which they are apprehended clearly and distinctly. However, on this view, a retrospective doubt about clear and distinct ideas is possible. This interpretation allows Descartes to avoid the Cartesian Circle in an effective way and also shows that Descartes is surprisingly, in some respects, an epistemological externalist. The paper goes (...) on to defend this interpretation against some powerful philosophical objections by Margaret Wilson and others by showing how Descartes' doctrine of the creation of the eternal truths can be brought in to support his epistemology. This doctrine and other analogous positions in Descartes can also reveal that Descartes, again surprisingly, takes important steps toward doing epistemology without direct appeal to God and God's veracity. (shrink)

With the Science of Logic, Hegel poses a radical challenge to philosophy: a self-presentation of thought that, by not assuming anything outside itself, achieves its self-knowledge. From the possibility of such a project depends that of the autonomy of thought, that is, of a thought that gives itself its own law.Some classical readings consider this enterprise to be unsuccesful or not to be fully accomplished in the Logic. According to Dieter Henrich, Hegel's Logic would fall into a circle, because would (...) be burdened by the presupposition of the structure of thought itself, which should rather result from the logical process. For Robert B. Pippin or Terry Pinkard, instead, the instance of autonomy of thought would be realized not in the logic, but only at the level of the spirit.In contrast to such interpretations, we will try to show that precisely in the Logic the thought determines itself as autonomous. In its self-presentation thought, that has itself as its object, produces its own structures, which are not prior to the movement. And once it has come to know itself as such a process, thought ceases to presuppose itself as an object and poses its own form for itself. (shrink)

Resumen: El discurso de la economía ha transitado por una tensión entre pertenecer a una Ciencia Social y presentar rasgos prototípicos de una Ciencia Básica. Ahora bien, evidenciar esta hibridez desafía a los investigadores del lenguaje, sobre todo si estos textos son parte de la formación de un economista. Particularmente, el Informe de Política Monetaria no ha sido estudiado desde el punto de vista lingüístico, por lo que se busca observar, en un corpus de 45 textos, si el género IPOM (...) evidencia dicha tensión discursiva de la disciplina. Para lograr ese objetivo, se ha optado por una metodología basada en dos dimensiones: Contexto de Producción y Organización Retórico-Funcional. Tras el análisis, los hallazgos del corpus IPOM-2013 integradamente muestran que el género IPOM efectivamente evidencia dicha tensión con rasgos más características de la CB como es el uso de recursos matemáticos y, por otro lado, rasgos de la CS, asociados a la modalización del discurso en su macromovida central.: The discourse of economy has gone by a constant tension between belonging to a Social Science and present prototypical features of a Basic Science. However, evidence this hybridity poses a challenge for researchers of language, especially if these texts are part of the training of an economist. In particular, the Monetary Policy Report has not been studied from the linguistic point of view. In this context, this research search to answer the question whether the gender IPOM evidences such discursive tension of the discipline. To achieve this objective, it has opted for a methodology based on 2 dimensions: Production Context and Rhetorical-Functional Organization. After the analysis, the findings Integrally shows that the IPOM genre effectively demonstrates this tension with features more characteristic of the BS such as the use of mathematical resources and, on the other hand, SC traits, mainly associated to the modalization of the discourse in its central macromove. (shrink)

This paper presents an argument for the Principle of Sufficient Reason, the PSR, the principle according to which each thing that exists has an explanation. I begin with several widespread and extremely plausible arguments that I call explicability arguments in which a certain situation is rejected precisely because it would be arbitrary. Building on these plausible cases, I construct a series of explicability arguments that culminates in an explicability argument concerning existence itself. This argument amounts to the claim that the (...) PSR is true. The plausibility of the initial cases in the series provides the basis of an argument for the PSR, an argument that can be rebutted only by drawing a line between the plausible early cases in the series and the apparently unacceptable later cases. I argue that no principled reason for drawing this line has been found and that one cannot draw an unprincipled or arbitrary line without begging the question. The paper concludes that, therefore, this defense of the PSR remains unrebutted and that we have a powerful, new reason to embrace the PSR. (shrink)

