Editor's suggested further reading in BioEssays: Evolution in response to climate change: In pursuit of the missing evidence AbstractHow will fish that evolved at constant sub‐zero temperatures cope with global warming? Notothenioids as a case study Abstract.

The purpose of this essay is to determine how we should construe the content of memories or, in other words, to determine what the intentional objects of memory are.1 The issue that will concern us is, then, analogous to the traditional philosophical question of whether perception directly puts us in cognitive contact with entities in the world or with entities in our own minds. As we shall see, there are some interesting aspects of the phenomenology and the epistemology of memory, (...) and I shall aim at a specification of the content of memories that is in accordance with those aspects of them. (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)

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)

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)

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)

The purpose of this chapter is to determine what is to remember something, as opposed to imagining it, perceiving it, or introspecting it. What does it take for a mental state to qualify as remembering, or having a memory of, something? The main issue to be addressed is therefore a metaphysical one. It is the issue of determining which features those mental states which qualify as memories typically enjoy, and those states which do not qualify as such typically lack. In (...) sections 2 and 3, I will discuss the two main existing conceptions of the conditions that a mental state must satisfy to count as an episode of remembering. The first of these approaches is backward-looking. It puts forward conditions that strictly concern the aetiology of the mental state. I will argue that the conditions offered by the backward-looking approach are both too strong and too weak: They rule out mental states which, intuitively, count as memories while including mental states which, intuitively, do not qualify as memories. The second approach is forward-looking. It puts forward conditions that only concern the use that the subject makes of the mental state while forming beliefs about their own life. I will argue that the conditions proposed by the forward-looking approach are both too weak and too strong as well. However, the discussion of the two approaches will allow us to extract some helpful lessons on the constraints that any proposal about the nature of remembering should respect. An alternative approach aimed at incorporating those lessons will be offered in section 4 by drawing on the literature on functionalism. In section 5, I will argue that this approach can, on the one hand, accommodate as memories those mental states which indicate that the backward-looking approach and the forward-looking approach are too strict while, on the other hand, excluding those mental states which suggest that the two alternative approaches are too permissive. Accordingly, I will conclude that construing memory along functionalist lines is a satisfactory approach to the nature of remembering. (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)

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)

Memories are mental states with a number of interesting features. One of those features seems to be their having an intentional object. After all, we commonly say that memories are about things, and that a subject represents the world in a certain way by virtue of remembering something. It is unclear, however, what sorts of entities constitute the intentional objects of memory. In particular, it is not clear whether those are mind-independent entities in the world or whether they are mental (...) entities of some kind. The purpose of this chapter is to map the different positions on this issue, and to highlight the virtues and difficulties for each of the options. In Section 2, I will specify the question of what the intentional objects of memory are by clarifying the relevant notions of memory and intentional object. In Section 3, I will motivate the significance of identifying the intentional objects of memory by exploring the relations between, on the one hand, the intentionality of memory and, on the other hand, the phenomenology and the epistemology of memory. In Section 4, I will consider two natural candidates for being the intentional objects of memory, namely, worldly entities and mental entities, and I will raise some concerns for each of the two candidates. A promising alternative will emerge, in Section 5, as preserving the virtues of the two original candidates while avoiding their difficulties. The alternative will concern a certain combination of worldly and mental entities; a combination that involves both causal and truth-making relations. I will conclude by sketching how the alternative candidate can shed some light on the phenomenological and epistemological issues raised in the third section. (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)

I offer an account of thought insertion based on a certain model of self-knowledge. I propose that subjects with thought insertion do not experience being committed to some of their own beliefs. A hypothesis about self-knowledge explains why. According to it, we form beliefs about our own beliefs on the basis of our evidence for them. First, I will argue that this hypothesis explains the fact that we feel committed to those beliefs which we are aware of. Then, I will (...) point to one feature of schizophrenia that suggests that subjects with thought insertion may not be able to know their own beliefs in that way. (shrink)

