En el año 711 Ṭāriq ibn Ziyād y Mūsà ibn Nuṣayr emprendían la conquista de al-Andalus desde Ifrīqiya. El objeto de este artículo es indagar en los orígenes de ambos personajes a través del estudio de las diferentes noticias que se contienen en las crónicas y los diccionarios biográficos, tanto orientales como occidentales. En el caso de Mūsà, el punto de partida se encuentra en ʿAyn al-Tamr en la orilla derecha del río Éufrates, de donde era originario su padre, para (...) concluir que provenía de un entorno social vinculado a la aristocracia local árabe, primero al servicio de la administración sasánida y luego de la omeya. En cuanto a Ṭāriq, todo apunta a que la relación de walāʾ que le vinculaba con Mūsà ibn Nuṣayr se había constituido en un momento muy anterior a la llegada de este último a Ifrīqiya. Esta constatación, junto con las noticias aportadas por varios informadores, inexplicablemente ignoradas por la historiografía, apunta a descartar el origen norteafricano y bereber de Ṭāriq para situarlo en el ámbito geográfico sasánida. (shrink)

El objetivo de este trabajo es mostrar lo que las investigaciones realizadas desde el ámbito psicológico señalan sobre cómo se sienten las mujeres que sufren violencia en la pareja e inician un procedimiento judicial, incluso antes de interponer la denuncia. Comenzaremos señalando las dif icultades que para las mujeres conlleva denunciar a quien es o ha sido su pareja afectiva, para seguir con un análisis de lo que esperan conseguir con la denuncia, cómo se sienten tratadas en su contacto con (...) el sistema judicial, cómo viven las primeras respuestas obtenidas, especialmente las que conciernen a las Órdenes de Protección, las emociones y expectativas a lo largo del procedimiento judicial, así como la importancia del acompañamiento y asesoramiento especializado. Para f inalizar, resaltaremos la importancia de la especialización de los y las profesionales que intervienen a lo largo del procedimiento judicial. Con dicho conocimiento sobre los aspectos emocionales y comportamentales de estas mujeres que han sufrido violencia y de los motivos que pueden explicarlos, pretendemos contribuir a una mayor comprensión de las mismas que evite la victimización secundaria y el que las mujeres acaben renunciando por una pérdida de conf ianza en el sistema judicial. (shrink)

BackgroundA combination of theoretical and practical approaches is required to learn and acquire ethical competencies in caring. Occasionally, reflection on practical action differs from theoretica...

What role does habit formation play in the development of sport skills? We argue that motor habits are both necessary for and constitutive of sensorimotor skill as they support an automatic, yet inherently intelligent and flexible, form of action control. Intellectualists about skills generally assume that what makes action intelligent and flexible is its intentionality, and that intentionality must be necessarily cognitive in nature to allow for both deliberation and explicit goal-representation. Against Intellectualism we argue that the habitual behaviours that (...) compose skilful action are accompanied by their specific, non-cognitive form of intentionality: this is motor intentionality, which is purposive and adaptive while involving no explicit deliberation or goal representation. Our account of habit based on Motor Intentionality explains why the formation of motor habits can sometimes act as the sole basis of skilful acquisition: Motor Intentionality is inherently purposeful because it is an embodied source of sensorimotor anticipation, pre-reflective motivation, and pragmatic know-how. Skill development through exercise always builds on a motor intentional component even when it is guided by Deliberate Practice to the point that, pace Intellectualism, Deliberate Practice is disclosed, not constrained, by habit formation. As suggested by the fact that repetitive exercises can play a major role in the development of flexible and intelligent sport skills, automatism is not a drawback for strategic control and improvisation but rather their pragmatic foundation. (shrink)

Para Pruitt y Carnevale la negociación es una discusión entre dos o más partes que desean resolver intereses incompatibles. De dicha definición se desprende que el proceso de negociación tiene su razón de ser desde el momento en que las partes quien prolongar la relación que precisamente les ha llevado a la situación de conflicto. Si no existiera la situación conflictiva, no tendría razón de ser el proceso de negociación.