European Journal of Philosophy, Volume 30, Issue 2, Page 565-577, June 2022.

in his characteristically generous and searching discussion of my book, Spinoza, Daniel Garber rightly points out that I structure my interpretation of Spinoza’s system around the principle of sufficient reason. This is the principle that, as I and others sometimes put it, each fact has an explanation and is thus not brute, or the principle that each thing has an explanation. The ‘or’ will soon be important. Indeed, it might seem that I am too focused on the PSR—certainly I seem (...) that way to Garber1—for I seek to use the PSR to unlock any number of problems that interpreters of Spinoza have faced over the last three centuries. Garber does a great job of conveying the range of uses to which I put the PSR.. (shrink)

This paper offers a defense of a much-maligned Leibnizian argument for the Principle of Sufficient Reason, the principle according to which whatever is has a sufficient reason or explanation. While Leibniz’s argument is widely thought to rely on a question-begging premise, the paper offers a wholly original and non-question-begging defense of that premise, a defense that Leibniz did not anticipate. The paper does not present this defense of Leibniz's argument as an interpretation of Leibniz; rather, the paper—more modestly in one (...) way, less modestly in another—simply claims that this argument succeeds. (shrink)

This paper analyzes and evaluates Spinoza way of carrying out his naturalistic program in psychology. I begin by examining Spinoza’s general metaphysical doctrine according to which each thing strives to preserve itself. While this doctrine cannot be true in its unqualified form, it does receive some support from Spinoza’s views on the nature of complex individuals. I then explore the problematic way in which Spinoza applies the doctrine of self -preservation to human psychology. The paper goes on the investigate the (...) naturalistic character of Spinoza’s views on such topics as irrational action, prudence, altruism, mental causation and the nature and classification of affects. (shrink)

This chapter contains section titled: The Strategy of Meditation IV Believing at Will Freedom Believing as We Should and a Cartesian Circle.

Resumen: Este trabajo ofrece evidencia empírica a la premisa que sostiene que el acercamiento teórico y metodológico de la Lingüística al estudio de géneros del ámbito profesional, no ha tenido el mismo énfasis que el académico (Cassany y López, 2011; Montolío & López, 2010; Autor, 2016; Lillis, 2021). En este sentido, el objetivo de esta investigación fue describir el estudio de los géneros profesionales entre 2008 y 2017 en las 10 principales revistas de Lingüística en América Latina. Para ello se (...) utilizó un enfoque mixto en un corpus de 1.729 publicaciones. Los resultados indican que solo el 1,85% de los estudios abordan géneros profesionales, principalmente, acerca de Artículos de Investigación Científica (36,3%), Sentencias Judiciales (27,2%) y Noticias (18,1%), lo que evidencia un reto pendiente que tiene hasta hoy la Lingüística. Abstract: This paper provides empirical evidence to the premise that the theoretical and methodological approach of Linguistics to the study of genres of the professional field has not had the same emphasis as the academics ones (Cassany & López, 2011; Montolío & López, 2010; Author, 2006, Lillis, 2021). In this sense, the objective of this research was to describe the study of professional genres between 2008 and 2017 in the 10 leading journals of Linguistics in Latin America. For this, a mixed approach was used in a corpus of 1,729 publications. The results indicate that only 1.85% of the researchs analizes professional genres, mainly about Articles of Scientific Research (36.3%), Judicial Sentences (27.2%) and News (18.1%), which evidences a pending challenge in Linguistics. (shrink)

Rationalism is the thesis that the world and all the things in the world are intelligible, through and through. Nothing happens for no reason. On the contrary, whatever takes place, whatever exists, takes place or exists for a reason. Everything. On this view there are no brute facts. Each thing that exists has a reason that is sufficient for explaining the existence of the thing. According to perhaps the most extreme implication of this view, even the world itself, the totality (...) of all that exists, exists for a reason, has an explanation. Many philosophers today think that rationalism is a crazy view. However, this paper argues in support of rationalism, and explores its implications. (shrink)