Currently, the concept of the cell as a society or an ecosystem of molecular elements is gaining increasing acceptance. The basic idea arose in the 19th century, from the surmise that there is not just a single unit underlying an individual’s appearance, but a plurality of entities with both collaborative and conflicting relationships. The following hypothesis is based around this model. The incompatible activities taking place between different original elements, which were subsumed into the first cell and could not be (...) eliminated, had to be controlled very closely. Similarly, a strong level of control had to be developed over many cellular elements after the cell changed its genome to DNA. We assume that at least some of those original RNA agents and other biomolecules which carry incompatibilities and risks, are retained within current cells, although they are now under strict control. A virus functions as a signal informing these repressed cellular RNAs and other elements of ancient origin how to restore suppressed degrees of molecular freedom, favoring pre-existing molecular affinities and activities, re-establishing ancient molecular webs of interactions, and giving fragments of ancient coded information the opportunity to be re-expressed. Collectively, these newly activated mechanisms lead to different possibilities for pathological cell states. All these processes are opposed by cell-control mechanisms. Thus, in this new scenario, the battle is considered intracellular rather than between the virus and the cell. And so the virus is treated as the signal that precipitates the cell’s change from a latent to an active pathological state. (shrink)

Episodic memory has a distinctive phenomenology. One way to capture what is distinctive about it is by using the notion of mental time travel: When we remember some fact episodically, we mentally travel to the moment at which we experienced it in the past. This way of distinguishing episodic memory from semantic memory calls for an explanation of what the experience of mental time travel is. In this paper, I suggest that a certain view about the content of memories can (...) shed some light on the experience of mental time travel. This is the view that, when a subject remembers some fact episodically, their memory represents itself as coming from a perception of that fact. I propose that the experience of mental time travel in memory is the experience of representing one of the elements in this complex content, namely, the past perceptual experience of the remembered fact. In defence of this proposal, I offer two considerations. Firstly, the proposal is consistent with the idea that memories enjoy a temporal phenomenology (specifically, a feeling of pastness). Secondly, the proposal is consistent with the possibility that some of our other cognitive capacities might yield an experience of mental time travel which can be oriented towards the future. I argue that the received conception of mental time travel is in tension with those two ideas. (shrink)

Does memory only preserve epistemic justification over time, or can memory also generate it? I argue that memory can generate justification based on a certain conception of mnemonic content. According to it, our memories represent themselves as originating on past perceptions of objective facts. If this conception of mnemonic content is correct, what we may believe on the basis of memory always includes something that we were not in a position to believe before we utilised that capacity. For that reason, (...) memory can produce justification for belief through the process of remembering. This is why a subject may be justified in believing a proposition on the basis of memory even if, in the past, she was not justified in believing it through any other source. The resulting picture of memory is a picture wherein the epistemically generative role of memory turns out to be grounded on its intentionally generative role. (shrink)

Ante los indicadores de insostenibilidad ambiental y social, se busca un enfoque educativo eficaz que contribuya a revertirla. A tal efecto, se propone una educación moral, que no se centre tanto en contenidos como en facilitar que cada estudiante aprenda a buscarlos, hacerlos propios y los traduzca en compromisos de conducta personal. La propuesta educativa se presenta ejemplificada en una asignatura concreta, que sirve de hilo expositivo y ejemplo de aplicación. Tras una breve introducción sobre los indicadores de insostenibilidad, se (...) presenta la planificación, metodología y objetivo de la asignatura. A continuación, se reflexiona sobre dos de los obstáculos a los que se enfrenta la educación moral en la actualidad: la fragmentación del saber y la dificultad para que los aprendizajes teóricos se traduzcan en conductas. Por último, se exploran dos oportunidades para la educación moral que pueden facilitar ese vínculo: la búsqueda de las causas profundas de problemas ambientales y sociales actuales, y el empleo de la belleza. (shrink)

Se ofrece una presentación contextualizada de cuatro autores aparecidos en una reciente colección de filosofía rusa de la denominada "Edad de plata" con el fin de darla a conocer al lector español e incentivar su traducción a nuestro idioma.

Ce livre est une tentative de remémoration d'une situation politique précise, celle qui se déclencha à Madrid, le 15 mai 2011, situation qui demeure incompréhensible tant qu'on ne la relie pas à une séquence plus large, celle des révoltes et révolutions dans plusieurs pays arabes, suivies, de par le monde, par les différentes vagues à d'Occupy. Cet essai voudrait constituer un témoignage, attentif aux faits, de ce monde d'assemblées et d'occupations des places en référence à l'oeuvre d'Hannah Arendt. De cette (...) oeuvre, deux ordres de questions ont particulièrement retenu notre attention. D'abord, l'insistance sur la constitution de «conseils», formulation particulière de l'organisation politique... Ensuite, la constitution d'une «pensée plurielle», qui se développe de manière privilégiée, en tant que forme de pensée propre à cette organisation en «conseils» ou en «assemblées»... C'est ce qui nous est apparu comme l'inouï, le «trésor perdu» selon Arendt, retrouvé dans les mouvements sociaux récents, à commencer par ceux d'Espagne : la possibilité d'un exercice à découvert, en plein air et libre de la pensée. Ce qui peut être décrit comme une patience de l'action. (shrink)