The concept of polarity is pervasive in natural language. It relates syntax, semantics and pragmatics narrowly, Semantics: an international handbook of natural language meaning, De Gruyter Mouton, Berlin, 2011; Israel in The grammar of polarity: pragmatics, sensitivity, and the logic of scales, Cambridge studies in linguistics, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2014), it refers to items of many syntactic categories such as nouns, verbs and adverbs. Neutral polarity items appear in affirmative and negative sentences, negative polarity items cannot appear in affirmative (...) sentences, and positive polarity items cannot appear in negative sentences. A way of reasoning in Natural Language is through Natural Logic. This logic is based on the concept of polarity in order to make the meaning of a sentence weaker o stronger without changing its truth value. There exist many proposals to compute polarity in the Natural Logic context, the most widely known are the ones by: van Benthem, Sánchez-Valencia, Dowty, and van Eijck, 6th international Tbilisi symposium on logic, language, and computation, Batumi, Georgia, Springer, 2007). If Natural Logic is going to be used, as an inferential mechanism between text fragments, in Natural Language Processing applications such as text summarization, question answering, and information extraction, it is a priority to know what the existing relationship among the aforementioned algorithms is; for example, to implement the most general. We show in this paper the equivalence among the analyzed algorithms, filling a gap in Natural Logic research, particularly in computing polarity, and the soundness of their algorithms. (shrink)

The main purpose of this study was to analyze the presence and current situation of the game of skittles throughout the northern route of the Camino de Santiago. Thus, we considered its current practice, modalities, where it is played, and its different manifestations as an informal and formal game, comparing it with other traditional games on this pilgrimage route. To do this, a mixed qualitative-quantitative study was designed with 89 participants, constituting an informant for each municipality through which the Northern (...) Way passes. An ad hoc questionnaire was used for the data collection, which was processed through content analysis by expert judges and by using the IBM-SPSS statistical package. The results of the study show notable skittles activity on the Northern Camino, reflected in the number of skittles alleys, the number of clubs, associations, and peñas participating in federated leagues, and the wide range of varieties of skittles currently active on the Camino. The relationship between skittles and local culture, both symbols of identity in these northern Spanish regions, made it possible to preserve the traditional heritage in these places, keeping it alive today, despite the push toward new and more attractive leisure and sport trends. (shrink)

The application of metacognitive strategies is considered a basic skill of the student at any educational level. In the present study, we evaluate the reduced version of the Metacognitive Awareness of Reading Strategies Inventory in Spanish, a self-report instrument designed to measure the metacognitive awareness of students and their perception of the strategies that they use while they are reading school materials. MARSI-R is formed by three subscales: global reading strategies, problem-solving strategies, and strategies to support reading. We conducted a (...) confirmatory factor analysis in a Spanish student sample and the results shown relative inadequate fit for the proposed theoretical three-factor model. More important, the three subscales presented a high level of inter-correlation, which raises the need to assess to what extent the construct should be considered as unidimensional. We conducted two additional CFA models: a unidimensional model and a bifactor S-1 model, and the results indicated the presence of a strong general factor related to the GRS subscale. These results have important implications, since they imply that it is more appropriate to use the total score of the instrument derived of the S-1 model instead of the scores derived from each subscale. The bifactor S-1 model has allowed us to develop a closer approximation between the psychometric model and the theoretical model. (shrink)

El sufrimiento existencial en el paciente oncológico en estadio avanzado: dimensiones y ejes vertebradores para la intervención psicológica Sofrimento existencial no paciente oncológico em estágio avançado: dimensões e eixos vertebrais para intervenção psicológica The relief of existential suffering in the patients with adavanced cancer is a first-order therapeutic goal. The present work suggests some axis on which psychotherapeutic intervention could be developed, in order to facilitate in these patients: 1) The experience of: In spite of the "existing" limited situation, one's (...) life "still" has meaning, 2) Positive emotional experiences that promote well-being and quality of life, and 3) Face the serious illness that will cause one's almost imminent death, through the development of a serene, reconciled attitude with life and integrating with oneself and the others. Para citar este artículo / To reference this article / Para citar este artigo García-Alandete J, Hernández-Jiménez MJ. El sufrimiento existencial en el paciente oncológico en estadio avanzado: dimensiones y ejes vertebradores para la intervención psicológica. pers. bioét. 2018; 22: 319-330. DOI: 10.5294/pebi.2018.22.2.9. (shrink)