The introduction of Linear Logic extends the Curry-Howard Isomorphism to intensional aspects of the typed functional programming. In particular, every formula of Linear Logic tells whether the term it is a type for, can be either erased/duplicated or not, during a computation. So, Linear Logic can be seen as a model of a computational environment with an explicit control about the management of resources.This paper introduces a typed functional language Λ! and a categorical model for it.The terms of Λ! encode (...) a version of natural deduction for Intuitionistic Linear Logic such that linear and non linear assumptions are managed multiplicatively and additively, respectively. Correspondingly, the terms of Λ! are built out of two disjoint sets of variables. Moreover, the λ-abstractions of Λ! bind variables and patterns. The use of two different kinds of variables and the patterns allow a very compact definition of the one-step operational semantics of Λ!, unlike all other extensions of Curry-Howard Isomorphism to Intuitionistic Linear Logic. The language Λ! is Church-Rosser and enjoys both Strong Normalizability and Subject Reduction.The categorical model induces operational equivalences like, for example, a set of extensional equivalences.The paper presents also an untyped version of Λ! and a type assignment for it, using formulas of Linear Logic as types. The type assignment inherits from Λ! all the good computational properties and enjoys also the Principal-Type Property. (shrink)

This study shows how three Chilean media construct in their discourse the social actor ‘secondary students’, in a multimodal way. It focuses on the representation of Televisión Nacional de Chile (also known as TVN), El Dínamo and El Ciudadano of this social group which is often suppressed suppressed from the media sphere. It is a qualitative study with a social semiotic approach, following the guidelines of Visual Grammar and the typology of representation of social actors by van Leeuwen (2003). The (...) corpus comprised 15 multimodal texts of 2018 compiled from internet sites, which constitute a semiotic chain of a news event about education. The results suggest that TVN creates the meaning of an ‘aggressor student’, El Dínamo as a ‘student to be reformed’; whereas El Ciudadano, represents him as a social actor who is an ‘active participant’. (shrink)

Spinoza ' s understanding and understanding Spinoza -- Spinoza ' s understanding -- Understanding Spinoza -- The metaphysics of substance -- Descartes and substance -- Spinoza contra Descartes on substance -- Modes -- Necessitarianism -- The purpose of it all -- The human mind -- Parallelism and representation -- Essence and representation -- Parallelism and mind - body identity -- The idea of the human body -- The pancreas problem, the pan problem, and panpsychism -- Nothing but representation -- Representation, (...) will, and belief -- Skepticism -- Psychology : striving and self - preservation -- Conatus -- Desire, joy, and sadness -- Love, hate, and all that -- The ethics of the ethics -- The good notion of the good -- The right notion of the right -- Knowledge and morality -- Freedom and morality -- Helping others -- Lies and degrees of freedom -- The state, religion, and scripture -- Rights and power -- Religion and the state -- Scripture -- Prophecy and the truth of the Bible -- From PSR to eternity -- The aftermath of Spinoza -- Leibniz -- Bayle and Hume -- The pantheism controversy -- Hegel -- Nietzsche -- Prospects of spinozistic rationalism. (shrink)

Spinoza's response to a certain radical form of scepticism has deep and surprising roots in his rationalist metaphysics. I argue that Spinoza's commitment to the Principle of Sufficient Reason leads to his naturalistic rejection of certain sharp, inexplicable bifurcations in reality such as the bifurcations that a Cartesian system posits between mind and body and between will and intellect. I show how Spinoza identies and rejects a similar bifurcation between the representational character of ideas or mental states and the epistemic (...) status of these ideas, a bifurcation to which Spinoza sees the radical sceptic committed. Spinoza's rejection of this bifurcation helps to explain some of his most cryptic statements concerning scepticism and also reveals a promising and highly metaphysical strategy for understanding and responding to scepticism. (shrink)