El proyecto ilustrado ha definido la emancipación como el abandono de una minoría de edad, como el pasaje de una minoría a una mayoría de edad en los sujetos. Ahora bien, la historia efectiva de este abandono y este pasaje ha sido la de la estabilización progresiva en nuestras sociedades del gobierno de los mayores (sabios) sobre los menores (ignorantes). En este artículo, a partir de los trabajos de Jacques Rancière, tratamos de aislar la emancipación de la ilustración, e interrogamos, (...) a través del examen de una obra de Marguerite Duras que supone una figuración determinada del comunismo, algunas de las paradojas de una hipótesis de la emancipación que no dejaría de lado a las potencias de infancia. (shrink)

My purpose in this essay is to clarify the notion of explanation by computer simulation in artificial intelligence and cognitive science. My contention is that computer simulation may be understood as providing two different kinds of explanation, which makes the notion of explanation by computer simulation ambiguous. In order to show this, I shall draw a distinction between two possible ways of understanding the notion of simulation, depending on how one views the relation in which a computing system that performs (...) a cognitive task stands to the program that the system runs while performing that task. Next, I shall suggest that the kind of explanation that results from simulation is radically different in each case. In order to illustrate the difference, I will point out some prima facie methodological difficulties that need to be addressed in order to ensure that simulation plays a legitimate explanatory role in cognitive science, and I shall emphasize how those difficulties are very different depending on the notion of explanation involved. (shrink)

Algunas formulaciones de la filosofía política reciente han descuidado el carácter históricamente indexado de conceptos como libertad política, propiedad o soberanía, propiciando un uso anacrónico e impreciso de su significado. No obstante, su posición académica y social dominante informa el «sentido común» filosófico- político de nuestra época. Locke constituye un ejemplo de cómo la coyuntura interpretativa liberal, que se desplegó en el siglo XIX y se consolidó en el XX, ha oscurecido una parte de la complejidad y pluralidad de las (...) tradiciones intelectuales y normativas que heredó. La reconstrucción de la filosofía política lockeana a partir de su concepción fiduciaria de la libertad política contribuye a hacer de nuevo visible el significado de algunas concepciones fundamentales para la teorización normativa presente. (shrink)

The ontological abyss that separates real objects from sensual objects is one of the central principles of Object-Oriented Ontology (OOO), which has its most explicit and profuse modulation in Timothy Morton’s notion of rift. This article argues that, despite succeeding in explaining the radical difference that inhabits every object, Morton’s rift fails to explain the object’s unification, rendering the overall theory inconsistent. An alternative approach that accounts simultaneously for disjunction and conjunction between essences and appearances can be found in Eugenio (...) Trías’s philosophy of the limit, a term widely ignored in OOO despite its deeply non-relational conception of the reality of things. The article further argues that the reinterpretation of Trías’s twofold liminal approach in light of OOO successfully addresses the inconsistencies found in Morton’s rift, paving the way for a theory of limits within Harman’s ontological framework. (shrink)

Does memory only preserve epistemic justification over time, or can memory also generate it? I argue that memory can generate justification based on a certain conception of mnemonic content. According to it, our memories represent themselves as originating on past perceptions of objective facts. If this conception of mnemonic content is correct, what we may believe on the basis of memory always includes something that we were not in a position to believe before we utilised that capacity. For that reason, (...) memory can produce justification for belief through the process of remembering. This is why a subject may be justified in believing a proposition on the basis of memory even if, in the past, she was not justified in believing it through any other source. The resulting picture of memory is a picture wherein the epistemically generative role of memory turns out to be grounded on its intentionally generative role. (shrink)

The Transcendental Reading of the Tractatus argues that Wittgenstein endorses, under the notion of ‘metaphysical subject’, the existence of a willing subject as a transcendental condition of ethics and representation. Tejedor aims to reject this reading resorting to three criticisms. The notion of ‘willing subject’ does not appear explicitly in, nor can it be deduced from, the Tractatus, the metaphysical subject and the willing subject are not synonymous or analogous notions and, finally, Wittgenstein abandons the notion of ‘willing subject’ at (...) the end of the Notebooks. The aim of this article is twofold. Firstly, it analyzes the critique introduced by Tejedor and presents three problems that demonstrate that Tejedor’s critique cannot adequately reject the Transcendental Reading. Secondly, it sets forth an alternative reading of the Tractatus that overcomes the issues that stem from the Transcendental Reading. This alternative reading conceives the metaphysical subject as an ethical subject and a willing subject. Additionally, it advances an alternative account of the transcendental character of ethics that does not defend the existence of a transcendental subject understood as a condition of ethics and representation in the Tractatus. (shrink)