Background: COVID-19 has taken many lives worldwide and due to this, millions of persons are in grief. When the grief process lasts longer than 6 months, the person is in risk of developing Complicated Grief Disorder. The CGD is related to serious health consequences. To reduce the probability of developing CGD a preventive intervention could be applied. In developing countries like Mexico, the psychological services are scarce, self-applied interventions could provide support to solve this problem and reduce the health impact (...) even after the pandemic has already finished.Aims: To design and implement a self-applied intervention composed of 12 modules focused on the decrease of the risk of developing CGD, and increasing the life quality, and as a secondary objective to reduce the symptomatology of anxiety, depression, and increase of sleep quality. The Intervention Duelo COVID follows the principles of User Experience and is designed according to the needs and desires of a sample of the objective participants, to increase the adherence to the self-applied intervention, considered one of the main weaknesses of online interventions.Methods: A Randomized Controlled Trial will be conducted from the 22nd of December of 2020 to the first of June 2021. The participants will be assigned to an intervention with elements of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, Mindfulness and Positive Psychology. The control group will be a wait-list condition, that will receive the intervention 1.5–2 months after the pre-measurement were taken. The Power Size Calculation conducted through G*Power indicated the need for a total of 42 participants, which will be divided by 21 participants in each group. The platform will be delivered through responsive design assuring with this that the intervention will adapt to the screen size of cellphones, tablets, and computers.Ethics and Dissemination: The study counts with the approval of the Research Ethics Committee of the Autonomous University of Ciudad Juárez, México, and it is registered in Clinical Trials. The article is sent and registered in clinical trials before the recruitment started. The results will be reported in future conferences, scientific publications, and media. (shrink)

The Greek word mētis (μῆτις) traditionally refers to a particular form of wily intelligence associated with the arts of deception (dolos) and the knowledge of tricks (kerdē), subterfuges, and traps. Mētis evokes innovative and ground-breaking solutions, based on the capability to understand, anticipate, and possibly violate the others’ expectations. Most importantly, mētis presupposes practical wisdom, or prudence (phrόnesis), a dispositional quality that underpins all the virtues that deserve to be cultivated by sportspersons and that is pivotal to perfect sportspersons’ moral (...) character. Not only is prudence required to apply mētis profitably for winning a game, but it is also indispensable to perform consistently with the game’s norms—cognizant of sport values. This analysis of mētis is key to illuminate the embodied dimension of tactical and moral reasoning in contemporary sport practice. In this paper, we first argue that the strategic effectiveness of mētis proves that not only sensorimotor control but also higher forms of intelligence, like strategic reasoning, are embodied and inform skilful performance; second, we argue that relying on mētis is necessary not only to interpret the rules of the game in one’s own favor but also to respect the shared values that these rules uphold in the sport practice. (shrink)

Resumen: Este artículo tiene como foco de estudio la fonología segmental del mapudungun, en general, y el estatus de los fonos interdentales /en el chedungun hablado en Alto Biobío, en particular. Se elicitó una lista léxica adaptada de Croese, 30 colaboradores adultos, bilingües de chedungun y español, pertenecientes a 10 localidades pehuenches de esta comuna. Mediante evidencia cuantitativa, visual, palatográfica y de contraste en ambiente análogo, se concluye que dichos fonos tienen estatus fonémico en la zona señalada.: This article focuses (...) on the Mapudungún segmental phonology in general, and the status of the interdental phones / from the Chedungun spoken in Alto Biobío in particular. An adapted lexicon list by Croese was elicited from 30 adult bilingual assistants, belonging to 10 towns of this community. Through the quantitative, visual, palatographic and analog environment contrast we concluded that those phones have phonemic status in the mentioned area. (shrink)

