The example of the bees, as they appear in Plato’s Phaedo, taken up again in Aristotle’s Politics and in Hobbes’ commentary contained in Leviathan, shows the potential of the phenomenological reading of examples as a method of understanding the basis on which philosophical thought is determined. Sign and communication are peculiar to gregarious and political animal life. In seeking to embody the Aristotelian concept of lógos in the context of a living community, as the basis for interaction and co-existence, we (...) must be sure that our interpretation does not reduce it to what, according to Aristotle, is simply animal behaviour. The Platonic sequence “ass, wolf, bee, god” situates the model of political life between a life in injustice and a life in wisdom. The Aristotelian variationdetermines the lógos on what is just and what is unjust as a natural increment in lucidity, compared with the mere exercising of gregariousness and sociability. Hobbes’ inversion of the Aristotelian example considers a natural reality in the light of the distortions that complicate and make it impossible. Hobbes thus shifts human politics towards artificiality that renders it viable. In each case, the example holds up a different mirror to the same reality. (shrink)

My purpose in this essay is to clarify and evaluate Arthur Schopenhauer's grounds for the view that happiness is impossible. I shall distinguish two of his arguments for that view and argue that both of them are unsound. Both arguments involve premises grounded on a problematic view, namely, that desires have no objects. What makes this view problematic is that, in each of the two arguments, it conflicts with Schopenhauer's grounds for other premises in the argument. I shall then propose (...) a way of fixing both arguments. The solution involves substituting the view that desires have no objects with the view that we have a desire to have desires. The latter view, I shall argue, can do the grounding work that the former does in Schopenhauer's arguments but, unlike it, the view that we desire to desire is consistent with Schopenhauer's grounds for the rest of premises in those arguments. (shrink)

In this paper, I propose an account of self-knowledge for desires. According to this account, we form beliefs about our own desires on the basis of our grounds for those desires. First, I distinguish several types of desires and their corresponding grounds. Next, I make the case that we usually believe that we have a certain desire on the basis of our grounds for it. Then, I argue that a belief formed thus is epistemically privileged. Finally, I compare this account (...) to two other similar accounts of self-knowledge. (shrink)

Although most consumers are positive about socially responsible companies, in order to benefit from CSR efforts, effective and clear CSR communication is important. However, due to the constantly rising profusion of eco-labels, based on either own claims from the organization or claims made by an external third party, consumers may encounter difficulties in identifying truly responsible firms, which could result in less effective CSR initiatives, even for those responsible firms. Therefore, building on attribution theory, this study seeks to identify how (...) uncertified internal CSR claims and external third-party CSR labels should be used in order to deter greenwashing and increase positive consumer evaluations. Within a 3 × 2 design, respondents are exposed to different coffee product packages measuring their attitude toward the brand, corporate credibility, purchase intention, and scent perception, as well as perceived attributional CSR motives. Overall, findings indicate that especially an external CSR label affects consumer responses toward the firm. Moreover, perceived CSR motives serve as a mediator between an external CSR label and corporate credibility and brand attitude, respectively. These findings warrant further consideration of introducing an external multilevel rating systems by governmental law. (shrink)

La evidencia empírica disponible señala de manera unánime que las nuevas políticas de tráfico y seguridad vial aplicadas en España desde 2004, y en particular la introducción del carné por puntos y la reforma del Código Penal, han tenido una fuerte incidencia positiva en la reducción de la siniestralidad. De dichos resultados se deriva que las nuevas políticas han tenido también un efecto positivo sobre la conducta de los conductores, de modo que ha sido esa mejora en la conducta al (...) volante la que finalmente se ha traducido en una reducción de la siniestralidad. No obstante, hasta el momento, los investigadores han descuidado el análisis directo de los datos sobre cumplimiento. En el presente trabajo se analizan todos los datos disponibles que ofrecen información sobre el cumplimiento de la normativa de tráfico y seguridad vial. (shrink)

All paradoxes of self-reference seem to share some structural features. Russell in 1908 and especially Priest nowadays have advanced structural descriptions that successfully identify necessary conditions for having a paradox of this kind. I examine in this paper Priest’s description of these paradoxes, the Inclosure Scheme (IS), and consider in what sense it may help us understand and solve the problems they pose. However, I also consider the limitations of this kind of structural descriptions and give arguments against Priest’s use (...) of IS in favour of dialetheism. IS fails to identify sufficient conditions for having a paradox of self-reference. That means that, even if we identified a problem common to any reasoning satisfying IS, that problem would not explain why some of those reasonings are paradoxical and some others are not. Therefore IS cannot justify by itself the claim that some particular theory offers the best solution to the paradoxes of self-reference. We still need to consider aspects concerning the content and context of occurrence of every paradox. (shrink)

Are those judgments that we make on the basis of our memories immune to error through misidentification? In this paper, I discuss a phenomenon which seems to suggest that they are not; the phenomenon of observer memory. I argue that observer memories fail to show that memory judgments are not IEM. However, the discussion of observer memories will reveal an interesting fact about the perspectivity of memory; a fact that puts us on the right path towards explaining why memory judgments (...) are indeed IEM. The main tenet in the account of IEM to be proposed is that this aspect of memory is grounded, on the one hand, on the intentionality of perception and, on the other hand, on the relation between the intentionality of perception and that of memory. (shrink)

Base-of-the-pyramid business models aim to achieve profitability and poverty reduction by including poor people into corporate value chains. This goal duality creates tensions. Actors’ responses to these tensions are influenced by their cognitive frames of the phenomena building the tension. Applying a cognitive perspective, I investigate how corporate actors with different frames of poverty respond proactively or defensively to the poverty–profitability tension by adapting business model elements. I find that proactive and defensive responses differ for actors holding different cognitive frames (...) of poverty. The responses have consequences for the poverty impact potential of BOP business models. (shrink)