If I remember something, I tend to believe that I have perceived it. Similarly, if I remember something, I tend to believe that it happened in the past. My aim here is to propose a notion of mnemonic contentaccounts for these facts. Certain proposals build perceptual experiences into the content of memories. I argue that they Have trouble with the second belief. Other proposals build references to temporal locations into mnemonic content. I argue that they have trouble with the second (...) one. I propose a notion of mnemonic Content that can account for the rationality of both beliefs. (shrink)

This paper examines a novel notion of causality, namely, fuzzy-set-theoretic causality. Over the last decade, a number of conceptual models of causality, in the language of fuzzy-set theory, have appeared in the scientific literature and have been applied to empirical research. They have circulated widely from one scientific discipline to another, weaving a unifying thread through them. However, they have received no philosophical attention. In this paper, I will discuss the value and limitations of this type of model and will (...) read into its application several dimensions of philosophical significance. (shrink)

Pleasants argues in favour of the idea of basic moral certainties. Analogous to Wittgenstein’s basic empirical certainties, basic moral certainties are universal certainties that cannot be justified, asserted or meaningfully doubted. They are a fundamental condition of morality as such, thus allowing us to carry out other moral operations. Brice and Rummens have criticized Pleasants’ proposal, arguing that basic moral certainties are significantly disanalogous to Wittgenstein’s basic empirical certainties. Brice argues that Pleasants does not differentiate between a bottom-up and a (...) top-down approach to basic certainties nor does he acknowledge the difference that this distinction constitutes in the foundational role of a certainty. Meanwhile, Rummens claims that basic moral certainties are not universal. Conversely, they are moral hinges embedded in certain culturally and historically specific moral language-games. Pleasants has provided a response to these criticisms, while defending the universality and naturalism of basic moral certainties. In this article, I single out the problems in Pleasants’ response to the criticisms introduced by Brice and Rummens. I argue that Pleasants must present further arguments in order to demonstrate that basic moral certainties are analogous to basic empirical certainties. I also argue that the existence of basic moral certainties that coalesce with numerous exceptions and suspensions generates significant problems in Pleasants’ proposal. I advance two cases regarding euthanasia that meaningfully challenge and doubt Pleasants’ central basic moral certainty: the wrongness of killing innocent human beings. Additionally, both cases are employed to meaningfully doubt and challenge Pleasants’ basic moral certainty of the badness of death. (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)

We provide a detailed history of the concepts of atomic number and isotopy before the discovery of protons and neutrons that draws attention to the role of evolving interplays of multiple aims and criteria in chemical and physical research. Focusing on research by Frederick Soddy and Ernest Rutherford, we show that, in the context of differentiating disciplinary projects, the adoption of a complex and shifting concept of elemental identity and the ordering role of the periodic table led to a relatively (...) coherent notion of atomic number. Subsequent attention to valency, still neglected in the secondary literature, and to nuclear charge led to a decoupling of the concepts of elemental identity and weight and allowed for a coherent concept of isotopy. This concept received motivation from empirical investigations on the decomposition series of radioelements and their unstable chemical identity. A new model of chemical order was the result of an ongoing collaboration between chemical and physical research projects with evolving aims and standards. After key concepts were considered resolved and their territories were clarified, chemistry and physics resumed autonomous projects, yet remained bound by newly accepted explanatory relations. It is an episode of scientific collaboration and partial integration without simple, wholesale gestalt switches or chemical revolutions. (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)

I offer a model of self‐knowledge that provides a solution to Moore's paradox. First, I distinguish two versions of the paradox and I discuss two approaches to it, neither of which solves both versions of the paradox. Next, I propose a model of self‐knowledge according to which, when I have a certain belief, I form the higher‐order belief that I have it on the basis of the very evidence that grounds my first‐order belief. Then, I argue that the model in (...) question can account for both versions of Moore's paradox. Moore's paradox, I conclude, tells us something about our conceptions of rationality and self‐knowledge. For it teaches us that we take it to be constitutive of being rational that one can have privileged access to one's own mind and it reveals that having privileged access to one's own mind is a matter of forming first‐order beliefs and corresponding second‐order beliefs on the same basis. (shrink)