Resumen Este artículo se ocupa del estatus fonético-fonológico de las consonantes interdentales, en el Mapudungun hablado en el sector costa de isla Huapi, IX Región de La Araucanía. Después del análisis de pares mínimos, cuantificación de los segmentos interdentales versus alveolares, y la consciencia fonológica de los hablantes encuestados, se pudo concluir la vigencia de estos segmentos en tanto fonos y en tanto fonemas. Es decir, en esta zona son fonemas.This article deals with the phonetic-phonological status of the interdental consonants (...) ],, in the Mapudungun spoken in the Coastal area of the Huapi Island, IX Region of Araucania. After analyzing minimal pairs, quantification of interdental segments versus alveolar, and the phonological awareness of the assessed speakers, the validity of these segments could be concluded both as phones and as phonemes. That is to say,, are phonemes in this area. (shrink)

La resiliencia como vivencia del Reino de Dios es el título del libro escrito por María Stella Rodríguez Arenas, publicado en el 2015 por la editorial de la Pontificia Universidad Javeriana en Colombia. De cierta manera novedosa, la autora vincula la lógica que subyace a las parábolas del Reino de Dios, a los relatos de sanación y a las actitudes de Jesús, con la lógica de los procesos resilientes, presentando a Jesús como tutor de resiliencia.

La filosofía cartesiana tuvo sus orígenes en el espíritu de la época del siglo XVII y en el entorno y contexto del Collège La Flèche, durante la escolaridad de René Descartes en las aulas de mencionado recinto. Dirigida por los sacerdotes de la Compañía de Jesús, esta institución impartía educación a la luz de la Ratio Studiorum. El pensador francés abandona las enseñanzas del claustro al desencantarse del sistema y del contenido de los conocimientos transmitidos por la mayoría de (...) sus maestros y se da a la tarea de buscar un método que le brindara los elementos suficientes para construir un sistema de pensamiento, el cual asimismo respondiera a las nociones e ideas que pretendía construir. El padre Denis Mesland y Descartes entablan una relación intelectual-epistolar y debaten las ideas filosóficas propuestas por el pensador. Mesland se ve obligado a viajar al Nuevo Continente a cumplir nuevas misiones impuestas por sus superiores. Este artículo tiene como finalidad ofrecer algunas luces que permitan dar respuesta, en alguna medida, a la pregunta: ¿Mesland, en realidad, enseñó filosofía cartesiana en el Colegio Máximo jesuita de la provincia de Santafé en el siglo XVII? (shrink)

The aim of this article is to offer a non-trivial reflection about the violence embedded in self-sacrifice. Firstly, we will suggest a definition of violence which does not make self-sacrifice necessarily violent, but rather aims at being consistent with the common sense conception of sacrifice as actually violent. Framing this initial claim within the vectorial conception of sacrifice offered by Derrida, we will individuate in the violence against intellect the core of the violent dimension of self-sacrifice, insofar as the author (...) of the sacrifice does not limitedly commit part of her understanding in the sacrificial practice, but all of it, since she is both the agent and the patient of sacrifice. At this point, we will have gathered enough material to spell out two fundamental violent aspects of self-sacrifice. The first concerns the exemplar of self-sacrifice in Western tradition, that is, Jesus Christ’s. The self-sacrifice committed by God’s own lógos is the epitome of sacrifice as sacrificium intellectus, therefore the highest gradient of intellectual violence. At the same time, this is crucial as it further corroborates the interpretation of Jesus’ sacrifice as the last sacrifice: no mimetic attempt to reenact His sacrifice can hold the comparison under the fundamental aspect of intellectual violence. The second “mirror” to reflect about the violence of self-sacrifice will concern the sacrifice enacted by superheroes, namely Batman, and the extent to which the sacrifice of intellect is at play when kenotic self-sacrifice and scapegoating processes become hard to tell one from the other. (shrink)