The purpose of this essay is to account for privileged access or, more precisely, the special kind of epistemic right that we have to some beliefs about our own mental states. My account will have the following two main virtues. First of all, it will only appeal to those conceptual elements that, arguably, we already use in order to account for perceptual knowledge. Secondly, it will constitute a naturalizing account of privileged access in that it does not posit any mysterious (...) faculty of introspection or "inner perception" mechanism. (shrink)

Our memories elicit, in us, both beliefs about what the external world was like in the past, and beliefs about what our own past experience of it was like in the past. What explains the power of memories to do that? I tackle this question by offering an account of the content of our memories. According to this account, our memories are ‘token-reflexives’, in that they represent their own causal origin. My main contention will be that our memories are able (...) to provide us with evidence for the two types of beliefs due to the self-referential nature of their content. First, I will put forward a series of thought-experiments intended to raise several intuitions about the veridicality of memories. Next, I will introduce the view that memories are token-reflexives, and I will motivate it by pointing out that the view accommodates the relevant intuitions. And, then, I will return to the two types of beliefs prompted by our memories, and argue that conceiving memories as token-reflexives allows us to explain why memory has the power to elicit the two types of beliefs in us. (shrink)

Name der Zeitschrift: Rhizomata Jahrgang: 5 Heft: 2 Seiten: 148-176.

In this introduction, I consider different problems posed by the use of singular terms in fiction (section 1), paying especial attention to proper names and, in particular, to names of real people, places, etc. As we will see (section 2), descriptivist and Millian theories of reference face different kinds of problems in explaining the use of fictional names in fiction-related contexts. Moreover, the task of advancing a uniform account of names in these contexts—an account which deals not only with fictional (...) names but also with “real” names—will prove to be very hard no matter whether we favour realist or antirealist intuitions about fictional discourse (section 3). Section 4 offers an overview of the content of this volume, with emphasis on the discussion between Manuel García-Carpintero and Stacie Friend about the meaning of “real” names in fiction-related contexts, the main topic of the Third Blasco Disputatio. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to defend the view that judgments based on episodic memory are immune to error through misidentification. I will put forward a proposal about the contents of episodic memories according to which a memory represents a perception of a past event. I will also offer a proposal about the contents of perceptual experiences according to which a perceptual experience represents some relations that its subject bears to events in the external world. The combination of the (...) two views will yield the outcome that the subject is always an intentional object of her own memories: In episodic memory, one remembers being the subject whose extrinsic properties were experienced in some past perception. For that reason, one cannot misidentify oneself in memory unless one is having an inaccurate memory. Thus, the source of immunity to error through misidentification in memory lies in the nature of mnemonic content. (shrink)

The purpose of this essay is to clarify the notion of mnemonic content. Memories have content. However, it is not clear whether memories are about past events in the world, past states of our own minds, or some combination of those two elements. I suggest that any proposal about mnemonic content should help us understand why events are presented to us in memory as being in the past. I discuss three proposals about mnemonic content and, eventually, I put forward a (...) positive view. According to this view, when a subject seems to remember a certain event, that event is presented to her as making true a perceptual experience that caused the very memory experience that she is having. (shrink)

In procedural-law scholarship as well as in the theoretical analysis of the notion of proof as a result of the joint assessment of all items of evidence introduced in a trial, reference is frequently made to notions such as the conviction, belief, or certainty of a judge or a jury member about what happened. All these notions underscore the mental states involved in the process of determining the facts on the part of a judge or a jury. In this analysis, (...) I look at the links between beliefs and the justification in the findings of fact provided by the judge or jury in her or its verdict. (shrink)

Recent research on autonoetic consciousness indicates that the ability to remember the past and the ability to project oneself into the future are closely related. The purpose of the present study was to confirm this proposition by examining whether the relationship observed between personality and episodic memory could be extended to episodic future thinking and, more generally, to investigate the influence of personality traits on self-information processing in the past and in the future. Results show that Neuroticism and Harm Avoidance (...) predict more negative past memories and future projections. Other personality dimensions exhibit a more limited influence on mental time travel . Therefore, our study provide an additional evidence to the idea that MTT into the past and into the future rely on a common set of processes by which past experiences are used to envision the future. (shrink)

Sometimes, one can imagine, in virtue of having some experience, that one is someone else having some property. This is puzzling if imagination is a guide to possibility, since it seems impossible for one to be someone else. In this paper, I offer a way of dissolving the puzzle. When one claims that, by having some experience, one imagines that one is someone else having some property, what one imagines, I suggest, is that if the other person had the property (...) in question, then having it would be, for them, like having the relevant experience is for one. I discuss two alternative views about the content of these episodes of imagination, and argue that both of them are too weak and too strong. The proposed view avoids the two difficulties while preserving some intuitions about the phenomenology and the epistemology of imagination which are captured by the alternative views. (shrink)

The purpose of this essay is to determine how we should construe the content of memories. First, I distinguish two features of memory that a construal of mnemic content should respect. These are the ‘attribution of pastness’ feature (a subject is inclined to believe of those events that she remembers that they happened in the past) and the ‘attribution of existence’ feature (a subject is inclined to believe that she existed at the time that those events that she remembers took (...) place). Next, I distinguish two kinds of theories of memory, which I call ‘perceptual’ and ‘self-based’ theories. I argue that those theories that belong to the first kind but not the second one have trouble accommodating the attribution of existence. And theories that belong to the second kind but not the first one leave the attribution of pastness unexplained. I then discuss two different theories that are both perceptual and self-based, which I eventually reject. Finally, I propose a perceptual, self-based theory that can account for both the attribution of pastness and the attribution of past existence. (shrink)