En los relatos de María, la madre de Jesús, encontramos un modelo de la realidad personal humana en el dinamismo de su realización como un continuo estar-dando-de-sí que muestra su desbordamiento como realidad educanda, realidad abierta. En otros relatos se muestra a mujeres como testigos del encuentro con Jesús después de su muerte, un testimonio que es recibido por el grupo de Jesús y corroborado por los varones de la comunidad para hacerlo llegar más allá de sus (...) fronteras. En el testimonio recibido y la acción compartida se muestran los cimientos de una sociedad que se construye en igualdad. (shrink)

Resumen: Este escrito es un ensayo que busca tensionar el lugar de las imágenes en la experiencia religiosa, proponiendo que toda mirada religiosa es una mirada háptica, por tanto, una visualidad impura que involucra la corporalidad, el tacto y la cercanía de modo des-jerarquizado. La propuesta de este ensayo se basa en las metodologías visuales críticas, y se despliega a partir de una constelación de imágenes que muestran diversos lugares del cuerpo en un sentido religioso, comprometiendo algunos de sus elementos, (...) tales como el alma, la boca y el corazón. Se examinan imágenes en su relación con otras imágenes, objetos y oraciones, organizadas en series temáticas en función de su foco corporal. Las imágenes revisadas comienzan con una serie de la muerte de Santa Rosa de Lima, se concentran luego en la herida corporal en algunas iconografías de santos relativos al sagrado corazón de Jesús y termina en un conjunto de imágenes donde los corazones se independizan del cuerpo.: This essay aims to add further tension to the role of images in relation to religious experience, affirming that every sacred gaze is a haptic gaze, which is to say, a particular way of engaging with images through corporeality, proximity and touching in a non hierarchical way. The proposals exposed here are based on critical visual methodologies and it unfolds from a constellation of images emphasizing certain body parts in a religious sense, highlighting some of their elements, such as the soul, the mouth and the heart. These images are put in relation to other images, objects and prayers, and are organised in thematic series following their function on the corporal focus. The selected images comprise a series of Santa Rosa de Lima’s deathbed, then the attention goes to the exposed wounds of some saints devoted to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, and it ends in a group of iconographies where hearts are depicted independently of the body. (shrink)

Esta entrevista se realizó a la comunicadora española Marta Ramos Matas. En ella, expone las experiencias gratificantes que ha tenido al desempeñarse a nivel profesional, ya sea a través de la radio o el periódico a nivel. Para conseguir ese resultado, ella revela que le sirvió mucho tener como referentes a Àngels Barceló, Iker Jiménez, Carmen Porter y Alberto Matas. Por otro lado, ejercer esta función en su país es para ella ha generado percibir un alto nivel de competitividad, (...) ya que hay un gran número de personas que recurre a las mismas estrategias de difundir información, y que incluso no hacen un buen trabajo, debidoa que optan por denigrar la labor periodística al utilizar las fakenews. Esa sería una forma de transgredir los límites de la libertad de expresión, pues al no haber filtros en las redes sociales los usuarios comparten aquello que puede provenir de una fuente inverosímil. (shrink)

Theoretical and manipulative abduction conjectures and manipulations : the extra-theoretical dimension of scientific discovery. -- Non-explanatory and instrumental abduction : plausibility, implausibility, ignorance preservation. -- Semiotic brains and artificial minds : how brains make up material cognitive systems. -- Neuromultimodal abduction : pre-wired brains, embidiment, neurospaces. -- Animal abduction : from mindless organisms to srtifactual mediators. -- Abduction, affordances, and cognitive niches : sharing representations and creating chances through cognitive niche construction. -- Abduction in human and logical agents : hasty (...) generalizers, hybrid abducers, fallacies. -- Morphodynamical abduction : causation of hypotheses by attractors dynamics. (shrink)

¿Estuvo la cultura de autoría impresa fuera del alcance de las mujeres antes de 1887 en Costa Rica? El propósito principal de este artículo es ofrecer una primera respuesta a dicha pregunta con base en una revisión preliminar de periódicos y revistas que permiten considerar el problema planteado desde una perspectiva más amplia.En breve, el argumento central que se va a desarrollar es que la construcción de esa autoría pasó por tres etapas: en la primera, durante las décadas de 1840 (...) y 1850, tal proceso se basó en la redacción de anuncios comerciales; en la segunda, centrada en los decenios de 1860 y 1870, predominaron los discursos de alumnas y maestras relacionados con actividades de enseñanza; y en la tercera, ubicada a partir de 1885, se dieron dos tendencias paralelas. Por un lado, algunas docentes comenzaron a dar a conocer sus producciones literarias; y por el otro, el Estado, en vísperas de la reforma educativa de 1886, implementó una política para que las educadoras oraran informes de sus actividades escolares y los enviaran a una revista especializada para ser publicados. (shrink)

Este artículo se centra en un aspecto comparativamente poco estudiado de la literatura sobre comunicación política en México relativo al análisis de los cambios significativos en la organización, las tácticas y las estrategias de campaña del Partido Revolucionario Institucional en elecciones presidenciales que han ocurrido durante las últimas dos décadas, y explora sus causas. El estudio muestra que la profesionalización e hibridación de las campañas del PRI no sólo dependió de cambios estructurales a gran escala en el sistema político y (...) en el sistema de medios de comunicación durante los noventas, sino también de los recursos y las características organizativas del partido. (shrink)

¿Estuvo la cultura de autoría impresa fuera del alcance de las mujeres antes de 1887 en Costa Rica? El propósito principal de este artículo es ofrecer una primera respuesta a dicha pregunta con base en una revisión preliminar de periódicos y revistas quepermiten considerar el problema planteado desde una perspectiva más amplia. En breve, el argumento central que se va a desarrollar es que la construcción de esa autoría pasó por tres etapas: en la primera, durante las décadas de 1840 (...) y 1850, tal proceso se basó en la redacción de anuncios comerciales; en la segunda, centradaen los decenios de 1860 y 1870, predominaron los discursos de alumnas y maestras relacionados con actividades de enseñanza; y en la tercera, ubicada a partir de 1885, se dieron dos tendencias paralelas. Por un lado, algunas docentes comenzaron a dar a conocer sus producciones literarias; y por el otro, el Estado, en vísperas de la reforma educativa de 1886, implementó una política para que las educadoras elaboraran informes de sus actividades escolares y los enviaran a una revista especializada para ser publicados. (shrink)

El desarrollo de la argumentación en el proceso de alfabetización académica cobra especial importancia debido a que el conocimiento académico es esencialmente argumentativo. Por esto, el objetivo de esta investigación es, por un lado, relevar, a partir del discurso de los docentes en un programa de Biología e Historia, las representaciones sociales acerca de la enseñanza-aprendizaje de la argumentación y, por otro, generar un modelo explicativo de este fenómeno. La recolección de datos se realizó por medio de entrevistas a docentes (...) de ambas disciplinas y el análisis de ellos, mediante la técnica de análisis de contenido, la que busca formular inferencias reproducibles y válidas que puedan aplicarse a un contexto determinado. The development of argumentation in the process of academic literacy is particularly important because scientific knowledge is essentially argumentative. For this reason, the purpose of this research is to elicit social representations about teaching and learning of argumentation from the discourse of teachers in a program of Biology and History, as well as to generate an explanatory model for this phenomenon. The data collection instrument used was an interview to teachers in both disciplines, and the data was analyzed using content analysis, a technique that seeks to develop replicable and valid inference that can be applied to a given context. (shrink)

Lorenzo Valla (1407–1457) ranks among the greatest scholars and thinkers of the Renaissance. He secured lasting fame for his brilliant critical skills, most famously in his exposure of the “Donation of Constantine,” the forged document upon which the papacy based claims to political power. Lesser known in the English-speaking world is Valla's work in the philosophy of language—the basis of his reputation as the greatest philosopher of the humanist movement. Dialectical Disputations, translated here for the first time into any (...) modern language, is his principal contribution to the philosophy of language and logic. With this savage attack on the scholastic tradition of Aristotelian logic, Valla aimed to supersede it with a new logic based on the actual historical usage of classical Latin and on a commonsense approach to semantics and argument. Valla provides a logic that could be used by lawyers, preachers, statesmen, and others who needed to succeed in public debate—one that was stylistically correct and rhetorically elegant, and thus could dispense with the technical language of the scholastics, a “tribe of Peripatetics, perverters of natural meanings.” Valla's reformed dialectic became a milestone in the development of humanist logic and contains startling anticipations of modern theories of semantics and language. Volume 1 contains Book I, in which Valla refutes Aristotle's logical works on the categories, transcendentals, and predicables, with excursions into natural and moral philosophy and theology. (shrink)

In recent years, a new dispute has risen to prominence: the dispute between realists and anti-realists about causal powers. Albeit sometimes overlooked, the meta-ontological features of this “question of realism for powers” are quite peculiar. For friends and foes of causal powers have characterized their contrasting views in a variety of different ways; as existence claims, as semantic or truth-making claims, as fundamentality claims, as claims about the nature of certain properties. Not only does this multiplicity of interpretations make it (...) unclear what the genuine bone of contention is, if there is one; some of them appear to be mutually exclusive. Some light can be shed on this apparent yet widespread confusion by distinguishing three degrees of ontological involvement in dispositional truths; viz., three ways, of increasing robustness, to read ontological commitments from dispositional truths. Relatedly, by exploring the literature, and focusing on some selected examples of power realism and anti-realism, we can observe that power realists vastly disagree over the intrinsic nature ad make-up of dispositional properties. Such examples furthermore invite the thought that the question of realism for powers is best understood not as the debate around the existence of properties with a distinctive identity, but rather as a debate about metaphysical hierarchy. Finally, some anti-realists positions are indistinguishable from realist ones, using merely intensional resources: power realism is best appreciated by going hyperintensional. (shrink)

This paper attempts a reconstruction of reason’s contribution to empirical truth in connection with Kant’s definition of truth as the agreement of cognition with its object. I argue that Kant’s treatment of truth in the Transcendental Analytic gets completed in the Appendix to the Transcendental Dialectic with an often neglected but compelling argument (what I shall call the Variety Argument). This argument postulates such a variety in the appearances as to undermine any attempt at formulating empirical truths. Crucially, I argue (...) that this variety does not depict an extreme-case scenario, but our own epistemic situation without reason. Reason completes Kant’s theory of truth by allowing the understanding (i.) to form empirical concepts and (ii.) approximate to empirical truth. (shrink)

We may succeed in the fulfillment of our desires but still fail to properly own our practical life, perhaps because we acted as addicts, driven by desires that are alien to our will, or as “wantons,” satisfying the desires that we simply happen to have (Frankfurt, 1988). May we equally fail to own the outcomes of our epistemic life? If so, how may we attain epistemic ownership over it? This paper explores the structural parallelism between practical and epistemic rationality, building (...) on Williamson’s (2002) suggestion that we should commence with successful performances as the foundation for both domains, be it action or knowledge. By highlighting the limitations of higher-order regulative approaches in epistemology, exemplified by Sosa (2007, 2011, 2015, 2021), the paper introduces a form of teleological epistemic constitutivism inspired by Velleman (2000, 2009). The proposal is that epistemic ownership is not attained in the mere pursuit of truth or knowledge, but requires furthermore a struggle to understand what we know. (shrink)

Philosophers have debated at length the epistemological status of scientific thought experiments. I contend that the literature on this topic still lacks a common conceptual framework, a lacuna that produces radical disagreement among the participants in this debate. To remedy this problem, I suggest focusing on the distinction between the internal and the external validity of an experiment, which is also crucial for thought experiments. I then develop an account of both kinds of validity in the context of thought experiments. (...) I show that we can naturally conceptualise internal validity in terms of games of make-believe. Then, I argue that external validity is best defined as accurate representation of a target system. Finally, I turn back to the current debate on thought experiments and show that my diarchic account provides a general framework that can be shared by the competing philosophical views, as well as a fruitful guide for their reconciliation. (shrink)

We present an elementary system of axioms for the geometry of Minkowski spacetime. It strikes a balance between a simple and streamlined set of axioms and the attempt to give a direct formalization in first-order logic of the standard account of Minkowski spacetime in [Maudlin 2012] and [Malament, unpublished]. It is intended for future use in the formalization of physical theories in Minkowski spacetime. The choice of primitives is in the spirit of [Tarski 1959]: a predicate of betwenness and a (...) four place predicate to compare the square of the relativistic intervals. Minkowski spacetime is described as a four dimensional ‘vector space’ that can be decomposed everywhere into a spacelike hyperplane - which obeys the Euclidean axioms in [Tarski and Givant, 1999] - and an orthogonal timelike line. The length of other ‘vectors’ are calculated according to Pythagora’s theorem. We conclude with a Representation Theorem relating models of our system that satisfy second order continuity to the mathematical structure called ‘Minkowski spacetime’ in physics textbooks. (shrink)

In this paper, we embark on the complicated discussion about the nature of vice in Virtue Ethics through a twofold approach: first, by taking seriously the claim that virtues (and certain flavours of vices) are genuinely dispositional features possessed by agents, and secondly, by employing a pluralistic attitude borrowed from Battaly’s pluralism (2008). Through these lenses, we identify three varieties of viciousness: incontinence, indifference, and malevolence. The upshot is that the notion of vice is not as categorically homogeneous as that (...) of virtue: some states of viciousness consist in interference of present virtuous dispositions, or mimicking of absent vicious ones, whereas others can be considered genuine dispositions themselves. Furthermore, this set-up can provide an interesting, albeit highly idealized story as to how, through the interference in one’s environment, one gets acquainted with vice in various degrees. Finally, this approach can be illuminating vis-à-vis Virtue Ethics in general; e.g. we can employ it to discuss more productively Johnston’s (2003) objection to Hursthouse’s (1999) account of moral conduct. Finally, this approach can be illuminating vis-a-vis Virtue Ethics in general; e.g. we can employ it to discuss more productively Johnston’s (2003) objection to Hursthouse’s (1999) account of moral conduct. (shrink)

This article aims to justify the positive role in the empirical investigation of nature that Kant attributes to the idea of God in the Critique of Pure Reason. In particular, I propose to read the Transcendental Ideal section and the Appendix to the Transcendental Dialectic together to see whether they can reciprocally illuminate each other. I argue that it is only by looking at the transcendental deduction of the ideas of reason and the resulting analogical conception of God that a (...) fully legitimate positive use of the idea of God can be vindicated. (shrink)

Discussions about dispositional and categorical properties have become commonplace in metaphysics. Unfortunately, dispositionality and categoricity are disputed notions: usual characterizations are piecemeal and not widely applicable, thus threatening to make agreements and disagreements on the matter merely verbal—and also making it arduous to map a logical space of positions about dispositional and categorical properties in which all parties can comfortably fit. This paper offers a prescription for this important difficulty, or at least an inkling thereof. This will be achieved by (...) comparing pairs of positions and exploring their background metaphysics to discover where alleged agreements and disagreements concerning dispositionality and categoricity really lie; more specifically, the Pure Powers view and the Powerful Qualities view will be under scrutiny. Over this background, the prescription functions by isolating a successful identity-based characterization of categoricity, while abandoning the correspondent identity-based characterization of dispositionality. On the contrary, according to this prescription a property is dispositional if and only if it is solely in virtue of possessing that property that its bearer is assigned a certain dispositional profile. A crucial consequence of this prescription is that, while supporters of the Pure Powers view often characterize their position as an essentialist one, the dispositionality of properties needn’t always be a matter of essence. (shrink)